Abstract
Objective The purpose of the present study was to develop a dispositional version of a stress coping scale (the General Coping Questionnaire, GCQ), especially for university students, and examine its reliability and validity.
Methods In Studies I to IV, 124, 784, 83, 83 university students respectively completed the dispositional version of the GCQ. The questionnaire has four subscales covering emotion expression, emotional support seeking, cognitive reinterpretation, and problem solving, with a five-point Likert format. In Study IV, in addition to the dispositional version of the GCQ, peer rating was also performed to test the validity.
Results In Study I, 32 items were selected as a second version of the scale, reducing from the first version with 54 items. From Studies II to IV, evidence was obtained for the factorial validity, the internal consistency, the test-retest reliability, the construct validity (except cognitive reinterpretation), and the normal distribution of the scores.
Conclusions Standardization of the dispositional version of the GCQ with four subscales was essentially completed, facilitating future studies on coping with stress.
