Coping with social issues: what Australian university students do

This paper investigates the extent of student concern about social issues and the strategies used by young adults to cope with their concerns. Students from three faculties at the University of Melbourne responded to a range of social issues by recording their coping actions on an 80-item instrument which identifies 18 coping strategies. The strategies were examined for differences among subgroups of respondents. Between- subject comparison groups were gender and faculty (Psychology, Medicine and Education). Within- subject comparisons were made on the proximity of concern (personal and global). While no significant main effects were found for gender, there were significant faculty differences with Psychology students indicating the highest level of use of the strategy in each case. Furthermore significant differences were found between strategies adopted in relation to personal and global concerns. As predicted, respondents used more problem- solving strategies in relation to personal concerns than global concerns. Only one interaction was statistically significant. For Ignore the Problem, the highest scores among males were recorded by Medical students, and among females by Education students. The findings have methodological significance in that they demonstrate that differences exist between bodies of students with different disciplinary foci, and accounting for such within-group variability increases the statistical power of determining coping behaviours in particular contexts.