The Analysis of Decision Making Behaviors and Perceived Problem Solving Skills in Adolescents
Abstract
The aim of the study is to analyze decisional self-esteem, decisional stress and perceived problem-solving skills of secondary education students and to find out whether there is a significant difference in adolescent’s decision-making behaviors, and problem-solving skills from the aspect of some socio-demographic variables (gender, age, school type and education level of the parents). For this purpose, 498 subjects (273 female, 255 male) from secondary education students were given The Scale of Decision Making Behaviors (Radford, Mann, Ohta and Nakane, 1993) and Problem-Solving Inventory (Heppner and Petersen, 1982).
According to the findings of the study, significant differences were observed among male and female adolescents considering decisional self-esteem and decisional stress, but on the other hand, no difference was observed when their perceived problem-solving skills were considered. Gender and school type were found to be as effective variables on the behaviors of decision-making and also the school type and the education level the mothers were found to be as effective variables on perceived problem-solving skills. The study has indicated that students from private schools are more skillful in cognitive processes such as decision-making and problem-solving than the students from Anatolian high-schools and State-high schools.