SELF COMPASSION LEVELS OF ERASMUS AND NON-ERASMUS STUDENTS

Abstract

Erasmus is a program actively applied in many universities in many focus areas since 1987 (Erasmus Program, 2017) It has been defined as ‘ the opportunity of students to study or gain work experience in a different European country .’ It has thirty years of background in Turkey and one of the main purposes of the program is to help participants to develop their personal, educational, and cultural conceptions. It is a varied exchange process that takes place both in educational and cultural levels. In this varied exchange environment process, participants experience many problematic or tough situations such as being away from home and familiar environment, not knowing the target language, etc. The study aims to compare the self-compassion levels of the Erasmus participants and Non-Erasmus ones. It is because self-compassion is considered as an emotional balancing strategy that transforms the negative emotions and ideas into self-acceptation and life satisfaction (Neff, 2003). Having a life-changing experience Erasmus can be said a key element in developing self-compassion levels and defining the participants `levels, Self-Compassion Scale (Deniz, Kesici & Sumer, 2008) was applied. Non-Erasmus ones, meaning the same level students but not the part of any Erasmus project, were also applied the same questionnaire to make comparisons. It seems both of the participant groups have similar problems and the difference in self-compassion levels of the participants is tried to be defined. The gathered data is analyzed in the SPSS program. Article visualizations: