Győri-Dani Dóra

Jámbori Szilvia

University of Szeged

129 G3 – POSZTER SZEKCIÓ ÁPRILIS 24. (PÉNTEK) 15.00–16.30  Kiállítási tér DOES BILINGUAL EDUCATION AFFECT HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS’ MOOD, LEVEL OF ANXIETY, COPING MECHANISMS AND PERSONALITY TRAITS? Dóra Győri-Dani *, Szilvia Jámbori ** * Doctoral School of Education, University of Szeged ** University of Szeged, Institute of Psychology Keywords: bilingual education; depression, anxiety; coping strategies, personality Based on recent research (Prior & Mcwhinney, 2010; Festman, 2010), it is widely known that the development of bilingual individuals differs from that of monolinguals in many ways. One of the main differences is that bilinguals show advantages in the use of certain executive functions (EFs) (e.g. inhibition, shifting, monitoring). Prior and Macwhinney (2010) argued that bilinguals perform better on tasks requiring the application of EFs due to the excessive need to use these processes in a dual-language environment in order to operate between two languages. Bilingual education being increasingly popular these days, many recent studies (e.g. Bak et al., 2014) have turned their attention towards examining whether it has similar effects on the development of children as does early age bilingualism. However, though there is ample evidence (Enright et al., 1993; Salo et al., 2002; Coolidge et al., 2004; Joorman et al., 2010) indicating that individuals having better EFs also have better mood, lower level of anxiety, use more adaptive coping mechanisms and are more open and emotionally stable, most of the investigations only focus on cognitive differences. Thus, the aim of the present study was to examine if high school students participating in bilingual education differ from students attending English Special or Film and Media classes in their mood, level of anxiety, coping strategies and personality traits. A total of 261 students participated in the experiment, selected from three age-groups in all three education forms (creating nine experimental groups all together). The Beck Depression Inventory was administered to measure mood, the Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory was used to investigate students’ level of anxiety, the Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations to explore coping strategies and the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire to assess four basic personality dimensions. As part of the statistical analysis, Univariate ANOVA was used to examine age-group × education form interactions. The results show that there are differences between bilingual students and students studying in the two other education forms: while bilingual students in the youngest age-group show greater level of depression and anxiety, use more emotion oriented coping strategies, are less open and more emotionally instable, students in the oldest age-group have better mood, lower level of anxiety, use emotional oriented coping less frequently, are more open and emotionally more stable. Compared to this, an opposite pattern is found in children attending the English Special and Film and Media classes. These results have high educational and psychological relevance, suggesting that students studying in different forms of education not only differ in some cognitive abilities, but can also have distinctive psychological traits. Thus, it is important that future research does not concentrate solely on the cognitive aspects of development, but also considers taking a more holistic approach.    G3 

Does bilingual education affect high school students' mood, level of anxiety, coping mechanisms and personality traits?

http://acta.bibl.u-szeged.hu/61251/1/pek_2015_129.pdf

Does bilingual education affect high school students' mood, level of anxiety, coping mechanisms and personality traits?

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