Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemFrom general coping orientation to task-specific responses: how does coping style influence self-efficacy, interest, and task performance?( 2006)Adolescence involves a number of challenges and stressors. To manage the demands that confront them, adolescents draw on their coping resources. The main purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships between general coping styles and task specific responses in a sample of Australian high 'school students. An interactive computer program presented students with the Adolescent Coping Scale (ACS) - Short Form (Frydenberg & Lewis, 1993a) and two problem-based curriculum tasks: the first task required students to make recommendations to their school council about the types of food that should be sold in their school canteen; the second task invited students to write a letter to their local politician stating whether charges should be put on plastic bags in their local supermarket. The ACS was used to measure students' use of 18 coping strategies. A principal component analysis of the ACS was performed to determine the coping styles represented by students in this sample. As well as recording students' ACS responses, the computer program recorded students' task selection, task specific self-efficacy, levels of situational interest immediately before and immediately after the task, and task solutions in their real-time sequence. All solutions were subsequently scored by two independent scorers. In confirmation of previous studies investigating the coping strategies used by adolescents, female students reported more use of the coping strategy, social support than male students, and older students reported more use of the strategy tension reduction than younger students. It was also found that male students reported greater use of the strategy invest in close friends than female students, and younger students reported greater use of the strategy wishful thinking than older students. The principal component analysis of the ACS showed that two factors described the students' coping styles, a maladaptive coping style and an adaptive coping style. This study identified a number of paths linking coping styles with task-specific responses. Importantly, the results revealed that maladaptive coping style was negatively associated with self-efficacy, and that adaptive coping style was positively associated with self-efficacy and situational interest at both points. In addition, self-efficacy was positively associated with situational interest before the task, which, in turn, was positively associated with task performance and situational interest after the task. These findings provide a unique insight into the relationships between adolescent coping orientations and responses to a specific task, and have clear implications for programs that attempt to enhance the coping skills of young people.