Abstract
Studying medicine makes significant demands both cognitively, emotionally and personally. In the subject Stress and stress management, students get to know the concept of stress, its manifestations and various stress management techniques, some of which are practiced practically.
This subject ends with a seminar paper in which students consider how they manage stress. This study offers an analysis of these essays based on the following research questions: What semantic and morpho-syntactic categories do students use in considering their approaches to stress management? How does coping reflection (in terms of semantic and morphosyntactic categories) differ between male and female students? The research sample comprised 145 students, of which 48 were males and 97 were females.
The research used a quantitative text analysis method where semantic categories were detected automatically using the LIWC program and using word embedding analysis in Python. The JASP program, descriptive analyzes and t-tests were used for statistical analyses.
Results showed that women wrote statistically significantly longer texts (on average 13 sentences, 243 words longer) and used fewer function words, especially first-person singular pronouns, more negation words related to drives (contradiction and hesitant words), affect (negative tone, negative emotions, sadness), social (family) and lifestyle (work) words in their essays compared to male students. The study findings offer opportunities to delve deeper into psycholinguistic aspects of this area.