INVESTIGATING TURKISH MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENTS' COPING STRATEGIES IN SCIENCE

Abstract

This study aimed at investigating firstly, whether gender differences exist in Turkish middle school students' use of coping strategies in science classes, and secondly, whether there are mean level differences in students' positive coping, projective coping, denial coping, and non-coping when they face an academic failure in science. For this purpose Academic Coping Inventory, were administered to 997 7th grade elementary students. The findings suggest that there is no significant difference between girls and boys in terms of using coping strategies when they face an academic failure in science. Further, overall, Turkish middle school students tend to use positive coping strategies or non-coping strategies when they face an academic failure in science. In other words, they try to find what they did wrong, and they study hard for the next time, and they tend to blame themselves for the failure.