skip to main content


Title: Examining Faculty and Graduate Student Attitudes on Stress and Mental Health
Mental health is a key attribute for success in graduate programs. However, previous studies demonstrate a growing mental health crisis in graduate education, which can contribute to issues with productivity, departure, and well-being. Engineering students are not immune to this crisis, yet are one of the least likely disciplines to seek help for mental health. Despite this trend, there is limited literature available to provide evidence-based practices for addressing the causes and persistence of mental health issues for engineering graduate students. To address this need and to begin advocating for systemic change, this project will explore how faculty and student attitudes about mental health intersect with the institutional features that direct action when a mental health crisis arises. Specifically, this project focuses on generating new knowledge about the ways faculty and students conceptualize mental health within engineering graduate programs. Understanding these facets of mental health in academia is a first step toward changing policies and practices that have perpetuated the mental health crisis in engineering. This long-term outcome of this EEC project will develop evidence-based practices to improve student mental health services in graduate engineering programs.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
2025096
NSF-PAR ID:
10387051
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
ASEE annual conference exposition
ISSN:
2153-5965
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. Abstract Background

    Depression is one of the top mental health concerns among biology graduate students and has contributed to the “graduate student mental health crisis” declared in 2018. Several prominent science outlets have called for interventions to improve graduate student mental health, yet it is unclear to what extent graduate students with depression discuss their mental health with others in their Ph.D. programs. While sharing one’s depression may be an integral step to seeking mental health support during graduate school, depression is considered to be a concealable stigmatized identity (CSI) and revealing one’s depression could result in loss of status or discrimination. As such, face negotiation theory, which describes a set of communicative behaviors that individuals use to regulate their social dignity, may help identify what factors influence graduate students’ decisions about whether to reveal their depression in graduate school. In this study, we interviewed 50 Ph.D. students with depression enrolled across 28 life sciences graduate programs across the United States. We examined (1) to what extent graduate students revealed their depression to faculty advisors, graduate students, and undergraduates in their research lab, (2) the reasons why they revealed or concealed their depression, and (3) the consequences and benefits they perceive are associated with revealing depression. We used a hybrid approach of deductive and inductive coding to analyze our data.

    Results

    More than half (58%) of Ph.D. students revealed their depression to at least one faculty advisor, while 74% revealed to at least one graduate student. However, only 37% of graduate students revealed their depression to at least one undergraduate researcher. Graduate students’ decisions to reveal their depression to their peers were driven by positive mutual relationships, while their decisions to reveal to faculty were often based on maintaining dignity by performing preventative or corrective facework. Conversely, graduates performed supportive facework when interacting with undergraduate researchers by revealing their depression as a way to destigmatize struggling with mental health.

    Conclusions

    Life sciences graduate students most commonly revealed their depression to other graduate students, and over half reported discussing depression with their faculty advisor. However, graduate students were reluctant to share their depression with undergraduate researchers. Power dynamics between graduate students and their advisors, their peers, and their undergraduate mentees influenced the reasons they chose to reveal or conceal their depression in each situation. This study provides insights into how to create more inclusive life science graduate programs where students can feel more comfortable discussing their mental health.

