COPING IN ADOLESCENCE - EMPIRICAL-EVIDENCE FOR A THEORETICALLY BASED APPROACH TO ASSESSING COPING

The present study was designed to examine the reported stressors and p atterns of coping strategies used by adolescents and extend the 1989 w ork of Carver et al. by reporting internal reliability, factorial vali dity, and normative data on the COPE for a sample of middle adolescent s. A sample of 484 ninth through twelfth graders (ages 14-18) attendin g a Laboratory High School participated in the study. The COPE invento ry developed by Carver et al. in 1989 for use with college students, w as administered with a battery of measures to all adolescent participa nts in their classrooms. Results indicated sufficient internal consist ency for the measure and significant gender differences Factor analysi s of the COPE indicated that the subscales consistently fell into four factors rather than the traditional two (i.e, problem focused vs emot ion focused). Implications for using the COPE in research on adolescen t were discussed.