Academic Coping Under Examination Pressure: Determinants and Intervention Effects in Vietnamese Secondary Education

Abstract

Academic stress has become an increasingly important concern in examination-oriented educational systems, in which students are expected to cope with sustained academic demands while maintaining psychological well-being. Although adolescent academic stress has been widely investigated, less attention has been paid to how examination-oriented educational conditions influence coping responses, and whether school-based interventions can strengthen adaptive coping. This study examined academic coping among lower secondary students (grades 6–9; ages 11–15), in Vietnam, using a two-phase quantitative design comprising a cross-sectional survey (N = 700) and a six-week quasi-experimental one-group pretest–posttest intervention (n = 186). Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation, multiple regression, and independent-sample and paired-samples t-tests. The findings showed that students relied more on emotion-focused and avoidance-oriented coping than on problem-focused coping. Academic workload and family expectations were negatively associated with problem-focused coping, whereas perceived teacher support emerged as the strongest positive predictor of adaptive coping. Participation in the intervention was associated with moderate improvements in problem-focused coping and emotional regulation, together with a small reduction in avoidance coping. Although the intervention findings should be interpreted cautiously because of the absence of a control group, the study highlights the importance of supportive educational environments and suggests that school-based coping programmes may help strengthen adolescents’ adaptive coping in examination-oriented educational contexts