Study On Comparing Undergraduate's And Graduate's Stress, Coping Styles And Social Support

The mental health condition of undergraduates and graduates is an important program of youth development. The aim of this paper is to figure out the relationship of life stress, coping style and social support, and compare undergraduates and graduates in order to improve their mental health level, coping ability and provide theory support for the education of mental health in college. There are two sections of this research:Section 1: we revised the college students' life stress checklist (CSLSC) constructed by Liu Chenlin (2002). We aim at comparing undergraduates and graduates, but existing measure instrument only fit to one group. Because of the difference between these two groups, so it is necessary to revise measure instrument for the comparison.Section 2: the comparison research of undergraduates' and graduates' life stress, coping style and social support. We use revised checklist to measure undergraduates' and graduates' life stress, coping style and social support and use the results to figure out the difference between undergraduates' and graduates' life stress, coping style and social support, and the difference between the factors of undergraduates' and graduates' stess.Three study's instrument was employed in the paper: the revised checklist, Social Support Rating Scale (by Xiao Shuiyuan) and Coping Style Scale (by Xiao Jihua). The samples were 490 undergraduates and graduates out of four universities in Wuhan.The results showed that: (1) The revised checklist has good reliability and validity, and undergraduates' and graduates' life stess consist of seven factors: academic achievement, interpersonal relationship, life change and environment, employment and career, income level, family fairs, romance relationship and marriage; (2) For both of undergraduates and graduates, the life stress are mixed of misfortune and daily hassle, and daily hassle is the main factor, and there is difference between the daily hassle of the two groups; (3) There is difference between undergraduates' and graduates' total stress and different factors; (4) In demographic variable, there is difference between undergraduates' and graduates' total stress and different factors; (5) There is difference between undergraduates' and graduates' coping style; (6) There is no difference between undergraduates' and graduates' social support.