College students' academic coping: A model integrating metacognitive, motivational, strategic, social, and environmental factors

This dissertation proposed, contextualized, and evaluated a process model of college students' academic coping, a model emerging from a series of exploratory investigations. In essence, based on the results of the exploratory investigations, metacognitive, motivational, strategic, social, and environmental factors had been determined to affect students' academic coping and grade point average (GPA). In an attempt to extend and further validate the emergent model, the Higher Education Inventory (HEI) was developed to tap each proposed factor, with validity and reliability assessed via: (1) an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to identify the latent structure model of the HEI; (2) a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to identify the best fitting model (i.e., between the proposed five factor model and the emergent EFA model); (3) Cronbach alphas to assess factor reliability; and (4) bivariate correlations between each factor and GPA. A total of 443 college undergraduates attending one of five admissions-competitive colleges or universities were administered the HEI. In contrast to the five factor model of academic coping derived from the series of exploratory investigations, the results of this study indicated that the HEI actually comprised six factors (i.e., metacognitive knowledge/regulation; metacognitive monitoring; strategic; motivation; college social-environment; and social network factors). The difference between models was that the general metacognitive factor specified in the five factor model was partitioned into two separate factors for the six factor model (i.e., metacognitive knowledge/regulation and metacognitive monitoring). Overall, each HEI factor represents specific influences or understandings that reflect how students' deal with academic demands on a day-to-day basis. Cronbach alphas for each factor ranged from.70 to.94, indicating a high level of interitem consistency within factors. Bivariate correlations between each factor and GPA ranged from.23 to.51, indicating that the HEI is very effective in differentiating between higher and lower GPA students.