Administrative Stressors and Islamic Coping Strategies Among Muslim Primary Principals in Malaysia: A Mixed Method Study.

Principals are school leaders who experienced stress while leading their schools towards excellence. However, principals stress experiences are always ignored and least studied. This mixed-methods study investigates primary principals' stress experiences and their Islamic coping strategies used in incapacitating the stress experiences. A total of 216 Muslim primary principals across different gender, types of schools and years of experiences as school leaders responded to the administrative stress and the Islamic coping strategies items. In addition, seven primary principals were purposefully selected and interviewed in exploring their reasons of using Islamic coping strategies for their relieving process. Results discovered that primary principals experienced fairly stress level and they perceived managing students' academic achievement was the most stressor followed by managing teachers' capabilities. Although findings revealed that no significant differences in terms primary principals' demographics; male primary principals, and experienced between 6 and 10 years and positioned in schools with least students (SLS) category have slightly higher level of stress. In terms of Islamic coping strategies used by primary principals, saying dhua to Allah, performing dhikir and reciting the Yassen are selected coping approaches employed in handling their stress. From interviews, primary principals also revealed that they used Islamic religious approaches as part of meaningful activities not just to overcoming their stress but also as part of religious approaches in remembering Allah, thinking back their past mistakes as part of the Muhasabah process. Therefore, we believed that religious approaches should be taken into consideration in principals' training as it provides peaceful and treatment in managing principals' stress issue.

Does psychological strengths and subjective well-being predicting parental involvement and problem solving among Malaysian and Indian students?

The present study examined the predictors of psychological strengths and subjective well-being for dealing with academic stress perceived by university engineering students. Sample of 400 Malaysian (N = 180 boys and N = 220 girls) age varies 18 to 25 years and 400 Indian students (N = 240 boys and N = 160 girls) age varies 18 to 25 years from public universities were participated. Quantitative method was used for data analysis. Findings shows that gender, religiosity and socioeconomic status are significantly influencing psychological strengths and subjective well-being of both Indian and Malaysian students. Findings also revealed that parental involvement and problem solving coping styles were significantly predicting psychological strengths and subjective well-being among both countries participants. Findings of the current study provide the insight for the educators, and parents dealing with adolescents.