Pastoral Care in Education. The Journal for Pastoral Care and Personal and Social Education., vol.23, no.1, pp.34-45, 2005 (Scopus)
The research reported in this paper aimed to examine the relationships between decision- making behaviours, self-esteem, and the perceived problem-solving skills of adolescents and to investigate the contributions of self-esteem and perceived problem-solving skills in predicting decision-making behaviours (decision response styles, decisional self-esteem, and decisional stress). Another aim of the study was to investigate whether there is a difference in the decision-making behaviours of adolescents considering gender and school type. For this purpose, Decision Behaviour Questionnaire, Self-Esteem Inventory, and Problem-Solving Inventory were administered to 511 adolescents (276 females and 235 males) in Turkish high schools. The findings revealed that decisional behaviours were positively correlated with self-esteem and problem solving. At the same time, selfesteem (general, social, academic, and home/ family) and problem-solving were significant predictors of decisional behaviours. There were significant differences in decisional behaviours according to gender and type of school.
Keywords: adolescence; decision-making behaviours; perceived problem-solving skills; self-esteem; gender; school type.