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Makale Özeti:
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Bu araştırmada, psikolojik danışmanlık ve rehberlik lisans programı öğrencilerinin ölüme ilişkin kaygı düzeylerinin cinsiyet ve sınıf değişkenine göre incelenmesi amaçlanmıştır. Araştırma verileri Ondokuz Mayıs Üniversitesi Eğitim Fakültesi Eğitim Bilimleri Psikolojik Danışmanlık ve Rehberlik lisans programında öğrenim gören 92’si birinci sınıf, 102’si ikinci sınıf, 71’i üçüncü sınıf, 140’ı dördüncü sınıf toplam 405 öğrenciden 2010-2011 eğitim ve öğretim yılı bahar döneminde toplanmıştır. Veri toplama aracı olarak “Kişisel Bilgi Formu” ve “Ölüm Kaygısı Ölçeği” uygulanmıştır. Verilerin analizinde “t testi” ve “tek yönlü varyans analizi” kullanılmıştır. Çalışmanın sonuçları incelendiğinde, ölüm kaygısı puanlarının cinsiyet değişkenine göre istatistiksel olarak anlamlı düzeyde farklılaştığı görülmüştür.
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Alternatif Dilde Özet:
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Death is a phenomenon occupying the mind which individuals face throughout their lives. Every individual explains death from their own points of view. This explanation process influence individuals psychologically and socially. Some individuals perceive death as an ultimate end and some see it as liberation while some individuals are terribly afraid of and anxious about death. It is necessary to psychologically support those individuals experiencing death anxiety whose lives, therefore, are adversely affected. Psychological counsellors professionally involved in humanitarian assistance work with clients who experience several problems. Those clients may be individuals whose lives are adversely affected by intense death anxiety, or their relatives. Those individuals need to be psychologically supported to lead a good quality life. To psychologically help those individuals who experience extreme death anxiety, and whose quality of life, as result, is adversely affected is critical to increase the quality of life. Counsellors should provide psychological support for those individuals whose mood is negatively affected to have them improve their psychological state. Counsellors should determine the feelings and opinions related to death so that they will experience an effective counselling process together with their clients and provide effective psychological support, which will also lead counsellor to analyse themselves.
This research aims to examine the levels of death anxiety of the undergraduate students of psychological counselling and guidance in terms of the variables gender and grade levels. The sample group of this descriptive research consists of 405 students studying at Ondokuz Mayıs University, Faculty of Education, Department of Psychological Counselling and Guidance in the Spring Term 2010-2011.
The data collection tools were “the Personal Information Form” for determining the characteristics of gender and grade levels and “the Death Anxiety Scale” translated into Turkish by Akca and Kose (2008). The scale’s score interval changes from zero to five, which means that as the scores increase, so do the levels of death anxiety.
The dependent variable of this research was death anxiety score while gender and grade levels are the independent variables. T- Test was used to determine whether students’ point averages related to their levels of death anxiety differ by the gender variable. “One way variance of analysis” was used to whether students’ point averages related to their levels of death anxiety differ by the grade levels.
The analysis results indicate that the death anxiety scores of female and male students significantly differ by gender (p < . 01). In his study, Abdel-Khalek (2003) discovered that men thought about death more often than women, however, women felt more negative emotions about death. Many studies on gender and death accordingly suggested that women experienced greater death anxiety than men (Erdogdu & Ozkan, 2007; Tang, Wu, & Yan, 2002; Ayten, 2009; Tang et al., 2011). Descriptive statistics obtained from the adaptation study of the Death Anxiety Scale showed that women experienced higher levels of death anxiety than men (Akca & Kose, 2008). In his study on adolescents, Cotter (2003) similarly discovered that females experienced greater death anxiety than males. All the studies above mentioned appear to confirm the findings of our research. The fact that females experience greater death anxiety than males during adolescence clearly indicates the relationship of gender to death anxiety. This fact shows parallelism with individuals’ mental development and learning (Sezer & Saya, 2009).
Another finding was that death anxiety point averages of the students did not differ significantly among groups in terms of gender (F = 1.890, p > .05). Although the death anxiety point averages of first graders (X = 8.19), of second graders (X = 8.66), of third graders (X = 9.04) and of fourth graders (X = 8.02) were different from each other, this difference was not significant (t = 0.13, p > .05). In his study on university students, Yildiz (2006) accordingly discovered that university education was effective in neither increasing nor decreasing death anxiety, and that although the death anxiety point averages of the first grade students of the Divinity School were higher than those of the fourth graders, the difference was not significant. This research findings show parallelism with ours in that the difference was not significant although the death anxiety levels of first grade students were higher than those of fourth graders. The reason that both researches have same results may be attributed to the effect of the characteristics of adolescence. As is known, adolescence is characterized as a psychologically stormy period during which adolescents continuously struggle with their parents as well as themselves, feel apprehension and intense anxiety, and behave inconsistently (Yorukoglu, 1993). As the research findings suggest, adolescents consider death as termination of existence and think that they will miss out on life’s pleasures, and thus experience fear and anxiety (Yildiz, 2006; Hokelekli, 1991b).
In conclusion, death anxiety is a phenomenon which raises difficulties for professionals serving in psychological counselling services. This research discusses death anxiety of counsellor candidates in terms of several variables.
Following suggestions can be made in the light of the research findings: Studies should be conducted to raise counsellor candidates’ awareness of death anxiety. Psychological counselling environments where female students experiencing high level of death anxiety can face and express their emotions should be set up so that they will be helped to prepare for their future lives. Finally, further researches should be carried out with different variables in a different sample group.
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