In the educational process comparative examination of the psychological traits of medical faculty students with engineering faculty students

In this study, the levels of basic personality traits, emotional intelligence factors, life satisfaction and coping styles of students of medical and engineering faculties were researched. Medical and engineering faculties, which are based on two different scientific fields, differ from each other in many aspects such as educational processes and materials used in education. In this research, it was explored whether there were differences in the levels of psychological traits of these students with similar cognitive skills studying at two different faculties and the possible effects of the educational process on these traits. The relationship between students' psychological traits and their school achievement was probed. In this way, the relationship between the education of two different faculties and students' psychological traits was examined in detail. The study, which is a survey research, includes the 1st and 5th graders of the Faculty of Medicine and the 1st and 4th graders studying in the Computer, Electrical-Electronic and Artificial Intelligence departments of the Faculty of Engineering at Hacettepe University in the 2021-2022 academic year. It was carried out with the voluntary participation of 341 out of 1563 students. "Basic Personality Traits Scale, Life Satisfaction Scale, Emotional Intelligence Trait Scale, Coping Styles Scale" were used in it. Data were collected electronically using the questionnaire method and analyzed with SPSS program. Statistical significance level was accepted as p<0.05. According to the results of the study, medical faculty students' conscientiousness, neuroticism, life satisfaction, well-being, emotion focused coping and social support coping scale scores are higher than engineering faculty students. Life satisfaction and emotion focused coping levels of 1st graders of medical faculty are higher than 1st graders of engineering faculty. While extraversion, self-discipline, emotionality and sociability levels of 5th year medical students are higher than the 1st year medical students, the levels of negative valence and emotion focused coping are lower. In addition, 5th grade medical students' self-control and emotionality levels are higher than 4th grade engineering students. Problem focused coping levels of 4th year engineering students are higher than 1st year engineering students. Conscientiousness and life satisfaction levels of 1st year medical students with low GPA (grade points average) are lower than more successful students. While conscientiousness levels of 5th year medical faculty students with low GPA is lower than those of more successful students, their sociability levels are higher. Scale scores of psychological traits of engineering faculty students do not differ significantly according to their GPA. Conscientiousness and neuroticism variables have a significant effect on GPA of all medical students participating in the study and conscientiousness, negative valence and life satisfaction variables have a significant effect on GPA of 1st year medical students. It has been determined that when the levels of these traits increase, students' success scores scale up. The most powerful variable affecting success is conscientiousness. It has not been determined that predictive effect of psychological traits on the success levels of students in the other groups in this study (at the grade level; medicine 5th year, engineering 1st, 4th years and at the faculty level all engineering faculty students) is found. Based on these results, it was concluded that medical education was related to the psychological traits examined within the scope of the study.