Abstract: With the aim of knowing whether curriculum and sex
differences exist in academic stress arising from perceived
expectations, high school students were asked to respond to the
Academic Expectations Stress Inventory (AESI). AESI is a nine-item
inventory with two domains, namely: expectations of
teachers/parents and expectations of self. Out of the 504 officially
enrolled high school students in a state college, 469 responded to the
inventory. Responses were analyzed using independent samples ttest.
Significant differences were found between the mean scores of
the respondents coming from the Science and the Vocational
curriculum. The respondents from the Science curriculum
consistently registered higher mean scores. Likewise, significant
differences were found between the male and the female respondents.
The female respondents consistently registered higher mean scores.