Long-term development of learning activity: Motivational,cognitive, and social interaction

Recent research on school learning has dealt only with cognitive aspects of the student activity. However, in typical learning and performance situations, the student is expected to cope with complex social and emotional challenges. We developed a theoretical model that describes typical patterns of coping strategies that students use in school situations. The dominating tendency of some students in school situations is task orientation. Such students are oriented to interpret and fulfill the demands of learning tasks. In contrast, other students are sensitive to the threat of failure and show ego-oriented coping strategies. A third group of students relies on social-dependence coping. Orientation tendencies originate in classroom situations, but are then continuously reproduced and reinforced in similar teaching interactions. A multimethod approach was used to test this theoretical model. Longitudinal case studies have demonstrated the cumulation and reinforcement processes of coping tendencies in teaching interactions. Classroom interaction studies have provided evidence of the strong interaction between cognitive processes and socioemotional orientation. Finally, intervention studies have shown that, to improve the use of cognitive strategies, coping strategies also have to be changed.     

Preliminary study on the role of alternative educational pathways in promoting the use of problem-focused coping strategies

Coping styles are generally considered to be environmentally driven. Up to now, research has mainly focused on family influences. However, some studies underline the effect of educational settings on the development of problem-focused coping strategies. Consistently with previous reports on the enhancement of autonomy and problem-solving in alternative schools, and the relationship established by self-determination theory between autonomy-supportive climates and positive coping, we hypothesized that alternative school students develop more problem-focused coping styles. This hypothesis was tested on 80 traditional school students and 50 alternative school students (Steiner, Montessori and New schools), during their last secondary school year, using the Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations (Endler & Parker, 1990a). We also assessed psychological factors which can influence coping styles measures (anxiety and depression), using the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (Spielberger, 1983), and the Beck Depression Inventory (Beck, Ward, Mendelson, Mock, & Erbaugh, 1961). The proportion of problem-focused coping strategies was compared in traditional and alternative settings, adjusting for potential confounding factors, using logistic regression. Results show that the proportion of students using predominantly problem-focused coping strategies is higher in the population of alternative schools. Directions for further research on alternative schools are highlighted concerning coping as well as autonomy-supportive class climates.     

The best years of our lives? Coping with stress predicts school grades,life satisfaction,and feelings about high school

This study examines whether problem-focused, emotion-focused, and avoidant coping strategies predict key outcomes in a sample of 354 high school students. The four outcomes considered are: academic achievement, life satisfaction, positive feelings towards school, and negative feelings towards school. Results demonstrate that coping incrementally predicts all four outcomes above and beyond the effects of the Big Five personality factors, vocabulary, and demographic variables. Incremental prediction is strongest for school feeling variables, where coping predicts 17.4% of the variance in positive feelings, and 15.9% of the variance in negative feelings. All three coping styles are important in predicting different outcomes: problem-focused coping predicts grades, life satisfaction, and positive feelings about school; emotion-focused coping predicts negative feelings only; and avoidant-focused coping predicts both positive and negative feelings about school. Results suggest that coping styles are an important variable for school outcomes, and that the effectiveness of different strategies differs depending on the outcome considered.     

Examining Prediction Models of Giving Up within a Resource-based Framework of Coping in Primary School Students with and without Learning Disabilities

This study tests a proposed model of coping outcomes for 290 primary school students in Years 5 and 6 (mean age = 11.50 years) with and without learning disabilities (LDs) within a resource-based framework of coping. Group-administered educational and intelligence tests were used to screen students for LDs. Students also completed a questionnaire measuring coping resources, namely student engagement and internal control as well as outcome measures of coping styles and inability to cope. Structural equation modelling revealed that student engagement promoted the use of productive coping strategies for both groups and that this relationship was partially mediated by internal control. Internal control also partially mediated the relationship between student engagement and non-productive coping for students without LDs. Furthermore, less reliance on productive and greater reliance on non-productive coping strategies, respectively, predicted more of a tendency to not cope or give up in both groups.     

