Further education and training band learners'stress coping strategies

Abstract

Stress can have a significant effect on learners' long-term physical and mental well­ being. There were various strategies that learners use to cope with stress. Some of these strategies were adaptive and others were mat-adaptive. It was difficult to ascertain the types of stress-coping strategies used by learners in various schools in the Further Education and Training (FET) band. This was a multi-method research in which both quantitative and qualitative research strategies were used to study the stress­ coping strategies among FET band learners. The study used a stratified random sampling of 48 Grades 10, 11 and 12 learners whose ages were between 15 and 21 years from eight rural schools in Vhembe District of the Limpopo Province. The questionnaire and interview methods were used in data generation during the study. Quantitative data was processed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) to generate descriptive statistics. Qualitative data was processed through thematic and narrative methods. Academic related problems were the major stressor among the learners. The most frequent coping strategies used by the learners were both negative and positive coping strategies, adaptive and ma/adaptive in nature.