Abstract:

The aim of this study is to examine the compassion levels of social work students according to some variables. Thereby, it will be revealed how compassion, one of the basic concepts of social work, is evaluated in terms of students studying in this field. The study group of the research consists of undergraduate students of social work departments studying at x Universities in the spring semester of 2019-2020. The data were collected through the information form prepared by the researchers and consisting of some demographic variables, and the "Compassion Scale" adapted into Turkish by Akdeniz and Deniz (2016). In the study where the data obtained from 505 participants were evaluated, the Cronbach Alpha reliability coefficient of the Compassion Scale (CS) was calculated as 0.86. The data were analyzed with the SPSS 20.0 package program. T test and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used to analyze the data. As a result of the research, it was found that the total mean score of the sample on the CS was high (x̄ = 3.98). While the scores obtained from the sub-dimensions with the CS did not differ according to the variables of family structure and place of residence, significant differences were found in favor of women in the overall and all sub-dimensions of the scale according to the gender variable (p<.05). Apart from the mindfulness sub-dimension in the family attitude variable and except for the total score of CS and the kindness sub-dimension in the family income variable, no significant difference was found (p>.05). Significant differences were found between the groups in terms of kindness, common humanity and mindfulness sub-dimensions with the CS total score according to the class level variable (p<.05).

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