Karakter Güçleri Açısından Pozitif Gençlik Gelişiminin İncelenmesi

Abstract

This research has been conducted in order to adapt “Youth Inventory of Character Strengths and Virtues” to Turkish and to determine whether the character strengths of high school students predict their levels of positive youth development in the areas of subjective well-being, resilience and academic success. The study group consisted of 196314-19 year old adolescents who attend eigth different high schools in the city center of Bursa. The data of character strengths levels of students was collected with an adapted Turkish form of “Youth Inventory of Character Strengths and Virtues” which was developed by Peterson ve Seligman (2004) and Park ve Peterson (2006). The levels of subjective well being of students were determined by “The Subjective Well-being Scale”. To collect data regarding resiliency levels “The Student Resiliency Scale” was used. “The Human Values Scale” was used to determine criterion validity. Academic success levels were determined by a Personal Data Sheet. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences 16.0 and Lisrel 8.37 softwares were used for data analyses. Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Multiple Hierarchal Regression Analysis methods were carried out to process data. The significance level was .05 for all analyses. The construct validity of the adapted Youth Inventory of Character Strengths and Virtues was analyzed by Confirmatory Factor Analysis. The original construct of twenty four strengths subscales and six virtues dimensions of Youth Inventory of Character Strengths and Virtues were confirmed with good fit indices. Cronbach’s Alpha coefficients of Youth Inventory of Character Strengths and Virtues were found between .64-.85 for subscales and .80-.91 for virtues dimensions, while Test-Retest Reliability coefficients which was determined in two weeks interval .72-.85 for subscales and .84-.89 for virtues dimensions. According to this results, reliability and validity levels of Youth Inventory of Character Strengths and Virtues were sufficient. The results indicated that high school students’ character strengths of hope, love, zest, perspective, gratitude, citizenship, and forgiveness were significant predictors of subjective well-being. The hierarchical regression results also showed that olescents’ resiliency was significantly predicted by character strengths such as perseverance, hope, perspective, creativity, love of learning, social intelligence, forgiveness, zest, leadership, self-regulation, curiosity. Furthermore, decisiveness, entrepreneurship and communication, self-efficacy and hope and problem solving skills dimensions of resiliency were predicted significantly by different character strengths. In terms of academic success, character strengths such as love of learning, spirituality, zest, leadership, perseverance, curiosity, forgiveness were significant predictors. These findings were compared and discussed along with those of previous reseach conducted on character strengths, resiliency, subjective well being and academic success. In this respect, recommendations for future research and implications for researchers and practitioners were asserted.