The effects of stress on adolescents' school engagement

Problem Adolescents experience stress due to physical, cognitive, emotional and sexual development. This descriptive study was conducted to find out whether stress experienced by adolescents affected their school engagement. Methods The sample was 440 students studying in a high schools in the Eastern Anatolia region of Turkey between October 2020 and January 2021. The data were collected using the Sociodemographic Information Form, the Adolescent Stress Questionnaire (ASQ‐S) and the School Engagement Scale. Findings Statistically significant differences were found between adolescents' sociodemographic characteristics and mean scores on the ASQ‐S subdimension and total scores (p ˂ 0.05). A strong negative association was found between adolescents' ASQ mean subdimension and total scores and their School Engagement Scale mean subdimension and total scores (p ˂ 0.05). Conclusions It was found that adolescents’ sociodemographic characteristic affected their stress levels and school engagement and that high stress levels experienced by adolescents negatively affected their school engagement.