Table of Contents
Background:
Major life events can affect all aspects of one’s functioning, including moods, eating habits, physical health, motivation levels, social behaviors, and even views about oneself. What is un-clear is whether individuals can voluntarily alter their approaches to life events and, thereby, reduce their deleterious effects. The implications of the personality, stage, and inhibition-confrontation models for accelerating the coping processes in relation to college adjustment in freshmen is what the College Adjustment Test (CAT) measures. The 19-item survey achieves this by tapping the degree to which students have experienced various thoughts and feelings about coming to college during the previous week.
Psychometrics:
On the basis of two samples of 287 and 260 entering college students, the internal consistency of the scale is acceptable, Cronbach alpha = .79. Two-month test-retest with 196 introductory college students was good, r = .65.
Author of Tool:
Pennebaker, J.W
Key references:
Pennebaker, J.W., Colder, M., & Sharp, L.K. (1990). Accelerating the coping process. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58, 528-537.
Primary use / Purpose:
A measure of coping in relation to freshmen’s college adjustment.
The College Adjustment Test (CAT)
Use a 7-point scale to answer each of the following questions, where:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
not at all somewhat a great deal
Within the LAST WEEK, to what degree have you:
- Missed your friends from high school
- Missed your home
- Missed your parents and other family members
- Worried about how you will perform academically at college
- Worried about love or intimate relationships with others
- Worried about the way you look
- Worried about the impression you make on others
- Worried about being in college in general
- Liked your classes
- Liked your roommate(s)
- Liked being away from your parents
- Liked your social life
- Liked college in general
- Felt angry
- Felt lonely
- Felt anxious or nervous
- Felt depressed
- Felt optimistic about your future at college
- Felt good about yourself
Scoring Key
- Positive affect= q9+q10+q12+q13+q18+q19
- Negative affect= q4+q5+q6+q7+q8+q14+q15+q16+q17 Home sickness= q1+q2+q3+q15+q16+(8-q11)
- Overall adjustment=(64-(q1+q2+q3+q4+q5+q6+q7+q8))+q9+q10+q11+ q12+q13+(32-(q14+q15+q16+q17))+q18+q19