Psychological topics, Vol. 15 No. 1, 2006.
Original scientific paper
Age and Gender Differences in Coping with School- Related Stressful Situation in Adolescence
Barbara Kalebić Maglica
Abstract
During adolescence, young people encounter numerous changes in different areas of their life and it is extremely important for them to effectively deal with stress during this period. Many school-related social situations such as having or failing exams, high expectations of teachers, conflicts with teachers may be a source of stress for adolescents.
The aim of this study was to examine age and gender differences in coping strategies with school-related stressful situations, and to find out which situations are the main sources of stress for adolescents. The study was conducted on a sample of 545 elementary and high school students (356 females and 189 males), which were asked to recall the most stressful situation they experienced during the past month and evaluate how they coped with it.
The study gives insight to development of coping strategies through time as well as gender differences in dealing with school-related stress. The results show that age and gender exert main effect on emotion-focused coping, and age shows a main effect on avoidant coping. Females and students of the 7th and 1th grades use more emotion-focused coping, and young adolescents more avioidant coping. The main sources of stress in school are failing exams, conflicts with students in the classroom, with teachers, with parents, and unfair grading.
Keywords
Adolescence; gender and age differences in coping; school-related stress
Hrčak ID:
11830
URI
Publication date:
1.12.2006.
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