An Exploration of Dance Learning Stress Sources of Elementary School Dance Class Students with Artistic Abilities: The Influences of Psychological Capital and Self-Concept

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to explore the factors which may cause the increase of students' stress in dance class in elementary school. In this study, students' demographic variables, psychological capital (which includes four sub-constructs), and self-concept (which includes five sub-constructs) were used as predicting variables to estimate their influences on dance class students' stress level. A structured questionnaire was distributed to 450 elementary art talent class students with 412 valid responses. Structural equation modeling was used to test the relationships proposed by the study. As for demographic variables, the results show that the grade, gender, and the dance class hours per week had no significant influences on stress, while the seniority level had a negative influence, which indicated that junior dance students had more stress than senior students. As for psychological capital, self-efficacy and optimism had negative influences on stress, while the other two sub-constructs, hope and resilience, did not have a significant influence on stress. As for physical self-concept, the worry of overweight had positive influences on their stress, while appearance, physical ability performance, health status, and satisfaction of body parts had no significant influence on stress. Based on the research findings, suggestions were made to reduce students' pressure in learning dance.

Keywords: art talent class; physical self-concept; psychological capital; stress of dance learning.

Figure 1

Framework of the research hypotheses.

Figure 2

The path analysis. Note: The dotted line denotes that the tested standardized path coefficient was not significant; the solid line denotes that the tested standardized path coefficient was significant; “*” denotes p < 0.05; R² is the coefficient of determination.