Browsing by Subject "Undergraduates"
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Item Malleable mental health factors in undergraduate engineering students(2022-08-15) Jonietz, Erika Lee; McCarthy, Christopher J.; Brownson, Christopher Granger, 1971-; Awad, Germine; Parent, Michael; Randall, David WGovernment and industry leaders warn regularly of shortages of engineers and scientists needed to sustain economic growth; worldwide billions of dollars are dedicated to projects designed to increase the number of workers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, including programs designed to improve post-secondary STEM education. Despite this, college represents a major point of attrition: in the United States, fewer than 40% of students who enroll planning to major in a STEM discipline complete a related degree. Conventional theories of college student retention focus on classroom practice, faculty and staff development, and improving the transition of low-income students from community colleges to four-year programs. However, more recent models of college retention address sociological, economic, and psychological factors. The latter suggest modifiable factors and skills such as social connection, coping techniques, and self-attributions may provide more effective targets for retention programs. A widespread and longstanding belief exists that engineering students differ notably from non-engineers on such psychological factors and also experience higher levels of stress and distress. However, there is a dearth of research into these questions. This study sought to address this gap by exploring differences in the well-being and experiences of distress and suicidality among a national sample of undergraduates studying different fields. It also probed the relationships between undergraduates’ well-being, experiences of distress and suicidality, and three malleable mental health factors, that is, factors amenable to improvement with intervention. The variables examined in this study are perfectionism, social connectedness, and coping self-efficacy. Using structural equation modeling, the study tested hypothesized relationships between perfectionism, coping self-efficacy, and social connectedness and distress and suicidality. In addition, t-tests, multiple linear regression, and correlational analyses were used to examine differences between engineering students and all other undergraduates on well-being, distress and suicidality, perfectionism, social connectedness, and coping self-efficacy. Results indicated overall well-being mediates known connections between perfectionism, coping self-efficacy, and social connectedness and distress and suicidality in both engineering students and those studying other fields. Differences between these groups were observed in levels of overall well-being but not distress and suicidality. Engineers and other students also showed differing levels of social connectedness and certain aspects of perfectionism and coping self-efficacy. These findings may help explain observed differences in engineering students’ mental health and provide targets for retention programs.Item Measuring how stress impacts physical activity behaviors in undergraduates(2015-08) Born, Katelyn Ann; Bartholomew, John B.; Jowers, EsbellePURPOSE: To examine the effect of self-reported life stress on objective measures of physical activity. METHODS: Participants were a convenience sample of 98 undergraduates. Participants wore an ActiGraph GT1M Accelerometer for 6 consecutive days. Thirty participants were eliminated due to insufficient wear time (at least 8 hours/day). On each day of the week, they completed the Perceived Stress Scale. This was used to identify their highest and lowest stress day of the week excluding weekends. In addition, participants were divided according to their reports of consistent, exercise behavior. ANALYSIS: A 2 (gender) X 2 (day) RM-ANOVA was conducted to examine differences in time spent in MVPA. RESULTS: There was a significant interaction for gender, in that females increased their time spent in MVPA on their high stress day compared to their low stress day while males MVPA did not change, F (1, 66) = 7.55, p = .008. DISCUSSION: These results support findings by Lutz et al (2010), and extend it by using a sample with males and an objective measure of MVPA. Future studies should investigate the impact of exercise behavior on the relationship between stress and exercise.Item Minding the verge: moderating webcasts+chat in a multi-section online undergraduate course(2009-08) Hamerly, Donald Wade; Immroth, Barbara FrolingCoincidental increases in online instruction at institutions of higher education and in online social networking generally in the U.S. have created opportunities for research into how digital interpersonal connectivity affects online learning. This study examined interactive webcasts, or webcasts plus chat, that were part of an online undergraduate course covering Internet knowledge and skills at a large public university. Symbolic interactionism served as the theoretical framework for explicating interactive webcasts as useful online learning environments by exploring the complex processes that instructional staff employed to manage their actions and interactions as moderators in the webcasts and chats. A constructivist grounded theory approach guided the collection and analysis of empirical data in the form of webcast media and transcripts, chat logs, students‘ reflective writing, and semi-structured, intensive interviews with instructional staff. From the study emerged theoretical categories in three tiers related to a generalized moderator process called minding the verge: moderators minded the verge in three conditions of interaction– converging, attending, and diverging; in three loci of interaction – webcasts, chats, and webcasts+chat; and through six actions of moderating – bonding, orientating, guiding, tending, validating, and branching. The results of this study provide moderators for the course with insights into their actions in the interactive webcasts and with concepts moderators can use to explore how to manage interactive webcasts more effectively. Beyond effecting substantive changes to interactive webcasts for the course, the study may guide others who wish to pursue further studies of webcasts+chat as they occur in the course or elsewhere, or of other mixed-media environments, or who wish to adopt mixed-media environments for instruction. Other potential areas for research that emerged from this study include the affective states of participants in the webcasts+chat and the use of affective devices, such as emoticons and abbreviations, for showing affective states; the effect that format has on the efficacy of webcasts+chat used for computer-mediated instruction; and the processes students employ to manage actions and interactions in the webcasts and chats.Item Sixth Annual Session of the University Summer Schools, Volume 2(University of Texas at Austin, 1903) University of Texas at Austin