Coping with career indecision: the role of courage and future orientation in secondary education students from Greek provincial cities

This study examined the relationships among courage, strategies of coping with career indecision, and future orientation in a sample of high school students. A total of 460 Greek adolescents from provincial cities participated in the study. The results indicated that courage indirectly predicted future orientation through productive coping strategies. The main conclusion refers to the fact that specific interventions could promote productive coping strategies and courage, which in turn, may foster the future orientation of adolescents to construct multiple positive occupational pathways, coping with various career and life decisions and, overall, orient themselves positively toward the future.

     

School stress, teachers' abusive behaviors, and children's coping strategies

OBJECTIVE: This paper presents the research study on school stress and the coping strategies children use in public schools in Poland. The main goals were to identify and investigate: (1) school stress components, its frequency and intensity, (2) its psychological and temperamental correlates and consequences, (3) students' coping strategies. METHOD: A field-correlative design was applied to test 271 students, between the ages of 13 and 14, using six questionnaires. School stressors and children's coping strategies were identified and analyzed on two separate questionnaires with open-ended questions. School stress scale investigated the frequency of stress components and the intensity of stress. Anxiety level was measured by standardized, Polish version of STAIC. Temperamental characteristics were tested by the standardized questionnaire STI-R/4. RESULTS: The most frequent stressors were teachers' abusive behaviors in the classroom teaching and assessment. Students' coping strategies, and their school results, were determined by the intensity of school stress, anxiety, and temperamental characteristic. CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrated teachers' psychological abuse as an important component of children's school stress. An over-abundant by the abuse, stress and anxiety subjects regulate their optimal level of stimulation and activation by using survival-coping strategies, destructive for their school achievements, and well-being.     

Coping with school failure: Development of the school failure coping scale

The present study describes the development of a self-report measure of coping with school failure for children and adolescents. A list of 56 items had been collected in the sample of 142 subjects aged from 9 to 18 years. The items were administered to 500 elementary and high school students. Factor analysis of the data produced seven coping strategies: Anger, Accepting Responsibility, Comfort and Forgetting, Seeking Social Support, Parents, Inadequate Reactions, and Disengagement. Internal consistencies were in the .59 to .76 range. Significant age effects were found for Accepting Responsibility, Comfort and Forgetting, and Parents, indicating that elementary school children, compared to high school students, accept greater responsibility, try harder to forget and take comfort, and seek help more from their parents. Significant gender effects were found for Accepting Responsibility, Seeking Social Support, and Inadequate Reactions, indicating that girls accept greater responsibility, more often use social support, and have fewer inadequate reactions than boys. Overall pattern of results also suggests that high achievers use more positive coping strategies (mainly accepting responsibility) and less negative strategies (anger, inadequate reactions and disengagement) than low or average achievers.     

UNDERSTANDING STUDENT STRESS AND COPING IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL: A MIXED‐METHOD,LONGITUDINAL STUDY

This mixed‐method, longitudinal study examined daily school stress and coping strategies of elementary schoolchildren in the United States. Students (n = 65) between the ages of 7 and 11 years reported daily school stress measures for 8 weeks and completed individual stress and coping interviews. Results highlight critical relations between students’ exposure to daily stress at school, their stress appraisals and future expectations, and usage of coping strategies. Students reported limited preparedness in their ability to cope with daily stress in socially appropriate, effective ways; their accounts may have valuable implications for academic success and personal well‐being. Recommendations for educational practice and future research are discussed.     

The relationship between perceptions of the classroom goal structure and early adolescents' affect in school: The mediating role of coping strategies

This study investigates the relations among students' perceptions of the goal structure in the classroom, the self-report of coping strategies, and affect in school. We hypothesized that perceptions of a task goal structure would be associated with positive coping strategies, and in turn with positive affect; and that perceptions of an ability goal structure would be associated with projective coping, denial coping, and noncoping, and in turn with negative affect. In addition, the study takes note of hypothesized reciprocal relations among all these variables. Using a longitudinal design, surveys were administered to 880 students from 4 ethnically and economically diverse school districts in the fall and spring of the 5th grade in elementary school, and in the fall and spring of the 6th grade in middle school. The findings support the hypothesized relations as well as some reciprocal relations among these variables. The findings also indicate that perceptions of the classroom goal structure were more stable within an environment than across environments, thus supporting the role of environmental characteristics in these perceptions.     

