Exploring adolescent academic stress in the digital and urban era: A mixed-methods study from CIT to checklist validation

Ruobing Wang¹Shengqin Yang¹Xiao Xu²Shuaishuai Mi^3,4Na Hao^5,6*

• ¹University of Macau, Taipa, China
• ²Xianda College of Economics and Humanities Shanghai International Studies University, Shanghai, China
• ³Shandong Normal University, Jinan, China
• ⁴University of Macau, Taipa, Macao, SAR China
• ⁵Guangzhou College of Commerce, Guangzhou, China
• ⁶Macau University of Science and Technology, Taipa, Macao, SAR China

Introduction: Adolescents are experiencing more and more academic stress in recent decades. The reason might be the rapid urbanization and proliferation of Internet. However, the mechanisms remain underexplored. Meanwhile, the taxonomy of academic stress mixed self stress and social events, failing to make the scales align with its theory. Method: The mixed-methods study explored stressful academic events of adolescents through the critical incident technique and validated an corresponding measurement checklist. In the qualitative phase, 84 participants, including teachers, parents and students, were interviewed. Data were coded, member-checked, and analyzed to identify common stressful academic events. Based on these findings, a checklist of adolescent academic stress was developed, and its reliability and validity were examined through a survey of 453 adolescents. Results: 1. Qualitative: The study used three dimensions (event topics, social actors, and interaction ways) to categorize the critical incidents. 540 critical incidents pointed towards 35 common event topics. These events can also be attributed to neighbors, kinsmen, friends of parents, non-classmate peers, netizens, news media, and self-media. Participants can also experienced stress through mediated, observing, and distal interactions. 2. Quantitative: The EFA and CFA supported a single factor structure for the checklist. An IRT model demonstrated strong psychometric performance, with high reliability, good model fit (RMSEA, CFI, TLI), and appropriate item parameters, infit indicators, and average information measures. Academic stress is significantly correlated with some variables as hypothesized, indicating its criteria-related validity. Conclusion: 1. New stressful academic events are found to be correlated to urban and online community, and all these items are significant in the survey. The findings indicated that it is crucial to consider the influence of digital and urban era for academic stress. 2. Weak ties and new interaction ways are found to be attributed to stressful academic events, while the checklist is in a single factor structure. The findings implied that the three dimensional framework still need more evidence. 3. The newly developed checklist provides a reliable instrument to measure adolescent academic stress from an ecological perspective, enabling more effective management considering various interactions with a wide range of social actors.