Evidence-Based Practices to Reduce Racial Inequity in School Discipline
Category: Student Well-Being
Instrument Overview
Expert Notes AvailableView expert commentary on strengths and cautions for this instrument
Strengths
Broad measure of stress perception: Captures multiple dimensions of perceived stress, including worries, tension, and lack of joy. Strong validation history: Used across countries and populations with established reliability evidence.
Cautions
Not a measure of specific stressors: Focuses on perceived stress rather than identifying causes of stress.
The Perceived Stress Questionnaire (PSQ) is a 30-item self-report survey that measures how much stress a person perceives in their daily life. It includes items related to factors such as tension, interpersonal conflict, and perceived demands. The PSQ can be administered in two forms: a General version that asks about stress over the past year or two, and a Recent version that asks about stress during the past month.
The PSQ can be used in education research to understand students’ or other participants’ perceived stress. It may be useful for examining stress as an outcome or as a factor related to other educational, behavioral, or well-being outcomes. The original study (Levenstein et al., 1993) validated the PSQ in English and Italian with adults. The instrument was developed for psychosomatic research and has not been specifically validated for school-age populations.
Organization
Topic
Collection Category(ies)
Content
Grades
9th Grade,
10th Grade,
11th Grade,
12th Grade,
Post secondary
Respondent
Student
Administration Information
Length
30 items
Access and Use
Open Access
Yes
Psychometrics (additional guidance)
Reliability
Test-retest reliability: 0.92
Psychometric References
Levenstein, S., Prantera, C., Varvo, V., Scribano, M. L., Berto, E., Luzi, C., & Andreoli, A. (1993). Development of the Perceived Stress Questionnaire: A new tool for psychosomatic research. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 37(1), 19–32. https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-3999(93)90120-5
Fliege, H., Rose, M., Arck, P., Walter, O. B., Kocalevent, R. D., Weber, C., & Klapp, B. F. (2005). The Perceived Stress Questionnaire (PSQ) reconsidered: validation and reference values from different clinical and healthy adult samples. Biopsychosocial Science and Medicine, 67(1), 78-88.
Fliege, H., Rose, M., Arck, P., Levenstein, S., & Klapp, B. F. (2001). Validierung des “perceived stress questionnaire”(PSQ) an einer deutschen Stichprobe.[Validation of the “Perceived Stress Questionnaire”(PSQ) in a German sample.]. Diagnostica, 47(3), 142-152.
Kocalevent, R. D., Levenstein, S., Fliege, H., Schmid, G., Hinz, A., Brähler, E., & Klapp, B. F. (2007). Contribution to the construct validity of the Perceived Stress Questionnaire from a population-based survey. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 63(1), 71-81.
Item Type
Likert
