THE STYLES OF COPING WITH STRESS AMONG THE STUDENTS STUDYING AT THE SCHOOLS WHICH ADMIT THE STUDENTS WITH A SPECIAL TALENT EXAM

The purpose of the research was to determine the styles of coping with stress among the students studying at the schools which admit the students with a special talent exam. The scope of the research involved the schools which admit the students with a special talent exam, the sample group included total 413 students; 226 males, 187 females, having education at the Faculty of Sport Sciences (SBF), the Dilek Sabancı Conservatory (DSK) and the Faculty of Fine Arts (GSF) in Selçuk University. Firstly, a personal information form and the Ways of Coping Questionnaire (WCQ) developed by Folkman and Lazarus (1980) and created as a short form by Şahin and Durak (1995) were used. By testing the homogeneity and variance of data, the Independent Sample t-test for the gender factor, the One Way Anova for multiple comparisons, the Tukey test for the resources of differences were applied. The Cronbach alpha value was determined to be 0,76 for the Coping Questionnaire. Depending on the gender factor; statistically significant differences were observed in all of sub-dimensions to cope with stress among the SBF, DSK and GSF students (P<0.05). Given the school types, there was a lower point in the SBF student averages concerning the desperation dimension rather than the other two schools as there was a higher average in the Conservatory students’ optimism dimension rather than the other two schools, a lower average in their social support points, these differences were regarded to be statistically significant (P<0.05). In accordance with the school type, differences between active and passive coping strategies did not have stable changes and any specific situation was not observed in the school type. This situation can result from the specific exam criteria and the ability and measurement techniques of the schools which admit the students with a special talent exam.