Stress is one of the global phenomena faced by most of the tertiary level students in the world. Academic stress is especially high among students who study complex, and rapidly changing technological programs such as SE (Software Engineering). When the pressure of academia is high students tend to use different stress management strategies. Yet, there have been very limited attempt in investigating whether stress management is integrated with curriculums. The main aim of this study is to investigate current stress coping strategies used by SE undergraduates in Sri Lanka and to investigate the extent of its curriculum integration.

Explanatory sequential design was used in the study which includes quantitative analysis followed by qualitative analysis. First the theoretical framework and hypothesis were formed. Next using a questionnaire, quantitative data were collected from 216 students studying SE in Sri Lanka. They were analyzed using IBM SPSS version 27 and IBM AMOS version 26 software. Qualitative data were gathered using interviews among 15 SE lectures with teaching experience of more than 5 years. Data analysis was conducted using Grounded Theory.

Results indicated that, most prominent stress coping strategy is social support followed by problem focus coping, emotion focus coping, and behavioral coping. Results stated that female students reported higher usage of emotion focus coping, avoidance coping, and behavioral coping compared to male students. Year 1 students showed a relatively higher use of behavioral coping compared to all other years. The usage of social support increases and usage of cognitive coping declines with student progression. Students perceive social support as the most integrated strategy and avoidance coping as the least integrated strategy with a significant variability. Confirmatory factor analysis reported significant factor loadings for all indicating that the study instrument measures the concepts as expected. Pearson correlation results indicated that there is no significant relationship between modules and integration of stress management revealing the lack of a structured inclusion of stress management in SE curriculums. Qualitative study emerged 4 key themes, such as, stress management is largely missing as a formal part of the curriculum, students face intense academic pressures, institutional efforts to support well-being are inconsistent, and the necessity of an effective, standardized stress management programs.

First recommendation is to integrate stress management as a core competency in software engineering curricula via updating existing soft skill modules to have stress management components, adding stress management components to core technical modules, and developing intervention programs for year 1 students. Next is to increase institutional support by establishing dedicated well-being centers, integrating stress management into digital learning platforms, financial investment in faculty training and research, and institutional commitment to well-being in academic policies. Recommendations on faculty training includes initiating faculty awareness programs, training on supportive teaching strategies and initiating early intervention training programs. Findings and recommendations of the study provides actionable insights to all students, educators, institutes, and policy makers as they help in emerging an effective SE curriculum which aims at developing a holistic individual.

Keywords: Software Engineering, Education, Stress Coping, Curriculum Support.