Discipline, academic stress, and aggression among secondary school adolescents in Mbarara City, Uganda

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the associations among discipline, academic stress, and aggression among adolescent secondary school students in Mbarara City, Uganda. In this study, across-sectional research design and quantitative approach was used. Data was collected from adolescent secondary school students (N= 384) using a structured questionnaire. Pearson product moment correlation coefficient and linear regression were ran to establish the associations among the variables. The findings found out that the majority of the secondary school adolescents 342 (89%) reported use of positive methods of discipline by school authorities. There was generally high level of academic stress (M = 42.2, SD = 8.2), and students exhibited low levels of aggression among themselves (M = 46.50, SD = 14.54). Further, the results revealed that increase in academic stress and use of negative methods of discipline increases the likelihood of the occurrence of aggressive behaviour (β = .251,p< .001 andβ = .237, p< .001), respectively. It was therefore recommended that schools been couraged to use positive methods of discipline instead of negative methods, and that they further regulate academic programmes to include co-curricular activities in order to reduce academic stress. In addition, there is an urgent need for psychologists to be employed in all schools for further psychological interventions, besides the regular teacher interventions which are limited to purely aiding classroom instruction.