Exam situations coping skills among nursing school students
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.13112/pc.1027Keywords:
test anxiety, coping skills, studentsAbstract
Aim: The aim of the study was to investigate the ways of coping with the exam situation among students of the Mlinarska School of Nursing.
Methods: The study was conducted on a sample of 335 respondents from the School of Nursing from the first to the fifth grade. The Exam Coping Scale with four domains was used: 1. Emotion-focused coping (Cronbach alpha = 0.725), 2. Problem-focused coping (Cronbach alpha = 0.805), 3. Daydreaming/distraction coping (Cronbach alpha = 0.682) and 4. Help-seeking coping (Cronbach alpha = 0.820).
Results: The results show that the most pronounced domain is Problem-focused coping (median 3.5), while the least pronounced domain is Help-seeking coping (median 2.33). There were no significant differences between genders in coping methods. Students in lower grades tend to use fantasy/distraction more frequently as coping strategies, whereas the use of help-seeking strategies increases with grade level. Fifth-grade students use emotion-focused coping the least. In the results related to academic success, it was observed that students with excellent results use problem-focused coping more often.
Conclusions: Students use different strategies to cope with test anxiety, which depends on their age. Further research is needed to support students in developing effective coping strategies for test anxiety.
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