A DISPOSITIONAL AND SITUATIONAL ASSESSMENT OF CHILDRENS COPING - TESTING ALTERNATIVE MODELS OF COPING

Dispositional and situational measures of children's coping were devel oped using a theoretically based approach. Two studies (N-1 = 217; N-2 = 303) assessed the psychometric characteristics of these measures in fourth- through sixth-grade children. Confirmatory factor analyses in dicated that a four-factor model of dispositional coping (active, dist raction, avoidant, and support seeking) provided a better fit to the d ata than either the problem-versus emotion-focused (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984) or passive versus active (Billings & Moos, 1981) coping models. The four-factor model was largely invariant with respect to age and g ender. Moderate to high correlations were found between the parallel s ubscales of the dispositional and situational measures of coping. Alth ough the four factor structures of the dispositional and situational m easures were generally similar, factor loadings and correlations betwe en dimensions were not equivalent.