SMARTEN
  • About
    • Contact
    • Leadership
    • Student Media Team
    • Student Team 20/21 >
      • Student Team 19/20
      • Student Team 18/19
    • Mental Health Research Matters
  • Take part
    • Co-Creation Project
    • Groups >
      • Our Virtual Groups
      • Past Sessions
      • Suggest a New Group
    • Participate in Research >
      • Student Mental Health: What Are the Key Questions?
  • Student Podcasts
  • Events
    • Past Events >
      • Tomorrow’s University: the future of student mental health & wellbeing
      • Webinar: “Embedding peer-assisted learning to support student mental health, wellbeing and academic progress”
      • Webinar: “Pathways to success: supporting good transitions into university”
      • Launch Event “Things and the mind”
      • Enhancing Inductions for Postgraduate Students
  • Funding
    • Funded Research 2019
    • Funded Research 2020
    • Funded Research 2021
    • CLOSED: Key Questions Funding Call
  • Interviews
  • Blog
    • Blog Post Guidance
  • Resources
    • Key Questions: Research Priorities for Student Mental Health
    • Student Services Partnerships Evaluation and Quality Standards (SPEQS) Toolkit
    • Measuring Wellbeing in the Student Population
    • COVID 19 Study
    • Review of National Surveys
    • Reading List
    • Newsletter

Blog.

“Why not me?”: How Academic Identity impacts students’ sense of community and mental health.

11/12/2018

0 Comments

 
​​​Dr Michael Fay, Lecturer in Law, Keele University (m.fay@keele.ac.uk) 
& Dr Yvonne Skipper, Lecturer in Psychology, Keele University (y.skipper@keele.ac.uk)
Picture
Picture
​Traditionally, mental health has been seen as an individual issue and therefore, treatments have been targeted at the individual level.  However, we believe that mental health is a community issue and that we can promote positive mental health and support those who are struggling by working together as a community. ​
We theorised that some students have a positive academic identity, they strongly feel that they are part of their University and School and feel that they belong to this community. We believe these students are likely to engage more with their course and seek help when they experience challenges, as they believe that they are a member of a community where members are supporting each other and learning together. They are therefore more likely to perform well in their course and also experience positive mental health.  In contrast, those with a poor sense of academic identity may not feel that they belong to a community. This may lead to disengagement from their course, and to students being uncomfortable with seeking help when they need it. They may perform poorly on their course and experience poor mental health in a downward spiral.  Therefore, we argue developing a positive academic identity may lead to positive behaviours such as help-seeking, an improved sense of community and, in turn, better mental health.
 
Identity and belonging are important for student mental health.  Transitioning to Higher Education (HE) is a challenging step.  One in four students experience poor mental health during their degree and poor mental health has been associated with increased likelihood of dropping out of university.  Academic pressure is the main source of stress for students; six in ten experience levels of stress that interfere with their daily lives.  Academic pressure is also a common theme in suicide among under 20s.  However, support from others can reduce stress and ameliorate some of the negative effects of mental health issues. Indeed, many students report that support from peers is one of the main reasons they remain in HE.  This therefore suggests that creating a strong community and support network could improve mental health across all students rather than focussing on individuals.
 
Our aspiration is therefore to encourage community approaches to mental health in the HE sector, through developing students’ academic identity and sense of belonging.  Our preliminary surveys, conducted with undergraduate students studying Law or Psychology, showed that a greater sense of belonging to the academic community within a School can reduce stress by up to 30 per cent.  Evidence also suggests that interventions promoting positive identities can help to treat mental health issues.  However, existing mental health support at university does not engage with students’ developing academic identity as a way of promoting improved mental health.  Instead mental health issues are seen as specific to individuals. Therefore, causes and solutions are also often treated at the individual level.  Interventions which are delivered to all students rather than focussing on those ‘at risk’ are also more likely to lead to change in the community and therefore better outcomes for all.
 
If you would like to know more about “Why not me?”, you can contact Michael Fay (m.fay@keele.ac.uk) or Yvonne Skipper (y.skipper@keele.ac.uk).  This project is funded by a grant from the Society for Research in Higher Education.
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    April 2022
    March 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    September 2021
    July 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    November 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018

    Categories

    All
    Academic Identity
    Anthropology
    Assessment Design
    Belonging
    Coping
    Counselling
    Creative Arts
    Culture
    Ethnography
    Learning Analytics
    Midwifery Students
    Mixed Methods
    Nursing Students
    Participate In Research
    Pedagogy
    Peer Support
    Perfectionism
    PhD Students
    Positive Psychology

    RSS Feed

    Your Blog

    We are using this blog to help connect stakeholders across Higher Education interested in student mental health. If you have a project you are working on or an idea you'd like to develop, why not write your own blog post for us?

Welcome to the SMaRteN Network! We hope to hear from you soon.

Keep us up to date with your research! We love to showcase members' work and initiatives in student mental health research. 


Email

smarten@kcl.ac.uk
Sign up
  • About
    • Contact
    • Leadership
    • Student Media Team
    • Student Team 20/21 >
      • Student Team 19/20
      • Student Team 18/19
    • Mental Health Research Matters
  • Take part
    • Co-Creation Project
    • Groups >
      • Our Virtual Groups
      • Past Sessions
      • Suggest a New Group
    • Participate in Research >
      • Student Mental Health: What Are the Key Questions?
  • Student Podcasts
  • Events
    • Past Events >
      • Tomorrow’s University: the future of student mental health & wellbeing
      • Webinar: “Embedding peer-assisted learning to support student mental health, wellbeing and academic progress”
      • Webinar: “Pathways to success: supporting good transitions into university”
      • Launch Event “Things and the mind”
      • Enhancing Inductions for Postgraduate Students
  • Funding
    • Funded Research 2019
    • Funded Research 2020
    • Funded Research 2021
    • CLOSED: Key Questions Funding Call
  • Interviews
  • Blog
    • Blog Post Guidance
  • Resources
    • Key Questions: Research Priorities for Student Mental Health
    • Student Services Partnerships Evaluation and Quality Standards (SPEQS) Toolkit
    • Measuring Wellbeing in the Student Population
    • COVID 19 Study
    • Review of National Surveys
    • Reading List
    • Newsletter