Supporting Perceived Academic Stress: An Online Delivered Counseling Intervention for Middle School Students

Stress is a common feeling for youth in the school setting. The need to address academic stress related concerns to support students’ social emotional wellbeing during academic time is essential for coping and growth. During times of change, uncertainty, and amidst a historical pandemic, stress is high for youth and the adults who educate them. School counseling interventions have been thoroughly researched and have been shown to support student stress and educate youth with healthy coping strategies in school settings. Offering an online-delivered counseling intervention within a school setting for youth to actively learn and utilize stress reducing skills through a systematic, evidence-based approach would serve as a worthwhile part of a student’s time. The intervention in this study was delivered as an optional online counseling intervention to support academic stress for participating students in 6th – 8th grade. A multiple baseline design was used to determine the effects of stress reducing skills during times of academic stress. Research will reflect teachers’ Direct Behavior Ratings, counselors’ Systematic Direct Observations, and students’ self-monitoring reports among 4 middle school students at a charter school in a city in the western United States. After identifying the key results there were not any significant effects of the online counseling intervention on participants’ academic engagement and perceptions of academic stress levels. Recommendations for future research include further examining middle school students’ perceptions of academic stress, and for counselors and educators to be able to better address the needs middle school aged youth have relating to academic demands, stress, and engagement. By increasing available online-delivered counseling interventions, resources and strategies, middle school students can then start to recognize the resources they have to access, cope, and generate successful responses to stress, supporting more positive reactions to stressful situations.Keywords: academic stress, academic engagement, multiple baseline design, direct behavior rating, systematic direct observation, self-monitorin