Helping Students Make Informed Choices About College
Category: Pathways to and Through Postsecondary
Instrument Overview
Expert Notes AvailableView expert commentary on strengths and cautions for this instrument
Strengths
Useful for institutions trying to understand how different students respond to stress and which supports might be needed (academic vs. mental health vs. social). Captures both “adaptive” strategies (e.g., planning, support seeking) and “maladaptive” strategies (e.g., denial, substance use).
Cautions
Limited evidence linking directly to institutional KPIs like retention or graduation. Therefore, best used as a diagnostic lens, not a standalone accountability metric. Potential for underreporting or social desirability bias on some items, e.g., around substance use.
The Brief COPE Inventory is a short, self-report questionnaire designed to assess how individuals respond to stress. Developed by Charles S. Carver in 1997, it is a streamlined version of the earlier COPE Inventory (1989).
This instrument is a questionnaire (self-report survey) that measures a range of coping strategies—the thoughts and behaviors people use to manage challenges. It includes 28 items organized into 14 subscales, each capturing a different coping approach. These include more adaptive strategies such as active coping, planning, and seeking emotional or instrumental support, as well as less productive responses such as denial, substance use, or behavioral disengagement. Together, these subscales provide a broad picture of how students or adults manage stress in academic or personal contexts.
In education settings, the Brief COPE is typically used for diagnostic and research purposes, helping schools, districts, and researchers understand how students or staff cope with academic pressure, transitions, or adversity. It can inform efforts related to student well-being, mental health supports, and resilience-building initiatives, though it is not designed as a high-stakes screening or progress-monitoring tool. The survey is most commonly used with secondary students, college populations, and adults, though it has been adapted in some studies for younger populations.
Organization
Collection Category(ies)
Content
Grades
Post secondary
Languages
English
Administration Information
Length
28 items
Access and Use
Developer
Carver, Scheier, & Weintraub (1989)
Open Access
Yes
Use in Research
McCarthy B, Trace A, O'Donovan M, O'Regan P, Brady-Nevin C, O'Shea M, Martin AM, Murphy M. (2018) Coping with stressful events: A pre-post-test of a psycho-educational intervention for undergraduate nursing and midwifery students. Nurse Education Today. doi: 10.1016/j.nedt.2017.11.034
Psychometrics (additional guidance)
Psychometric References
Carver, C. S., Scheier, M. F., & Weintraub, J. K. (1989). Assessing coping strategies: A theoretically based approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 56(2), 267–283. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.56.2.267
Carver, C. S. (1997). You want to measure coping but your protocol’s too long: Consider the Brief COPE.
Cramer RJ, Braitman A, Bryson CN, Long MM, La Guardia AC. (2020) The Brief COPE: Factor Structure and Associations With Self- and Other-Directed Aggression Among Emerging Adults. Eval Health Prof. 43(2):120-130. doi: 10.1177/0163278719873698. Epub 2019 Sep 8. PMID: 31495195.
García FE, Barraza-Peña CG, Wlodarczyk A, Alvear-Carrasco M, Reyes-Reyes A. (2018) Psychometric properties of the Brief-COPE for the evaluation of coping strategies in the Chilean population. Psicol Reflex Crit. 31(1):22. doi: 10.1186/s41155-018-0102-3
Marakshina, J. A., Mironets, S. A., Pavlova, A. A., Ismatullina, V. I., Lobaskova, M. M., Pecherkina, A. A., Symaniuk, E. E., & Malykh, S. B. (2025). Psychometric Properties of the Brief COPE Inventory on a Student Sample. Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland), 15(11), 1579. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs15111579
Fernández-Martín FD, Flores-Carmona L, Arco-Tirado JL. (2022) Coping Strategies Among Undergraduates: Spanish Adaptation and Validation of the Brief-COPE Inventory. 15:991-1003. doi: 10.2147/PRBM.S356288
Populations of Validation
Student (Marakshina et al., 2025) and non-student. French patients and caregivers (Baumstarck, 2016). Spanish-speaking (Fernández-Martín et al., 2022) Chilean adaptation (Garcia et al., 2018)
