Examination of Empathic Skills and Stress-Coping Levels of Students Playing on School Teams

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine the empathic skills and stress coping levels of students playing in school teams. A total of 204 individuals, 96 of whom were male (47.1%) and 108 of whom were female (52.9%), who were participating in school teams in secondary education and doing sports in Sirnak province, voluntarily participated in the study. In the study, the Empathy Scale developed by Baron-Cohen et al. (2004) and adapted into Turkish by Bora and Baysan (2009) and the Coping with Stress Scale developed by Turkum (2002) were used. The Cronbach Alpha internal consistency coefficient of the scales used in the study was examined and it was determined as .85 for the Empathy Scale and .82 for the Coping with Stress Scale. In this direction, the T-Test was used to determine the differences between demographic variables. However, Pearson Correlation analysis was used to determine the relationships between variables within the scope of the study. As a result, it has been observed that the average empathy score of licensed female individuals is higher than that of male individuals. When the t-test results were examined according to the licensed sports variable, a statistically significant difference was found in the sub-dimensions of cognitive empathy, empathic interest-sympathy, emotional response, and social competence. When the t-test results were examined according to the variable of coping with stress in the licensed sports variable, a statistically significant difference was found in the avoidance sub-dimension. Considering the Pearson-correlation analysis results regarding the relationship between the scales used in the study, it is seen that there are statistically significant results.