Modeling the mediating role of thinking styles in the relationship between human agency and self-regulation of knowledge by choosing styles to cope with academic stress in male students.

People use different coping strategies to face stressful situations, affecting students' academic performance. It seems that self-regulation of knowledge, human agency, and thinking styles affect the choice of coping style. The current research was conducted with the aim of providing a model of the effect of human agency and self-regulation of knowledge on the choice of coping styles with academic stress, considering the mediating role of thinking style.

The current research was applied in terms of purpose and based on the nature and method of data collection, descriptive-correlation type, structural equation analysis type. The statistical population included all male students of the second secondary level of theoretical branches in Kashan city in the academic year of 2014-2016, and 497 students were selected as the study sample through random sampling. Students responded to Cote's (1997) multifaceted agentive personality questionnaire, SRKS-U knowledge self-regulation questionnaire, Andler-Parker's coping styles questionnaire, and Sternberg-Wagner's (1992) thinking styles. In order to analyze the research data and to test the hypotheses, the correlation coefficient and the structural equation method were used using SPSS.26 and LISREL 8.8 statistical software.

The results of the present study showed that the variable of agency and self-regulation of knowledge directly and positively influenced the variable of problem-oriented coping style with the mediation of thinking styles. The variable of agency and self-regulation of knowledge directly and negatively affected the variable of emotion-oriented coping style with the mediation of thinking styles. The variable of agency and self-regulation of knowledge directly and negatively affected the variable of avoidant coping style with the mediation of thinking styles.

Therefore, according to the results of educational workshops, adaptive strategies to deal with stress are suggested for students in schools.