Year: 2009
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: This study examined year seven students' proactive coping, self-efficacy and social support seeking. Proactive coping was defined as a behaviour where obstacles are seen as a challenge. In proactive coping, individuals set goals, build up resources and regulate their behaviour to achieve the goals. Self-efficacy can be seen as people's beliefs about their capabilities. Social support seeking was divided into instrumental support seeking and emotional support seeking. According to the theoretical frame of this study self-efficacy and social support seeking were seen as resources to proactive coping (Greenglass 2002). The participants were 445 year seven students (Mo= 13 years) from seven secondary schools. The data was collected in March-May 2008. The survey consisted 37 Likert-scaled items from the Proactive Coping Inventory and from the General Self-Efficacy Scale. The survey consisted of four scales: Proactive Coping, Instrumental Support Seeking, Emotional Support Seeking and General Self-Efficacy. The participants' age, gender and studying in specialist streams were asked as background information. As a result, most of the participants (62 % girls, 38 % boys) reported fairly strong proactive coping: they can see obstacles as a challenge and they set goals and regulate their behaviour to achieve the goals. Most of the participants reported that they seek instrumental and emotional support when having troubles. Girls reported more social support seeking than did boys and the mean difference was statistically significant. Most of the participants had fairly high sense of self-efficacy. However, 4 % of the participants reported that they don't believe in their capabilities. Some of these participants reported that they neither use proactive coping nor seek informational or emotional support when having troubles. Proactive coping correlated positively with self-efficacy and with social support seeking. In this study self-efficacy and social support seeking explained 47 % of proactive coping. It was discussed that children's high sense of self-efficacy and social relationships can act as protective factors in transition to secondary school. When supporting children's self-efficacy and social relationships one also assists children's proactive coping. Proactive coping can be seen to support children's personal growth.
Source: Työväentutkimus Vuosikirja
Author: Sanna Leino
Language: Finnish
Topic: Student Stress and Coping
Subfield: Developmental and Educational Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1551066894