CARDIFF, Aug 10 ― A university in Wales offered psychology students the opportunity to take a module that focused on wellness science. The experiment found that following this programme helped improve students' own sense of well-being.
From financial insecurity to stress, anxiety, loneliness and uncertainty about the future, student distress represents a real public health issue, and one that has only been exacerbated by the pandemic. Many universities are looking for solutions to support their students and improve their mental health. Researchers at Swansea University (Wales, United Kingdom) have been working on this very issue by designing a customised curriculum based on studying psychological well-being.
The programme is an optional, credit-bearing well-being science module offered to third-year undergraduate psychology students. It covers essential themes such as positive psychology and introspective exercises, as well as issues of central concern to young people, such as climate anxiety or societal inequalities (gender, race, etc.).
The curriculum was taught over five weeks, with a blended learning approach, including five hours of seminars conducted online, 10 hours of learning modules, 40 hours of study and activities, and 45 hours of assessment preparation.
A total of 128 students divided into two groups took part in the experiment, which ran from 2020 to 2022. Participants in the first group took the module and completed a pre- and post-experiment questionnaire to provide researchers with information about their mental health status. The other students (control group), who also completed the questionnaires, were enrolled in an optional module and were required to spend the same amount of time on it.
Getting involved with volunteering and activism
“Our study was conducted during the Covid pandemic and demonstrates the capacity of strategically designed modules to improve student wellbeing during challenging times,” explains Andrew H.Kemp, who led the study. The researchers did find “significant” differences in mental health between the students who took the well-being module and those in the control group.
“These findings have important implications for thinking about how the education sector might support well-being alongside other major societal stressors such as the climate catastrophe,” continues Professor Kemp. “Our module encourages reflection on these issues and what students might do within their capacity to address major societal issues of importance.” As such, the study authors emphasise the potential interest of young people getting involved in causes that are important to them, for example, by volunteering or through activism with an NGO.
According to research published in early 2021 by the EHESP French School of Public Health in Rennes, 60 per cent of students show signs of depression. Researchers associate this distress directly with the pandemic, given the period in which it was conducted.
But this psychological malaise among students already existed before the arrival of Covid-19. Another study, conducted in three European countries (France, Romania and Moldova) and published in 2018, revealed high rates of depression, stress and anxiety among young participants: respectively, 39 per cent, 47 per cent and 35.8 per cent on average across the three countries studied. ― ETX Studio
