Abstract
The purpose of this research was to determine the effect of social support on coping styles of earlyadolescents who participated in an organized camping program. The subjects were 36 (4th-9th grade) studentswho participated in a five-day camp program. The educational goal of the program was to develop participants'confidence, social skills, and environmental awareness through challenging activities in the naturalenvironments. The main activity in this program was a two-day river canoeing trip.“The Stress Coping Scale”developed by Miura, et al. (1997), “Scale of Expectancy for Social Support”developed by Shimada (1993) and“Camping Stress questionnaire”developed by the author were administered everyday during theprogram. The major findings include that“informational support”from the group members was related with thepositive coping styles with stress during the program activities (β=47, F (1, 130) =36.86, R2=.22, p<.001). On the other hand, “informational support”from the group counselor was related with the positive coping styleswith stress in the outdoor living situations (β=.63, F (1, 15) =12.63, R2=.46, p<.01). In addition, “emotionalsupport”from the group members was related with the positive coping styles with stress in the social settings (β=51, F (1, 22) =7.63, R2=.26, p<.05). The results suggest that the group counselors should adjust theirsupport style depending on the nature of the tasks, and current group dynamics in order to maximizeparticipants'learning.
