Effect of Zentangle Intervention on Academic Stress among High School Students| P 45-51

Tanya Stephenie Bennett, D. Sumathi and Rini Rajan
Women’s Christian College, Chennai

Pages:45-51

In India, the school board conducts 10th and 12th final examinations that potentially
determine certain aspects of a student’s future. Pressure from parents and teachers
to perform well, along with long hours of study and academic obligations, contribute to
increased stress in students, especially in 10th graders who appear for the board exam
for the first time (Rajshree & Kumar, 2013). This study aimed to explore the effect of a
Zentangle® intervention on academic stress among high school students. The sample
of 44 participants, chosen using Purposive Sampling, consisted of 9th and 10th graders
from a school following the Cambridge Board of education in Chennai. The participants
were randomly assigned to either the control group or the intervention group. Both
groups were administered the Educational Stress Scale for Adolescents (ESSA) (Sun
et al., 2011). The members of the intervention group attended a 2-hour online Zentangle
workshop, conducted by the researcher, who is a Certified Zentangle Teacher (CZT), on
day 1. The following five sessions were conducted for an hour every day. The participants
tangled along with the CZT and later uploaded their art onto Google Drive. During the
final session, both groups were administered the ESSA once again. The Paired sample
t-test was used to compare pre and post-intervention scores of the intervention group,
and the independent sample t-test was used to determine the difference between the
scores of the intervention group and the control group.Asignificant decrease in academic
stress of the Intervention Group was found while comparing pre- and post-intervention
scores of said group, implicating that the Zentangle® intervention had a positive impact
on the academic stress of high school students..
Keywords: Zentangle intervention, academic stress, high school students, Zentangle,
stress