Stress, self-efficacy and well-being of the university students

Abstract

This research is a follow-up to a previous study on the preferred stress coping strategies of students that ascertained rather unsettling result of surprisingly high number of negative strategies. This paper aims to investigate the levels of perceived self-efficacy and satisfaction with life (subjective well-being) in connection to stress coping strategies in a sample of university students. The data were collected on a sample of 387 respondents with the use of three standardized questionnaires: General Self-Efficacy Scale, The Satisfaction With Life Scale and The Stress Coping Style Questionnaire. The significance of the difference between the means of our sample and other relevant samples was tested via t-test. Correlation coefficient was computed for self-efficacy, well-being, positive coping strategies and negative coping strategies. The key findings of the study are that students in our sample perceive their general self-efficacy to be significantly heightened, while they are less satisfied with their lives than the normal population. Furthermore, we found significant correlations between self-efficacy and stress coping strategies, which induce, that the concept of selfefficacy is a strong and useful concept that deserves to be included into psychological seminars and contact lessons in education of our students.