Coping Strategies Adopted By the Secondary Student Teachers to Overcome Stress

Stress can come to an individual in form and one cannot imagine a life without stress. One should know the ways to overcome stress through the positive coping strategies that can be used in their daily lives. This research study was undertaken to study the coping strategies used by the Secondary student teachers. The descriptive survey method was used for the study. To assess the coping of secondary school student teachers, a coping strategy tool was developed by the investigator. The coping strategy tool contained both the positive coping strategies and negative coping strategies. The sample size of the study was 120 secondary student teachers of the B.Ed colleges in South Chotanagpur division of Jharkhand. The data obtained for the survey was analyzed by using percentage, mean, SD. The study revealed that the most common Negative coping strategy used by 120 secondary student teachers is not taking the blame on themselves with the Mean of 3.3 and SD 0f 0.9. The study also revealed that the most common Positive coping strategy used by 120 secondary student teachers is spending time with their family members with the Mean of 4.4 and SD 0f 0.7.


INTRODUCTION
According to Lazarus and Folkman (1984), stress is a condition or sensation that occurs when a person perceives that demands exceed the personal and social resources that the individual can mobilise. This implies that stress is a part of life and has many causes, and that the degree of stress in our lives is heavily influenced by factors such as the individual's physical health, the way we handle our interpersonal relationships, the commitments that we have made and responsibilities that we taken, the degree of others' reliance on and expectations of us, the support received from others at any point of time and the number of changes or stressful situations we go through in our lives. The matter of fact is that stress can have both positive and negative impacts on people. For few people fear of things might motivate individuals who lead to achievement of all creativity but for others it might cause a hindrance in their performances which might result in failure. Coping typically entails adapting to or enduring unfavorable events or circumstances while maintaining a good self-image and emotional balance. Coping happens in the context of perceived stressful life transitions. Thus, coping means adapting to unexpected demands or pressures. This involves a bigger effort and use of energy than is required in normal living tasks. Continuous intensification of effort can lead to high levels of stress hormones, as well as physical deterioration and sickness.
Students' health and academic performance may suffer as a result of stress. Coping strategies are unique approaches that people use to deal with stress. Active and avoidant coping techniques are the two types of coping mechanisms. Active coping strategies are behavioural or psychological reactions that aim at modifying the nature of the stressor or how one perceives it. Avoidant coping techniques, on the other hand, lead people into activities like use of alcohol or withdrawal that prevent them from dealing with stressful circumstances directly. Avoidant coping is regarded to be a psychological risk factor for adverse responses to stressful incidents in life, whereas active coping is thought to be a better method to dealing with stress.

RATIONALE OF THE STUDY
The student teachers pursuing the course of Bachelor in Education are thought to have no burden of academics. But the fact is that there are multiple tasks to be done the student teachers at a time to keep up the pace of learning. It has been acknowledged that many of the student teachers are married or join this course after a gap from their academics. In addition, students feel a lot of strain as they attempt to adjust to academic life and life in general, especially those who are away from home for the first time. When academic work and other obligations combine to overwhelm students in the midst of the semester, they frequently exhibit stress-related behaviors. According to Krishnan Lal, today's pupils face new educational obstacles. It is a well-known fact that a student teacher's psychological state of mind affects their performance. Academic stress has an impact on the psychological well-being of student teachers. To become a successful teacher, student instructors must be in good physical and mental health, with an emphasis on psychological well-being. The National Education Policy 2020 has also laid stress on the quality of teacher workforce in general and distribution of effective teachers across schools. Also all must be very well versed in the latest advances in education and pedagogy. Chen (2008) asserts that there is a link between coping methods and psychological well-being in college. Positive coping strategies have been shown to have considerable moderating effects on psychological health concerns. According to several researches, self-efficacy is one of the primary coping mechanisms that help to increase university students' performance (Freire et al., 2020). According to Towbes and Cohen (1996), stress may be a serious concern for university students who have to adjust to academic, social, and individual obstacles. Most students are always under pressure to achieve well academically. Knowing our strengths makes it possible to cope psychologically and emotionally with stress at university. Respecting your limitations, choosing priorities, avoiding comparisons, leisure activities (viewing movies, reading, sports, meeting with friends), assertiveness, community building, cognitive restructuring, and social networking can all be coping methods. Li et al. (2018) studied 262 Chinese university students and discovered that self-esteem had a moderating role in the link between social support and academic accomplishment.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
The problem under taken by the investigator is stated as "Coping Strategies adopted by the Secondary Student Teachers to overcome Stress".

OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
1. To find out the negative coping strategies used by the secondary student teachers 2. To find out the positive coping strategy used by the secondary student teachers.

METHODOLOGY
For investigation and collection of the data descriptive survey method was used to find the coping strategies used by the secondary student teachers of South Chotanagpur division of Jharkhand.

SAMPLE
In the present study, the sample would only include the Secondary teacher education institutes of South Chotanagpur division of Jharkhand. From this division 10 teacher Institutes were selected and from all the pre service institutes only 12% student teachers would be selected randomly. The total sample size is 120.

TOOLS USED
Coping Strategies tool contained 30 statements framed by the researcher and the statements were framed under the supervision and guidance of the experts. The coping strategy tool comprised of 10 statements of negative coping strategies and 20 statements of positive coping strategies.

STATISTICAL TECHNIQUES USED
The purpose of the study was to find out the typical coping strategies both positive and negative used by the student teachers in the college of education, frequency distribution and descriptive statistics including mean and standard deviation were used to summarize the findings.

ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION 9.1. To find the Negative coping strategies used by the student teachers
The first objective of the study was to find the Negative Coping Strategies used by the student teachers of South Chotanagpur division of Jharkhand. In order to find out the negative coping strategies used by the student teachers the negative items were computed separately. The mean and standard deviation were computed and presented in the table below.  As it is presented in table 1, never taking up the blame and yelling on other people appeared to be the first top two negative stress coping strategies utilized by student teachers to deal with a stressful situation. Avoiding the situation was found to be the least preferred one.

Frequency Distribution of Negative Coping Strategies
To describe the percentage of the student's use of negative coping strategies, a frequency distribution for each item was computed and presented in the table below.

2. To find the Positive coping strategies used by the student teachers
The second objective of the study was to find the Positive Coping Strategies used by the student teachers of North Chotanagpur division of Jharkhand.. The mean and standard deviation were computed and presented in the table below.  As it is presented in table 3, relaxing or enjoying time with family with the Mean value 4.4 and SD 0.7 and entertainment to overcome stress with mean value 4.3 and SD 0.7 appeared to be the first top two positive stress coping strategies utilized by student teachers to deal with a stressful situation. Playing games and sports was found to be the least one.

2 .1 Frequency Distribution of Positive Coping Strategies
To describe the percentage of the student's use of positive coping strategies, a frequency distribution for each item was computed and presented in the table below.

CONCLUSION
There are various coping strategies that can be used to overcome the stress like exercising, meditation, Yoga, deep breathing, avoid too much thinking, avoid blaming oneself for the situation but individuals do not know and unknowingly prefer coping strategies like drinking, smoking, eating too much, avoiding people and staying alone, spending too much time alone that can lead to depression. Awareness is very important with respect to which positive and negative coping strategies are to be used and what will be the effect of it in our health. Also, in regular intervals workshop or programs should be organized in the institutions to maintain mental health of every individual.