Validity Assessment of the CISS(Coping Inventory for Stressful Situation) in Korean High School Students

Park, Yong chon; Kim, Kwang iel; Noh, Samuel

Abstract

OBJECTIVES
CISS(Coping Inventory for Stressful Situation) is one of the measures to access the coping dimension with dispositional approach. Consisting of three subscales (i.e., task-focused, emotion-focused and avoidance-focused coping), CISS has 48 items and each subscales has 16 items. We undertook an investigation of the psychometric properties of the CISS in Korean highschool students to determine the extent to which this measure was generalizable to non-western populations.
METHODS
The duration of the survey was from 1st of May to 30th of June, 1997. The subjects were 300 of 2nd grade students from 6 highschools in Seoul. Exploratory factor analysis was performed, and reliability, correlations and mean difference were estimated.
RESULTS
Comparison of the factor loading patterns in our sample with published factor loading of the CISS confirmed that our loading patterns replicated established task-focused, emotion-focused and avoidance-focused coping constructs. However, 9 out of the 48 items were problematic. Of the avoidance-focused subscale, 4 items had unclear results, and of the emotion-focused subscales, 5 items had unclear results. Internal coefficients of the three subscales of the CISS range from 0.82-0.90 for male and female students. In intercorrelations among subscales, independence among factors was found in female students, but independence among subscales was not found in male students.
CONCLUSION
Our results were equivocal in suggesting the cross-cultural stability ofthe structure of the CISS. We identified three underlying factors that replicated the established structure of the CISS in North America. However, instances of cross-loading among items and significant intercorrelations between factors suggest that these constructs may not constitute the mutually independent measures. Conceptualization of coping can be affected by theinfluence of cultural practices and preferences. The implication of the results is that Korean students in this sample did not consistently distinguish uniquely among the specificdimensions of coping as measured by the CISS in North America. We may have experienced more difficulties in replicating the factor structures of more abstract domains than concrete constructs due to the nuance of translation.