An investigation of the relationship between coping with stress and test anxiety according to some variables in adolescent candidates of the university entrance examination

Coping with stress and test anxiety are two main concepts that play an important role in the preparation process for The University Entrance Examination. Coping with stress states how those adolescent candidates deal with problems and test anxiety stands for the level and causes of anxiety they experience. In the preparation process for the exam, the candidates? struggle with their stress and anxiety has a close relationship with their success at the exam. The research has been done on 471 students- 319 female and 152 male adolescents- from various preparation courses in Istanbul. The data were collected by using The Inventory of Coping with Stress Attitudes (Özbay 1993), Test Anxiety Scale (Batlas 1990?) and personal information forms. The demographic variables, the attitudes of coping with stress and test anxiety are analyzed through frequency distribution. The differences between the attitudes of coping with stress and test anxiety in terms of demographic factors are analyzed through one way variance analysis. The relationship between the attitudes of coping with stres, test anxiety The demographic variables is analyzed by using correlation. Finally, t-test is used for analyzing the differences between the attitudes of coping with stress and test anxiety in relation to the candidates? gender. It has been observed that all of the collected data support the presumptions stated in the hypothesis. As expected, meaningful differences are found in terms of coping with stress and test anxiety of the university candidates in relation to their demographic characteristics. It has also been observed that female candidates are more successful in adopting the attitude of coping with stress and test anxiety when compared to male candidates. The data is discussed in terms of the hypothesis.