Causes of Hong Kong Students’ Stress and Coping Techniques

Causes of Hong Kong Students’ Stress and Coping Techniques

1. Introduction

As our society becomes more health-conscious, there has been an increased focus on the importance of exercise. It is undeniably true that Hong Kong is an exam- oriented city. (Cause of Stress on Students, 2012) We often hear that students in Hong Kong face loads of stress but not all of them could bear the stress. The ensuing stress problems, such as headaches and insomnia, might then compel the students to deal with it in an inappropriate way. Some of them might crack up and result in suffering from depression. And unfortunately, some of them choose to end their life and commit suicide. Therefore, we need to take an in-depth look into the causes of stress and the ways to reduce it.

1. Literature Review

In what researchers call the first report of its kind, a review of 213 studies about the stress of Hong Kong students says there is an extremely strong connection between family background, academic results, public examinations, parental pressure and stress level. (Gavankar, 1996) For a city like Hong Kong, there is no shortage of students’ stress problems; thus, several ways to alleviate stress are suggested, including listening to music, exercising, and changing one’s attitude. (Student Suicide Prevention, Practical tips and Strategies, 2005)

1. Causes of Hong Kong Students’ stress

1. Family Background

Students are from all walks of life. Some of them come from a rich family while others come from the lower class. The difference between the family’s backgrounds would cause the students stressed, both rich and poor students. (Spektor, 1998) The poor are ashamed of their background while the rich thinks they need to make an extra effort to let people really care about their academic result. It has been suggested that the family background has a long- reaching effect on the stress level of the students. Students who comes from a family of high achievers are stressed out because they think they would be a disgrace to the family if they do not perform well in school. They push themselves to participate in all kind of activities, to get awards in different competitions, to be the most shinning student in the school so they could please their family. Meanwhile, the more they struggle for it, the less they feel relaxed. Students from the lower class of the society believe that knowledge could turn a new leaf in their life. They think that if they provide a better growing environment to the child in the future comparing to the living standard they now have, the only way to achieve it is to acquire the most knowledge they could. But what they might not know is that they might be too harsh to themselves so they are completely weighed down.

1. Academic Performance

Some might say learning is more than scoring. But to most of the students, scoring is still the most important thing in school. (Hollens, 2010) Students with a lower mark in exam and test are always classified as ‘stupid’ and ‘useless’. And the majority of Hong Kong schools even establish elite class to separate those students with high marks and low marks. (Newman, 2008) Most of students from the normal class try extra hard to shake off their “stupid” label. While they try the best to shake the label off, another invisible thing stick on them in the meantime; pressure. Many schools claim that they do not have the intension to label the students, the reality was students feel a strong bias between them.(Hollens, 2010) They think that teachers sub-consciously expect students from normal class would do worse than those from elite class; thus, the teachers set the expectation lower. And the students from elite class also feel stressed because they ought to achieve a high mark so as to stay in the elite class. The current policy to divide students into different classes might be a main cause of worsening the complexity of stress problems, and the students feel more stressful rather than acquiring knowledge efficiently.