Self-Esteem, Academic Anxiety and Insecurity amongst Adolescents:Exploring Gender Differences

Adolescence is specifically turbulent as well as dynamic period of one's life. Major physiological, cognitive and behavioral changes take place during this period necessitating need for establishing new attitudes, values and interests. The changes may also contribute to emotional tensions. These changes are experienced differently by males and females. Therefore, the present investigation was designed to explore gender differences in self esteem, academic anxiety and insecurity amongst adolescents. A two group design was adopted for the present study. Groups comprised of male and female adolescents. Each group consisted of 100 subjects with an age range of 13-16 years. Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale by Morris Rosenberg, Academic Anxiety Scale for Children by Singh and SenGupta and Security-Insecurity Inventory by Tiwari and Singh were administered to 200 adolescents. Data was analyzed by using t-test. The results of the study showed that male adolescents scored significantly higher on self esteem whereas the feeling of insecurity was significantly higher in female adolescents. No significant difference was found between two groups on academic anxiety. The study infers that low self esteem and high insecurity in female adolescents need to be addressed.