An Assessment of the Prevalence of Religiosity and Spirituality as Coping Strategies for Academic Stress among Undergraduates in Bamidele Olumilua University of Education, Science and Technology Ikere—Ekiti (Bouesti)

This study assess the prevalence of religiosity and spiritual as coping strategies for academic stress among the undergraduate students of Bamidele Olumilua University of Education, Science and Technology Ikere Ekiti (BOUESTI). The study aimed at investigating the prevalence of religious and spiritual activities or practices among the undergraduate students and how this had influence the level of academic stress exhibited by them. The study in this wise employed the descriptive research of the survey design, with 12,740 students of the 2023/2024 Academic Session of the university and 450 students used as the population and sample size for the study. The study employed a self-constructed questionnaire titled Religion, Spirituality and Stress Coping Strategies Questionnaire (RSSCSQ) as the instrument for the study. The instrument was validated by ensuring the face, content and criterion validity, with reliability inclusive. A 0.72 and 0.83 correlations coefficient was obtained for both the construct validity (Convergent) and reliability (Test-Retest) respectively. The study made use of descriptive statistics that includes frequency count and percentage alongside with Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) to answer and test research questions raised and hypothesis generated respectively. The outcome of the study have it that the level of spiritual and religious activities/practices is highly prevalence among the students, while the level of academic stress exhibited by them is also high. It was found also that the prevalence of this spiritual and religious activities/practices has a significant effect on the academic stress of the undergraduate students. It was therefore recommended that spiritual and religious activities should be encouraged and allowed to thrive on campuses to support students’ well-being. While the school management is advised to considered structuring academic calendars and activities to accommodate spiritual practices, and ensuring that students have the opportunity to engage in these activities without jettison their academic responsibilities.