Today was a busy day with trips to the playground and NC State Open House! Tonight, we watched the ALT 2021 session entitled “Online supports for flexible learners to support student mental health and wellbeing at scale” presented by Kelley Hester, Jacqueline McCormack, O’Gorman Louise, Louise Kearins, Jennifer Gilligan and Allison Gillen. Hester is doing research for their masters degree and Kearings works on the iNOTE project: a multi institutional higher education project in Ireland. The group is focused on building a set of resources for students taking online courses. Hester began by defining mental health and wellbeing for students. Hester also presented data from the National Student Mental Health Survey that enrolled nearly 3,300 students. Students felt that there was a lack of support when requesting and using tools/resources. Being Well, Living Well by Oxford and Epigeum (2021) is a resource for balancing study life and healthy living. SilverCloud Health is an established confidential system with several web-based tools and online spaces. The aims of the research presented by Hester and Kearins was to determine if and how mental health improved as a result of these platforms and examine student experiences. There were three categories of students: online learners, on-campus students as remote learners, and possibly students returning on-campus. The theories used, explained Hester, centered on the Biopsychosocial Model by Engel 1977 and the Self Determination Theory by Deci and Ryan. The Biopsychosocial model has three components: biological, psychological, and social. Self Determination Theory has three components also: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. The presenters described the two year plan and combination of online surveys and semi structured interviews. The goals were to inform evidence-based approaches for adopting digital mental health interventions and increasing health-seeking behaviors by students.The tools, mentioned Kearins, have different purposes to help students who feel “in trouble.” One audience question was related to applications of the tools and management of the software. Hester also described how the tools can be helpful in normalizing help seeking and sharing. I look forward to learning the outcome of the study and the development of more tools like this.
