Abstract
The modified-COPE (MCOPE) scale consists of 48 items divided over 12 subscales and was originally developed to measure coping strategies employed by athletes (Crocker & Graham, 1995). In this study, the MCOPE was used in a sample of hockey officials. It can be argued that officials face stressful situations that are comparable to those of athletes. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to validate the MCOPE for hockey officials.
Minor modifications were made to some of the original items. Items were changed because they were double-barrelled (i.e., items referring to more than one concept that may be interpreted differently), or to reflect the unique situations hockey officials find themselves in. Based on initial correlational and reliability analyses, further changes were made so the scale could be used in the main study (e.g., subscales were removed due to low reliability scores).
A total of 35 items across nine subscales were included in the adapted MCOPE. A confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to test the fit of the scale's structure using responses from 244 hockey officials. Goodness-of-fit indices showed a moderate fit to the data: ?2 (524, n = 244) = 1025; RMSEA = 0.062; SRMR = 0.081; CFI = 0.919; NNFI = 0.908), which was deemed acceptable for an adapted version of a questionnaire. Reliability coefficients ranged from .68 to .87. In conclusion, the MCOPE used in this study is a valid and reliable option to measure coping strategies adopted by hockey officials.