Visual,algebraic and mixed strategies in visually presented linear programming problems

Linear programming problems were presented, in a predominantly visual setting, to high school students who were not acquainted with any specific methods for solving such problems. The strategies developed by the students for coping with these problems were identified and classified. Visual strategies were developed more frequently than either algebraic or mixed ones. In many cases, these visual strategies were unsophisticated. Providing the students with a visual solution tool (a level curve of the target function) did not lead to significant changes.     

A coping-oriented group intervention for students waiting to undergo secondary school transition: Effects on coping strategies,self-esteem,and social anxiety symptoms

To facilitate students’ transition into secondary school, a coping-oriented group program was designed. Pre- and posttest data from three intervention groups conducted over the course of 5 weeks were combined for a total of 56 sixth-grade students waiting to undergo school transition. There was also a test–retest control group (n = 26). Results indicate that completion of the intervention led to a significant decrease on scales measuring self-reported social anxiety symptoms. There was also a significant increase in intervention participants’ self-reported self-esteem, likeability, adherence to social rules, and frequency of active coping strategies, compared with the control group. Furthermore, a regression analysis showed that change in the self-reported use of active coping strategies predicted change in social anxiety symptoms for the intervention group. However, no significant change in self-reported use of passive-avoidant coping was observed. We conclude that facilitating effective coping with stress may provide a highly beneficial perspective toward designing transition groups, that may also lead to a significant reduction in social anxiety symptoms in adolescents waiting to undergo secondary school transition.     

Exploring school stress in middle childhood: interpretations,experiences, and coping

With increased academic and social challenges at school, middle childhood can be a particularly stressful time. The present study explored how a sample of children from a supportive learning environment interpreted, experienced and reported coping with everyday stress at school. Using a phenomenological approach, third graders attending an elementary school in the United States participated in semi-structured interviews in which they could discuss the nature of stress, stressful moments at school, and their responses to different situations. Despite nearly optimal learning conditions, child reports included a range of school stressors. Children’s interpretations of ‘stress’ seemed inextricably linked to their learning and social obstacles at school; those daily experiences were further linked to coping strategies. The discussion section emphasises the importance of understanding how children interpret and report stress and coping, and how pastoral care can support young students.     

提升大学生网络求职风险能力教育的研究

伴随着网络求职模式的蓬勃发展,大学生在网络求职过程中存在的风险也随之而来,而思想政治教育以其特有的功能在大学生网络求职过程中发挥着巨大的作用,是一种应对风险的有效策略。网络求职中存在的风险对于大学生具有双重作用,在此基础上提出大学生自身和学校思想政治教育工作如何帮助提升大学生在网络求职中抵御风险能力的对策。     

Thinking styles and academic stress coping among Chinese secondary school students

Abstract

This study investigated the predictive power of thinking styles for academic stress coping. Participants were 563 (280 males, 275 females, 8 gender unspecified) secondary school students in grades 7 through 12 from mainland China. Thinking styles were measured using the Thinking Styles Inventory-Revised II which was based on the theory of mental self-government. Coping strategies were measured by the COPE-Revised, which was derived from Carver’s COPE (1989). Results showed that thinking styles had statistically significant predictive power for academic stress-coping strategies beyond age and gender, largely in the expected directions. Theoretical implications for research on intellectual styles and coping are discussed; and some practical implications for school teachers and students are proposed.     

Teaching Stress Management in Physical Education: A Quasi-Experimental Study with Vocational Students

The aim was to develop, implement, and evaluate a physical education-based coping training program for vocational students. Two vocational schools participated in the quasi-experimental pilot study (EPHECT I). One school received the intervention (intervention group: n?=?434), while the other school maintained regular physical education classes (control group: n?=?430). Repeated measures ANCOVAs were used to examine the effects on coping and perceived stress. Additionally, effects were compared among students who reported low versus elevated life satisfaction. Finally, the implementation rate was considered as a moderating factor. Overall, no significant time by group effects were found between the intervention group and the control group. However, a reduction in maladaptive coping occurred among students of the intervention group who reported low life satisfaction. The implementation rate did not moderate the findings. Despite a relatively low implementation rate, the intervention program reduced maladaptive coping strategies in adolescents with low life satisfaction. Program monitoring needs to be increased in future research.     

