U.P. Manila University Student Council 08-09: A Study in Role Strain

Abstract

The study attempted to determine the presence of role strain, its causes and factors for a student leader. The researcher attempted to discover if student leaders are aware of roles strain in his roles, if some of the causes may be determined from the family, academics, organizations, and other internal and/or external factors affecting the student leader. Furthermore, the concept of efficiency was examined in relation to role strain, with both it’s positive and negative effects and affect. There were two groups of respondents. The first were tire incumbent USC officers from UP Manila and totaled 15 respondents. Second were samples of students currently enrolled in this semester from the four largest colleges (CAS, CM, CAMP, CP) and totaled 115 respondents. The researcher used a self-constructed questionnaire to gather basic information from the respondents and in turn, used tire answers to conduct in-depth interviews with the USC officers to complete data gathering for the study. A qualitative method was primarily used as a research design of the study, with a quantitative method used only for data on the regular students. Descriptive methods were used to learn more about the factors of role strain and tire relation of efficiency. The study established that role taking and role making for the different roles occur in varied times and varied intensities. That families of those respondents who get adequate familial support have adjusted their interaction with their son/daughter and for those who receive less than adequate familial support, the family has not or does not want to adjust their interaction with their son/daughter to accommodate their role as student leader. Role strain between the respondents’ role as student leader and the other roles that are part of the respondent are real and affect every respondent’s infusion of importance into their respective roles. The stand of those who disagreed with the statement regarding academics as an indicator of being a good leader to be more on the non-academic factors of being a good leader, while those who did agree lay more with the academic pari, titan as a student leader. Respondents have shown that the balance of roles is interpreted and reinterpreted with regards to the current situation. That the three general definitions of efficiency were: “giving it your best shot and making sure it’s perfect as you can make it”, “doing the job with the least amount of energy or input with the best results/greater outcomes within the time limit” and, “doing the job with the least amount of energy or input with the best results/greater outcomes”. Lastly, it was shown that those who opted to look at a task as a process-based exercise place more importance upon the behavior of others in-relation to their tasks while those who looked at a task and are primarily concerned with the result, they place more importance into getting the job done.