Factorial Structure of Brief COPE for International Students Attending U.S. Colleges

Abstract

Literature on coping strategies and assessments has not previously included international students, who make up approximately 4% of university students. Results of an Internet survey of 555 graduate and undergraduate international students in U.S. universities are reported. The survey included the Brief COPE, a widely used assessment of coping skills. The resulting factorial structure is different for this international student population than for the original U.S. sample, which indicated 14 factors with 2 items each. The structure found in this population included 7 factors. Three of the factors, comprising 18 of the items, are consistent with current literature on coping styles: Positive coping, Support seeking, and Denial. The four other factors, also found in the original structure, with 2 or 3 items in each factor, are Religion, Self-blame, Humor, and Substance use. Implications for future research and practice with international students are indicated. ********** Assessment of personality characteristics across cultures presents a variety of challenges. Characteristics considered to be the norm in one culture may be completely different from those in another culture; therefore transferring the use of one assessment tool from one culture to another without evaluating the structure of the assessment instrument on the new population is inappropriate. Assessing coping skills is one example of this challenge. The Brief COPE, a variation of the original, longer COPE scale, is one widely used assessment of coping skills. The original COPE scale was validated with an undergraduate college population in southern Florida (Carver, Scheier, & Weintraub, 1989). The Brief COPE was validated with a community population in the same geographic area (Carver, 1997). The COPE and the Brief COPE have been used in many studies, primarily in health care, and in many countries (Hudek-Knezevic, Kardum, & Vukmirovic, 1999; Kallasmaa & Pulver, 2000; Lyne & Roger, 2000; Muller & Spitz, 2003; Perczek, Carver, Price, & Pozo-Kaderman 2000; Sica, Novara, Dorz, & Sanavio, 1997). Although many of the structural qualities of the COPE and the Brief COPE assessments seem to remain valid for populations in countries outside of the U.S., a widespread study of that structure that includes participants from a variety of countries and cultures has not been conducted. The current study is designed to present structural information for the Brief COPE with a population of International students from around the world who are attending colleges in the U.S. COPE and Brief COPE The original COPE scale was designed based on a theory of coping. Coping is defined as the process of executing a response to stress (Carver, et al., 1989). Readers are directed to the seminal articles on the validation process for the COPE (Carver, et al., 1989) and for the Brief COPE (Carver, 1997) for further detailed information on the validation processes of these assessments. The original version of the COPE used in the validation study included 53 items with 4 items on each of 13 scales with one additional item. The COPE was expanded to 60 items with 4 items on each of 15 scales. The item scores were coded as 4-point Likert scale where the options range progressively from 1: I haven't been doing this at all to 4: I've been doing this a lot. The alpha reliabilities of the scales for the population involved in the validation study ranged from .45 -.92. Only one scale fell below .6, that scale being one labeled mental which presents four different options of disengagement (daydreaming, movies, work, sleep). Test-retest reliabilities were conducted with one group at a six-week interval, and another group at an eight-week interval. Both sets of test-retest reliabilities were reported indicating general stability, ranging from .42-.89. Further validation was carried out by comparing the COPE results with results of theoretically linked personality dimensions. …