西北民族地区中学生生活事件和应对方式对学习倦怠的影响

采用青少年生活事件量表、应对方式问卷、学习倦怠量表对西北少数民族地区1300名中学生进行调查,探讨少数民族地区中学生生活事件和应对方式对学习倦怠的影响及其机制。研究结果表明,西北少数民族地区中学生的学习倦怠处于较低的水平,学习压力对学习倦怠有非常显著的预测作用,自责对学习倦怠的解释量最大,生活事件不仅直接作用于学习倦怠,同时还通过应对方式对学习倦怠产生影响,模型拟合度较好。研究还就如何改善学生的学习倦怠提出了对策,如应减轻中学生课业负担、加强对中学生应对方式的训练等。     

Students' level of boredom,boredom coping strategies,epistemic curiosity,and graded performance

The authors examined the relationships among students' levels of boredom, boredom coping strategies, epistemic curiosity, and graded performance regarding mathematics lessons, with the intention to explore the mediating roles of boredom coping strategies and epistemic curiosity in the relationship between the level of boredom and graded performance. A total of 557 students from a small city located in the Western Black Sea region of Turkey voluntarily participated in the study. Of them, 211 enrolled in an Anatolian high school and 346 enrolled in a science high school. Results showed that the level of boredom, boredom coping strategies, epistemic curiosity, and graded performance were significantly related to each other. Results also showed that deprivation-type epistemic curiosity and interest-type epistemic curiosity played significant mediating roles in the relationship between the level of boredom and graded performance. Notably, the mediating roles of interest-type epistemic curiosity and deprivation-type epistemic curiosity differed across gender groups.     

“‘Sink or swim’: buoyancy and coping in the cognitive test anxiety – academic performance relationship”

This study explores the relationship between students’ self-report levels of cognitive test anxiety (worry), academic buoyancy (withstanding and successfully responding to routine school challenges and setbacks), coping processes and their achieved grades in high-stakes national examinations at the end of compulsory schooling. The sample comprised 325 English students in their final year of secondary school preparing for high-stakes examinations. While controlling for prior attainment and gender, higher worry predicted lower examinations scores. This was partially mediated by less use of effective pre-exam coping strategies. Academic buoyancy moderated the indirect relationship such that the indirect negative relationship from worry to examination performance was stronger when academic buoyancy was lower. The paper concludes that providing in-school training in task-focus and orientation and how to withstand academic pressures may help to ameliorate the influence of performance-interfering worries, and potentially enhance performance among students inclined to worry about examinations.     

中学生自尊、应对方式与关系欺负的关系研究

研究目的在于探讨中学生自尊、应对方式与关系欺负之间的关系及应对方式在其中的中介作用。采用自尊量表、中学生应对方式量表、自我编制中学生关系欺负量表,随机抽取392名中学生进行调查研究。结果表明:1.应对方式在性别和年级上存在显著差异;自尊、关系欺负总分在年级上有显著差异。2.自尊水平、应对方式与关系欺负水平存在密切相关。3.自尊对关系欺负总分有显著的负向预测作用,应对方式在自尊与关系欺负之间起部分中介作用。     

Generalized achievement goals and situational coping in inquiry learning

This study examined situation-specific coping strategies of students with different achievement goals as they take part in inquiry learning. A case study was conducted in a Finnish elementary school. 21 ten-year-old students participated in the study. Two types of data were collected: (1) Students self-reported questionnaires on achievement goals, (2) Video data on the students' learning processes and social interaction. The results revealed the importance of a situative perspective in instructional design, since the students not only differed in their coping attempts regarding their initial goals but also according to their individual situational interpretations that mediated their active coping attempts. Some of the non-learning-focused students had difficulties engaging in the working procedures. A lack of teacher's concrete and precise guidance in both cognitive and motivational sense appeared to explain this phenomenon.