Hope As a predictor of Academic stess among adolescents

Academic stress is the result of combination of academic related demands that exceed the adaptive resources available to
students. Senior secondary students experience academic stress due to excessive burden of studies, expectations from peer,
parents, teachers and self, extracurricular activities, choice of appropriate career etc. Hope is the state which promotes the
belief in a good outcome related to events and circumstances in one's life. It is a positive motivational state that is based on
an interactively derived sense of successful agency (goal-directed energy) and pathways (planning to meet goals) (Snyder,
1991).The objective of this paper is to study how hope is related with academic stress among senior secondary students.
Sample of 220 twelve class students studying in various private schools was taken. Academic stress scale developed by the
researchers and Hope Scale by Snyder et al.(1991) having 12 items were used. The results explain that academic stress and
Hope (comprising of pathway and agency thoughts) was significantly and negatively correlated. Hope (total) accounted for
13% variance in academic stress. No gender difference was found in academic stress and Hope. Findings of the study have
important implications for counseling the adolescents for managing academic stress.