Published Paper Details:

Background: Anxiety is one of the most common psychological disorders in school-aged children and adolescents worldwide. Academic stress is mental distress with respect to some anticipated frustration associated with academic failure or even unawareness to the possibility of such failure. Gender differences are observed amongst adolescents as far as academic anxiety is concerned. Low SES relates to a higher burden in different areas of everyday life and an exposure to stressful life situations. Objective: To measure academic stress and academic anxiety among higher secondary students with gender, socio-economic status and place of residence. Materials and Method: A sample of 120 students (N=120) from urban and rural of different schools of Patna. 60 were male and 60 were female students. Purposive sampling method was used to select the sample. Measures: Academic Anxiety Scale for children (AASC) by Dr. A. K. Singh and Dr. A. Sen Gupta and Prof. D.N. Sriyastava and Stress scale (SS-LVNS) by Dr. Vijaya Lakshmi and Dr. Shruti Narain was administered. Result and Conclusion: There was significant difference between academic stress of male and female students. Significant difference found between lower SES and higher SES students on academic stress. There is no significant difference between urban and rural students on academic stress. Statistically significant difference between male and female students on academic anxiety. Insignificant difference found between lower SES and higher SES on academic anxiety. Urban and rural students were statistically significant on academic anxiety. No significant positive correlation found between stress and anxiety.