Abstract

Academic stress is suffered by secondary and higher education students, whose stressors are related to the academic demands they will face during their school/university activities. The objective of the present study was to describe and compare the level of academic stress among physical education pedagogy students in Chile according to sex and year of study. For this purpose, the SISCO Academic Stress Inventory was applied to a sample of 286 students from two universities in Santiago, Chile. The results reveal mild stress levels in the sample, with higher levels in women and during the last years of the teaching degree. The main stressful situation is not understanding the topics addressed in class. The most common physical reaction to stress is scratching and biting nails, the most common psychological reaction to stress is concentration problems, and the most common behavioural reaction to stress is to increase or decrease food consumption. Finally, assertive skills are the most used strategy to face stressful situations. More research is recommended with samples from other universities and other teaching programmes to delve deeper into this topic.