Abstract:

In the present research it was examined whether loneliness level, body image, academic achievement, grade, faculty, gender, age variables would predict the life orientation level of university students. The sample four faculties of Mersin University (134 students from faculty of Education, 150 from faculty of Engineering, 144 sophomore, 128 junior and 35 senior students). The mean age of the sample was 21.26 with a standard deviation of 2.17 (ranged between 17 and 33). The data related with life orientation were gathered by the Life Orientation Test developed by Scheier and Carver (1987) and adapted to Turkish culture by Aydın and Tezer (1991). The data related with loneliness were gathered UCLA Loneliness scale developed by Russel, Peplau and Ferguson (1978) and adapted to Turkish culture by Demir (1989), and also the data of body image were gathered by Body Image subscale of Offer Self Image Questionnaire developed by Offer, Ostrov, Howard and Atkinson (1989) and adapted to Turkish culture by Şahin (1993). To examine whether loneliness, body image, grade, faculty, gender, age and academic achievement predicted the life orientation, stepwise multiple regression analysis was administered to the data and three significant model were observed (body image (F=70.595; df=399;1, p=0.000),gender (F=38.272: sd=399;2, p=0.000) and grade (F=27.271, sd=399;3, p=0.000)). The results showed that body image predicted 15.1 % of the variation among life orientation. Additionally, gender (1.1 %) and grade (0.9 %) also predicted the variation among life orientation. Faculty, age, academic achievement and loneliness did not predict the life orientation. The results were discussed related with gender differences and the effect of educational process to the behavioral development of individual. Key words : Orientation, optimism, body image, loneliness.

Keywords: