The Japanese Version of the Coping Orientation to Problems Expereinced: A Study of Japanese Schoolteachers

To investigate the internal consistency reliability and three types of validity of the Coping Orientation to Problems Experienced (COPE), a survey was conducted among 209 English schoolteachers in Japan. The Japanese version of the COPE Inventory was developed through a back-translation process. Cronbach coefficients alpha for the Japanese version were above .70 for all subscales except five, including Acceptance and Restraint, so internal consistencies for these five were insufficient. Goodness of fit indexes for a confirmatory factor analysis were acceptable except for the Comparative Fit Index. Scores on COPE subscales were significantly correlated with scores on other tests (29 of 75 correlations were in the expected directions). Further exploration is required for several subscales and for generalization to Japanese-speaking populations in careers other than teaching to ensure the Japanese version of the COPE will be useful in assessing coping strategies. Given the limitations, present data for Japanese teachers are encouraging.