The impact of religious coping strategies on academic performance and life satisfaction of college students

• Main Author: Camarines, Teresa M.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2020
• Subjects: Academic achievement; Satisfaction; College students; Religious education; Stress in youth; Religious Education
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_doctoral/1393; https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2416&context=etd_doctoral
• Institution: De La Salle University

The first-year college students experience stress as they transition to their academic life. Stress as an overwhelming experience may lead to unhealthy levels of stress that may hinder student’s academic success if unmanaged. Along with the rise of youth suicide, stressrelated disorder is one of the leading causes of disability by 2020 as considered by the World Health Organization (WHO). With this result and projection, this study turned to religious education regarding the potential role of religious coping strategies to deal with stress. This study explored 1,220 Filipino first year college students from seven (7) various colleges and universities along Taft, Avenue, Manila, Philippines. Using a mixed-method design, quantitative (descriptive and inferential statistics) and qualitative (in-depth interview) to identify the different prevalent stressors in relation to academic performance and life satisfaction, the effects of prevalent stressors in relation to their satisfaction in life and how religious coping strategies help them in stressful situations were examined. The data gathered were analyzed using SPSS and STATISTICA software. The relationship between life-stressors and academic performance resulted to weak, insignificant correlation to all school respondents. In terms of the relationship between lifestressors and life satisfaction, there was a limited generalizability due to insignificant correlation. This resulted to only one (1) school respondent that achieved a partial moderating process since only expectations and environment stressors showed a significant relationship. There was a buffering effect manifested when increasing religious practices and positive and negative coping. In effect, it would decrease the effect of the expectations and environment stressors on the respondent’s life satisfaction. The identified findings were helpful in the creation of formation program for firstyear college students to address their needs of deeper meaning, comfort, intimacy and closeness to others and God