     
    more » « less
  2. This research paper presents preliminary results of the Educational Ecosystem Health Survey (EEHS), a survey instrument designed by the Eco-STEM team at California State University, Los Angeles, a regionally serving, very high Hispanic-enrolling Minority Serving Institution (MSI). The purpose of the instrument is to quantitatively measure the health of the STEM educational ecosystem from the perspectives of the actors within it. The Eco-STEM team is implementing an ongoing NSF-funded research project aiming to change the paradigm of teaching and learning in STEM and its aligned mental models from factory-like to ecosystem- like. We hypothesize that this model of education will better support students and their individual needs. The pilot results of administering the EEHS to students within the College of Engineering, Computer Science, and Technology and the College of Natural and Social Sciences provide a baseline from which the Eco-STEM team will analyze diversion – and, hopefully, improvement – over the coming years of the project. The pilot survey was administered to undergraduate and graduate students at California State University, Los Angeles, of which the majority have ethnically- and socioeconomically- minoritized backgrounds. The EEHS is comprised of validated survey instruments that query students’ perceptions of various aspects of systemic educational health. These instruments measure the constructs of Classroom Comfort, Faculty Understanding, Belongingness, Thriving, Mindfulness, and Motivation. T-tests and ANOVA models are employed to analyze variations in responses among students based on a host of demographic identifiers. Pilot results from the first administration of the survey include, for example, statistically significant lower reported levels of thriving and mindfulness for students who identify as LGBTQIA+ than those who do not, as well as far lower levels of ecosystem health overall for students who do not have access to stable housing. Additional statistically significant results are identified on the bases of students’ gender, race/ethnicity, disability status, veteran status, undergraduate versus graduate student status, college of study, employment situation, and more detailed housing situation. The pilot results of the EEHS provide detailed insight into the experiences and needs of students in STEM programs at MSIs and regionally serving institutions. The results may also be useful within the contexts of a diverse range of institutions as they strive to serve students from historically marginalized backgrounds. 
    more » « less
  3. Many historically minoritized graduate students, here defined as Women, Latinx and Black/African American students, in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) experience unwelcome or even hostile ecosystems or environments. Many of the social expectations are that historically minoritized graduate students in STEM should assimilate or acclimate to the cultural, where assimilation/acclimation are defined as cultural conformation vs. social acceptance of a student authentic self/identity. They may also experience forms of continuous microaggressions and isolation. The effects of chronic external stressors, such as experiencing discrimination and social isolation, on increased mental health disorders and decreased physiological health is well known [1-3]. Yet, evidence-based practices of support systems specifically for graduate students from historically marginalized communities to reduce the effects of climates of intimidation are not common. Indeed, researchers have found that such students “would benefit if colleges and universities attempted to deconstruct climates of intimidation [4]” and it has also been shown that teaching underrepresented minority students empowerment skills can improve academic success [5]. Self-advocacy originates from the American Counseling Association (ACA) and the Learning Disabilities (LD) communities for effective counseling that promotes academic success and is based on a social justice framework [6]. The underlying principle of self-advocacy is that supporting skills and knowledge development in the three areas of self-advocacy leads to a student’s long term participation and ultimately academic success in areas such as post-secondary education and STEM. The pillars of the self-advocacy program are centered on (i) Empowerment, (ii) Promoting self-awareness and (iii) Social Justice and programming in the GRaduate Education for Academically Talented Students (GREATS) is aligned and repeated along these three pillars. The current professional development program is in its third year of implementation and to date twenty-seven students have participated in the program. This work in progress paper outlines the evaluation of a self-advocacy program for historically marginalized graduate students in STEM at the University of Illinois Chicago is a minority serving institution as both an Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) and an Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institution (AANAPISI). [1] S. Stansfeld and B. Candy, "Psychosocial work environment and mental health--a meta-analytic review," ed, 2006. [2] E. M. Smith, "Ethnic minorities: Life stress, social support, and mental health issues," The Counseling Psychologist, vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 537-579, 1985. [3] D. M. Frost, K. Lehavot, and I. H. Meyer, "Minority stress and physical health among sexual minority individuals," Journal of behavioral medicine, vol. 38, no. 1, pp. 1-8, 2015. [4] R. T. Palmer, D. C. Maramba, and T. E. Dancy, "A Qualitative Investigation of Factors Promoting the Retention and Persistence of Students of Color in STEM," The Journal of Negro Education, vol. 80, no. 4, pp. 491-504, 2011. [Online]. Available: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41341155. [5] A. R. Dowden, "Implementing Self-Advocacy Training Within a Brief Psychoeducational Group to Improve the Academic Motivation of Black Adolescents," The Journal for Specialists in Group Work, vol. 34, no. 2, pp. 118-136, 2009/04/28 2009, doi: 10.1080/01933920902791937. 
    more » « less
  4. One of the major barriers to increasing the percentage of underrepresented minority (URM) faculty in STEM fields is the small number of URM applicants for academic positions. Recent studies have shown that African-American and Hispanic/Latinx students make up only 2.7% and 3.3%, respectively, of doctorates granted in STEM disciplines in the U.S. Additionally, the 2-year attrition rate of URM doctoral students is nearly 50%, substantially greater than the rate for non-URM students at most institutions. This presentation reports on an effort by an alliance of three North Carolina public universities to develop, implement, and test a model to improve these URM outcomes. The project involves adapting and implementing research-based institutional change strategies that positively impact URM graduate students in STEM disciplines. Each participating department has a volunteer faculty member interested in URM success issues designated as a "AGEP-NC Faculty Fellow." The Fellow receives support and training on mentoring, the experiences of underrepresented minority students, and on fostering change. First, the Fellows introduce their departmental colleagues to best practices in supporting URM students in PhD programs. Together with their department head and director of graduate programs, they work with the faculty to understand graduate student pathways, identify practices and policies that promote success, and diagnose trouble spots. Based on this study of the graduate student experience in their own department, the faculty then develop a departmental diversity plan to build these insights into departmental practices and procedures. This presentation will overview the project design for the 5-year program, share materials used in the Faculty Fellow training, and summarize preliminary findings from surveys regarding attitudes and perceptions of the faculty and graduate students in the Year 1 cohort of six departments. The project is supported by the NSF AGEP (Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate) program. 
    more » « less
  5. null (Ed.)
    One of the major barriers to increasing the percentage of underrepresented minority (URM) faculty in STEM fields is the small number of URM applicants for academic positions. Recent studies have shown that African-American and Hispanic/Latinx students make up only 2.7% and 3.3%, respectively, of doctorates granted in STEM disciplines in the U.S. Additionally, the 2-year attrition rate of URM doctoral students is nearly 50%, substantially greater than the rate for non-URM students at most institutions. This presentation reports on an effort by an alliance of three North Carolina public universities to develop, implement, and test a model to improve these URM outcomes. The project involves adapting and implementing research-based institutional change strategies that positively impact URM graduate students in STEM disciplines. Each participating department has a volunteer faculty member interested in URM success issues designated as a "AGEP-NC Faculty Fellow." The Fellow receives support and training on mentoring, the experiences of underrepresented minority students, and on fostering change. First, the Fellows introduce their departmental colleagues to best practices in supporting URM students in PhD programs. Together with their department head and director of graduate programs, they work with the faculty to understand graduate student pathways, identify practices and policies that promote success, and diagnose trouble spots. Based on this study of the graduate student experience in their own department, the faculty then develop a departmental diversity plan to build these insights into departmental practices and procedures. This presentation will overview the project design for the 5-year program, share materials used in the Faculty Fellow training, and summarize preliminary findings from surveys regarding attitudes and perceptions of the faculty and graduate students in the Year 1 cohort of six departments. The project is supported by the NSF AGEP(Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate) program. 
    more » « less