Week 7 - So Much Reading

Honestly, with all the reading I've been doing for my literature review, I don't know what I would do without Zotero. It's a software program that helps you organize all your references for a project, doing all that tedious bibliography work for you and keeping all the readings you've saved in one place. So much time has been saved, let me tell you!

During our meeting this week, my supervisor and I went over my research questions and how I want to address them in my survey. I don't think I've put my research questions up here on the blog, so I'll do that now.

With this research project, I hope to gain insight into the following three questions (taken from my detailed proposal):

1. What are students’ perceptions and attitudes regarding the current ways that MWI* is being communicated?
2. Through which media do students prefer to receive MWI?
3. How can MWI be communicated in an accessible way, such that UW undergraduate students not only receive the information, but also feel capable of making changes towards better mental well-being in the form of (a) developing new coping strategies and/or (b) seeking help from university services?

*MWI = Mental Wellness-related Information, which consists of (1) information about the services run by the university and its peer health groups, and (2) general mental wellness advice, such as coping strategies for stress.

We decided that the survey will be divided into five main sections:

1. Questions about opinions/perceptions/attitudes regarding mental wellness communication at UW.
2. Questions addressing students' familiarity with the mental wellness services on campus.
3. Questions about preferred methods of receiving mental wellness information.
4. Questions that involve hypothetical scenarios in which students will be given a scenario and relevant mental wellness information. For these questions, we'll look into self-reported attitudes and predicted behaviour.
5. Questions about general mental wellness issues related to students.

The focus of my literature review right now is to find out how health advice/information can be communicated effectively, which will help me develop the scenarios for section 4. A big issue with communicating about health is that services need to persuade their target audience to either use their service or to follow certain advice. One model of persuasive communication I've found really interesting is called the Matrix of Persuasion by William McGuire (Bettinghaus, 1986), which considers the various elements of the communication process (e.g., source, message, channel, receiver, destination) and the behavioural steps in attitude change (e.g., attention, comprehension, yielding, retention, action). I can look at all these factors to determine how to facilitate effective communication.

Another model I'd like to look into is the Health Belief Model, which I still need to look into, but looks promising!

Sources Cited

Bettinghaus, E. P. (1986). Health promotion and the knowledge-attitude-behavior continuum. Preventive Medicine, 15(5), 475–491.

Week 6 - Detailed Proposal is Submitted!

Just a few minutes ago, I wrapped up the finishing touches of my detailed project proposal and sent it to both Katie and my supervisor, Wade. If only I could feel relieved; instead, I'm nervous to see what Katie thinks...

I met with Wade again earlier this week, and we went over my proposal. He gave me some important reminders, including not to forget to cite any non-obvious statements (that aren't my own claims)! It takes a bit of thinking to realize what you may have said that seems like common knowledge to you, but might not be to the audience. For example, the statement that "student mental well-being is a major concern for universities." Having been exposed to my own mental health struggles and knowing many others who've had their own, I initially figured that it was something that everyone knows. In truth, I still need to back up the claim with a reference. Essentially, anything I'm not arguing as new information based on my research should be cited. Time to drill that into my brain!

Wade also helped me to set a deadline for when my ORE (Office of Research Ethics) proposal should be submitted: no later than December 1st. That gives me the rest of October (which is nearly over--oh how the time flies...) and all of November to fill out the ORE form and develop my survey. Both of which are pretty time-consuming tasks. Thankfully, I have the guidance of my supervisor (plus all the literature review to read through) to give me direction. I've also completed an ORE form before, so at least the process isn't a new one! Additionally, a progress report is due for Katie at the end of November, so I foresee that time as being very, very busy. 

As I mentioned in my last post, I still had plans to meet with someone from Health Services. That meeting happened yesterday, and it was incredibly useful. She gave me information about all of the peer health support groups run by Health Services (there are 11 in total!) and their various initiatives to promote wellness, including mental wellness. One interesting thing that she told me was HS wants students to understand that "any door is the right door"--in other words, if a student doesn't know where to go, they can show up in one spot and be guided to where they need to be. In one of the articles I read (Mowbray et. al, 2006), an issue the researchers discovered was that students would wander from place to place, unsure of where they're supposed to be. So, I think that it would be helpful to more effectively promote the idea of "any door is the right door," so that students are less confused and are more likely to seek help.

Sources Cited

Mowbray, C. T., Megivern, D., Mandiberg, J. M., Strauss, S., Stein, C. H., Collins, K., … Lett, R. (2006). Campus mental health services: Recommendations for change. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 76(2), 226.

Week 5 - So, how did all the meetings go?

Excellent news: I now have a supervisor! The meeting on Tuesday went well, and I am all set to work on my detailed proposal. As I didn’t have a supervisor by the “deadline” of last Friday, I get an extension of a few extra days to work on this proposal—a huge relief.

The meetings with the SSO and CS, as discussed in my Week 4 post, were also very successful. The staff I met with were very excited about my project and offered to help out as much as possible. I found out that CS and HS are undergoing an internal amalgamation of their services, in order to bridge them together as “Campus Wellness” and make them more accessible. They hope to hire a communications project manager as a 1-year role to improve all of the communication to students about the services that are available, wellness advice, and other wellness-related information.

