Measuring students’ coping with the Brief COPE: An investigation testing different factor structures across two contexts of university education

Appropriate instruments are required for professionals in the field of educational psychology to measure students’ strategies to cope with stress. As the results of previous studies are inconsistent, the purpose of the present manuscript was to examine the factor structure of the situational version of the Brief COPE as an economic and flexible coping measure to be used in the domain of university education and health psychology. In a sample of 508 university students, three factor structures were compared across two contexts of university education. Results show that a hierarchical two-level factor structure fits the data best, with relatively stable coping dimensions at superordinate levels and a variety of specific strategies and acts at subordinate levels. The findings support the applicability of the situational version of the Brief COPE in research and non-clinical practice.