The aim of this study was to assess the effects of Coping with stress curriculum (Bakarčić, 2005) on coping strategies and goal orientations in primary school pupils. The program Coping with stress was realized through eight workshops during two months in which pupils studied and practiced strategies and skills of successful coping with stress induced by a bad grade. 45 pupils, aged from 9 to 10 participated in the study (45 in control and 45 in experimental groups). At the beginning and the end of the program, two questionnaires were administered: Goal Orientation Scale (Niemivirta, 1996) measuring learning, performance and work-avoidance orientation and The School Failure Coping Scale (Rijavec & Brdar, 2002) measuring coping strategies – problem solving, emotional reactions, forgetting-distraction, asking help from parents and social support. Two-way analyses of variance showed that the group which participated in the program had significantly higher results on problem-solving as coping strategy and scored higher on performance orientation. It seems that the program was effective in teaching students how to deal with stress by using successful coping strategies which probably resulted in lower levels of anxiety and increased tendency to learn in order to get better grades.

Psihologija