Self-Efficacy and Academic Stress among Indonesian Undergraduate Students of the Strawberry Generation: The Moderating Role of Peer Academic Support

Students from the strawberry generation frequently face significant academic pressure, necessitating an examination of the impact of self-efficacy and peer academic support on stress management. This study investigated the relationship between self-efficacy and academic stress among Indonesian undergraduate students, commonly referred to as the strawberry generation. Through a quantitative approach, this study is a correlational design with no experimental application to test whether the self-efficacy of strawberry generation students influences their academic stress and how academic support from peers increases or decreases the influence of the variables. Data were collected from 1,251 undergraduate students aged 18–23 years via an online questionnaire assessing self-efficacy (SE), academic stress (AS), and peer academic support (PAS). Data analysis utilized simple regression and ANOVA-based moderation regression within JASP software version 19.3.0. The results revealed a significantly, albeit weakly, negative association between self-efficacy and academic stress, suggesting that students with higher self-efficacy tend to report lower levels of academic stress. Despite a small explained variance (R² = 0.007), this finding underscores self-efficacy as a relevant psychological resource rather than a primary determinant of academic stress. Moderation regression analysis indicated that the interaction between self-efficacy and peer academic support was not significant (p = 0.105). This study contributes to a clearer understanding of the limited yet meaningful role of self-efficacy and questions the stress-buffering function of peer academic support.