Differences in school anxiety in Ecuadorian high school students across gender and academic year

Abstract

Currently, school anxiety is regarded by the scientific world as an emotional disorder, influencing from childhood to adolescence. Previous studies treating this disorder in infant-youth population report a high prevalence worldwide of about 10 to 20 per cent of pupils. However, in Ecuador, this area of research remains neglected. For this reason, the objective of this study was to see if there are differences in school anxiety according to sex and course for 720 Ecuadorian adoelscents between 15 and 18 years of age, enrolled between 1st and 3rd grade. For this purpose, the Inventario de Ansiedad Escolar en Secundaria (IAES) was used. The results show significantly higher scores in the female sex for the total of the IAES, as well as all the scale factors. Also, the main differences were observed statistically significative betewwn first and third of high school. In conclusion, these results are similar to previous studies carried out in other countries, which advocates the importance of designing and implementing programmes for intervention and prevention of school anxiety in the field of education.