I was told that this role won’t likely be hired until the Winter. So, in the meantime, I can begin my research of student’s perceptions and attitudes regarding mental wellness-related services and information on campus—this can give whoever is hired some data and suggestions to go off of when they begin their “overhaul” of the communication. This is a really cool opportunity!

Now that I have a supervisor to support the development of my project, as well as some great contacts with the student services at UW (I will also be meeting with HS sometime either late October or early November—as they have been busy planning Mental Health Awareness Day, I won’t be able to meet with them until then), it’s time for work on my detailed proposal to begin. This will include an abstract, a project description, an outline of methods, expected results and implications, a list of references, and a project plan.

Over the past few days I’ve been focusing on the literature review aspect of my thesis that will be summarized in my list of references. As my research topic pulls a lot of different areas together—university students, university services, communications, mental health/wellness, attitudes, and behaviours, to name the more focal topics—it is a bit of a challenge to find literature that bridges all (or many) of them together. Yesterday I met with a librarian at Dana Porter for some assistance with my research, and with a bit of digging we found a few good sources for me to look through.

There’s lots to do—looks like it’s going to be a busy weekend! Time to get writing, and with any luck there will be enough time for me to take a break to watch the Blue Jays.

Week 4 - Meeting Day

Fridays are normally fairly busy for me—8:30 am lecture, volunteering at the Environment Student Society’s coffee shop in the early afternoon, and later a Knowledge Integration seminar. Not extraordinarily busy, but hardly a day off.

How fortunate, then, was I that all three of my major Friday commitments were cancelled for the Thanksgiving long weekend? It was certainly cause for joy, especially since I’ve been so preoccupied with studying and coursework lately. (Plus, any reason not to have to wake up for a class first thing in the morning should be celebrated.)

However, just because one is freed of one’s regular commitments does not mean that all else can fall by the wayside. Especially when “all else” includes an honours thesis.

Today I ended up booking myself two meetings: one with the Student Success Office (SSO), and the other with Counselling Services (CS). My goal for each of these meetings is to learn more about how each of these services manages their communication with students. More specifically, I would like to know how they let students know about the mental health-related services they provide—not just to students with mental illnesses, but to the UW student population as a whole—and if/how they provide any sort of “general mental wellbeing advice”, which includes tips on managing stress and healthy living.

I did stop by CS (at Needles Hall) to ask the receptionist for more information, and she mentioned that they do not have anyone specifically “in charge” of communication to students. I don’t, truthfully, find this very surprising. Just yesterday I meandered to the upper level of the Health Services (HS) building and I found a whole area labelled “Mental Health”—turns out there’s an entire division of CS at HS. Who would have known? I also did not know, until digging through the HS and CS websites, that there was a “MATES Peer Mentors” program for any students who are struggling with their wellbeing.

Overall, I think I am well on my way to finding out, from a top-down level, how communication about mental health information is done at UW. What is still missing is an advisor who can help me tie it in with the bottom-up perspective of how students feel about the information that is communicated to them. I meet with a potential advisor next Tuesday, though (with the exception of one rejection email) I still have not heard from any of the other faculty I have contacted. Hopefully things work out with my meeting next week, otherwise I will be in a pretty tight bind as I have to submit a detailed proposal in just over a week’s time.

Week 3 - Preliminary Research a.k.a. Digging through UW Websites

As I was feeling stuck regarding whom to contact to potentially supervise my thesis, I decided to get some advice from my course instructor, Katie, at the beginning of this week. Since I want to look at how mental wellness information is currently being communicated by the university and how it can be improved, Katie recommended that I first get in touch with Counselling Services, or perhaps the Student Success Office, and find out who is involved in that particular job. That way, they can tell me what is being done and whether they’re looking for any improvements, and I can propose to them how I may be able to help. Then, I can contact a potential supervisor once I’ve narrowed down my aims for the project.

She also suggested that I take a closer look at what these services’ websites have to offer; this would give me a better idea of the areas that may need improvement. One thing that I found during this investigation was that the Counselling Services website can inform students of a lot of resources available to them; however, there are so many different links to look through and students may not be able to quickly find what they need. More importantly, students may not know what they need in the first place. The website has two main “categories” of resources – the services provided by Counselling Services itself (“Our Services”) and resources of other services (“Resources”). Under “Resources” is a list of links to “Campus Resources”, “Community Resources”, “Emergency Contacts”, “Student Groups and Other Resources”, and “President’s Office”. “Student Groups and Other Resources” links to self-help information, including help for individuals with mental health disorders as well as other students. What concerns me is how a student to (a) know to go to the Counselling Services website for information about self-help when they don’t believe they are experiencing serious mental health challenges, (b) find this information, and (c) decide that the advice is worthy of exploring.

I sent an email to Counselling Services on Wednesday, and I hope to hear from them soon. If not, I may have to go directly to them, as time is running out before I have to submit advisor information to Katie. A week from today, October 9, is the due date. I’ll have to consider also contacting the SSO, though I do think their website is generally much better organized than CS’s is. What I would likely target then is students’ attitudes towards the information the SSO shares and whether they are incorporating it. Do students use the tips they provide, or do they end up just going with the flow? Lots of possible research questions to consider…