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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.
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WIP: Faculty Perceptions of Graduate Student Mental Health: A Productivity Framing
Research demonstrates a growing mental health crisis in graduate education, which can contribute to productivity, departure, and well-being issues. To address this crisis and advocate for systemic change, this project explored faculty perceptions about graduate student mental health and how these perceptions intersect with direct action when student mental health challenges arise. We were guided by phenomenological inquiry to explore how faculty attitudes (n = 3) about mental health shape programmatic and individual decisions around supporting mental health. We thematically analyzed interviews discussing stress and mental health focused on faculty experiences. Faculty interviews demonstrated varying attitudes toward graduate student stress and mental health. Faculty desires to engage in discussions about stress or mental health were on a wide spectrum, often with work productivity guiding these discussions. Further, faculty highlighted levels of discomfort with engaging in discussions about mental health, especially with the students they work closest with. Findings indicate a need to foster faculty skill and comfort with engaging with students about their mental health while also providing clear institutional policies that support these actions to address the mental health crisis.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2025096
- PAR ID:
- 10501718
- Publisher / Repository:
- IEEE
- Date Published:
- ISBN:
- 979-8-3503-3642-9
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 01 to 05
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Location:
- College Station, TX, USA
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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