Academic Coping Under Examination Pressure: Determinants and Intervention Effects in Vietnamese Secondary Education
Keywords:
Academic coping; academic stress; teacher support; school intervention; VietnamAbstract
Academic stress has become an increasingly important concern in examination-oriented educational systems, in which students are expected to cope with sustained academic demands while maintaining psychological well-being. Although adolescent academic stress has been widely investigated, less attention has been paid to how
examination-oriented educational conditions influence coping responses, and whether school-based interventions can strengthen adaptive coping. This study examined academic coping among lower secondary students (grades 6–9; ages 11–15), in Vietnam, using a two-phase quantitative design comprising a cross-sectional survey (N = 700) and a six-week quasi-experimental one-group pretest–posttest intervention (n = 186). Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation, multiple regression, and independent-sample and paired-samples t-tests. The findings showed that students relied more on emotion-focused and avoidance-oriented coping than on problem-focused coping. Academic workload and family expectations were negatively associated with problem-focused coping, whereas perceived teacher support emerged as the strongest positive predictor of adaptive coping. Participation in the intervention was associated with moderate improvements in
problem-focused coping and emotional regulation, together with a small reduction in avoidance coping. Although the intervention findings should be interpreted cautiously because of the absence of a control group, the study highlights the importance of supportive educational environments and suggests that school-based coping programmes may help strengthen adolescents’ adaptive coping in examination-oriented educational contexts
https://doi.org/10.26803/ijlter.25.8.12
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