Chapter 1: Adolescent Coping Styles and Task-Specific Responses: Does Style Foreshadow Action?

This chapter begins by exploring the links between personality traits and coping styles. In doing so, we propose that the conceptualization of coping as a style offers important insights for educational practitioners. Whereas personality traits are generally stable and resistant to change, coping styles develop in response to specific situations and can be modified with training. However, before educational interventions are developed, coping styles must be shown to be predictive of student task-specific responses. To this end, we describe a study that examined the influence of coping styles on student responses during a problem-solving task. How does coping style affect students' on-task thoughts, feelings, and actions?