Coping with Stress in Undergraduate University Students: Development and Validation of the Coping Inventory for Academic Striving (CIAS) to Examine Key Educational Outcomes in Correlational and Experimental Studies

Abstract

This doctoral thesis aimed to better understand the relationship between coping and achievement in the post-secondary academic setting within the classic transactional model of stress and coping (Lazarus, 1991, 1999). Article 1 included the development of the Coping Inventory for Academic Striving (CIAS). The CIAS was developped to address limitations in the measurement of coping in the post-secondary setting. The results of two studies supported a psychometrically sound questionnaire measuring 11 coping strategies organized within task-oriented and disengagement-oriented coping dimensions. Tests of the concurrent, predictive, and incremental validity examining the relationships between the antecedents and outcomes of coping supported the conceptual independence of the task- and disengagement-oriented coping dimensions. Using this conceptual framework in Article 2 and 3, two daily diary studies were conducted in university students to examine the relationship between coping and goal progress. Individual differences in coping exist because not all students are coping the same way (i.e., between-person level). However, coping behaviours are also likely to vary from one day to the other during a typical week of the academic year (i.e., within-person level). Therefore in Article 2, new research questions pertaining to appraisal, coping, and goal progress were examined at both the between-person and within-person levels of analysis. While most effects were homologous, different within-person and between-person associations were found. Importantly, individual tendencies toward threat appraisal related to goal disengagement, but the momentary appraisal of threat can bring awareness to goal interferences redirecting goal directed behaviour. Finally, Article 3 tested an experimental coping skills training program whereby students in the experimental condition set if-then coping plans to manage negative emotions detrimental to the pursuit of daily studying goals. Daily over the course of a week, students in the experimental group reported lower levels of stress and negative emotions and higher levels of studying time in comparison to students in the control group. However, the effect of the intervention on some indicators of performance and emotions were only applicable to students with a limited coping repertoire. The development of this coping training skills program aimed to create bridges between coping theory and preventive coping interventions.