Bowes, Jacqueline
College of Education and Behavioral Sciences
Professor: Dr. Renata Nero
ABSTRACT:
College students today are faced with numerous responsibilities including, but not limited to the following: financing school and living expenses, challenging coursework, making good grades, and roles as both a student and a worker. These various demands have been shown to lead to either positive or negative forms of stress. Depending on the students’ motivation and time-management, the coping strategies of these students can either be constructive or destructive (Giancola, Grawitch, & Borchert, 2009). The goal of this study was to measure the difference between employed and non-employed students and their specific coping styles when it comes to the management of stress and work-school balance. This study specifically looked at the difference in coping strategies between students who work and those who only go to school. The gender, type of work, hours of work, college major, and GPA were also looked at in relationship to the students chosen coping strategy. This was a correlational, between-subjects survey. The predictor variable was the employment status of participants, which will be determined by the demographic section of the questionnaire. The criterion variable was the specific coping strategy of each participant, which will be based on his or her answers to the Basic Cope questionnaire. The convenience sample (N=100) consisted of students enrolled in undergraduate courses at Houston Baptist University. The findings from this study could help contribute to the foundation of psychological knowledge by helping gather data on specific coping strategies for not only college students, but also college students with jobs.
