Moderating Effects of Ego-Resilience on the Relationship between Academic Stress and School Adjustment of Adolescent

Many adolescents in high schools are experiencing school maladjustment by academic stress under the reality of higher-education-oriented schooling. A review of studies of academic stress and school adjustment reveals that ego-optimism is predicted as one of the moderating variables to help adolescents lessen academic stress and increase their school adjustment. The main purpose of this study was to verify the moderating effects of ego-resilience on the relationship between academic stress and school adjustment of adolescents. For this, 496 high school students of tenth and eleventh grade were respectively collected through cluster sampling to be surveyed, and then correlation analysis and moderated regression analysis were conducted. The major findings were as follows.First, there was a negative relationship between academic stress and school adjustment and between academic stress and ego-resilience, but a positive relationship between school adjustment and ego-resilience.Second, the moderating effects of ego-resilience on the relationship between academic stress and school adjustment were not found, although optimism, one of ego-resilience's sub-factors, hada significant moderating effect on them, implying that adolescents' optimism should be enhanced to lessen academic stress and ensure they have a successful school life. The study concludes that optimism is a protective factor for school adjustment caused academic stress and thus schools need to make active efforts to enhance their students' optimism.