International Indexed & Refferred Research Journal, October 2012, ISSN 0975-3486, RNI- RAJBAL 2009/30097: VoL IV *ISSUE- 37

Research PaperEducation

A study of Mental Health of Higher secondary students with respect to Birth order in their family
* Smt. Asore Manisha D. October,2012 *Dept. of Education,Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada ,University, Sub Campus-Osmanabad
A B S T R A C T
This study focused on mental health of higher secondary students with respect to birth order in their family. The survey method was used for completing the study. The data was collected with the help of mental health inventory prepared and standardized by Jagdish and Srivastava from randomly selected 100 higher secondary students from ten different colleges in Aurangabad city. The data was analyzed by using chi-square and phi-coefficient. The results revealed that there is positive, moderate and significant association between mental health of higher secondary students and their birth order in their family. Key Words: Mental Health, Birth order etc.

Interoduction:Recently we have heard about growing suicidal cases among school students while completing their schooling or higher schooling.There are so many reasons which varied from person to person behind their suicides. But the main reason in the case of higher secondary students is fear about exams and its results. It means at the higher secondary stage the students' mental stability might be poor which is resulted into poor mental health. Due to this they could not properly understand the challenges in life and it brought a fatal end of their of life. There are so many studies were undertaken from last few decades which concerned about mental health of secondary or higher secondary school students. Some of them were reported here. Anand (1989) studied the mental health of class x students in the age group 14-15 years age. This revealed that the mental health of class x students was closely related with academic achievement, educational & professional background of their parents. Manjuvani (1990) reported that mental health status of secondary students was greatly affected by home environment. Srividhya & Khadi (2007) reported that boys and girls did not differ in mental health status and there is no influence of age, type of family, ordinal position, sibling status and family income on mental health of 10th students. R.Tadas (2011) studied and reported that
Birth Order Mental Health Status Low O 18 8 5 3 Moderate E O 11.56 7 12.58 8.16 1.7 27 15 2 High E 17.34 18.87 12.24 2.55 O 9 2 4 0 E 5.1 5.55 3.6 0.75

there was significant difference among mental health of urban and rural secondary school students, the urban students' mental health was better that of rural students' mental health. Objective:1. To investigate the association between mental health and birth order of higher secondary stu dents. Hypothesis:There is no significant association between mental health and birth order of higher secondary students. Sample:The sample comprised of 100 high school students which were selected by simple random method from ten different colleges situated in Aurangabad city. Methodology:The survey method was used for carrying out research. The mental health inventory prepared by Jagdish & Srivastava (1983) was used for collecting data from randomly selected 100 high school students. The collected data was systematically classified and analyzed by using chi-square and phi- coefficient. Analysis of Data: The scores were analyzed and mentioned in table -1 as follows. From table-1, it is inferred that the phi- coefficient value showed the positive, moderate and significant association between mental health and birth order of
Ph icoefficient 0.489 Re ma r ks

Table-1 - Association between Mental Health and Birth order of higher secondary students Calculated chi-square 23.919

I II III IV

Positive,Moderate & Significant

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RESEARCH ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION

International Indexed & Refferred Research Journal, October 2012, ISSN 0975-3486, RNI- RAJBAL 2009/30097: VoL IV *ISSUE- 37

higher secondary students, hence the null hypothesis is rejected and concluded that the higher secondary students belong to first & second birth order in their family have high level of mental health with compared their counterparts belonging to third & fourth birth order. Findigs: 1. There is positive significant and moderate relation ship between mental health and birth order of higher secondary students. 2. The mental health of higher secondary students who belongs to first & second birth order in their

family is better than that of those who belongs to third or fourth birth order in their family. Conclusion: The results showed that the birth order of higher secondary students is positively related to their mental health. It means today's small family norms are good for positive mental health of students as it is convenient for parents to meet and fulfill each & every need of their wards. Apart from this, there is needed to investigate about mental health of students belonging to small families.

R E F E R E N C E
1 2 3 Buch, M.b, 1983-88, Fourth Survey Of Research In Education, Vol -1. New Delhi: Ncert. Srividhya & Khadi, P.b. 2007, Mental Health And Adjustment Problems Of Students Of Navodhaya, Central And State Schools. Retrieved From Etd.uasd.edu/Ft/Th9578.pdf On 21/09/2012. Tadas, R., 2011, A Study Of Mental Health Among Secondary School Students In Rural And Urban Area, Research Analysis And Evaluation. Retrieved From Www.ssmrae.com On 28/09/2012.

RESEARCH ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION

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