Surveying Mental Health Across Campus: New Perspectives
Stepping into this project, I was honestly a little excited to finally participate in an audience research. I have found that audience research provides many diverse perspectives. When I have done research in the past, especially for classes, it is usually towards a specific group. My recent research for my Asian Studies seminar focused on the LGBTQ+ experience in the Japanese filmmaking Industry, and the mini documentary research I completed last year spoke about black people’s experiences in the classical music community. Those research experiences were great, yes, but I was not able to receive information from a diverse set of ideas or concepts. So to have the opportunity of getting information from a widespread audience was kind of new to me, and it helps me get an idea of a diverse view of ideas.
Project Beginnings
When we first started off this project, we first sought to delegate each of the responsibilities equally. Since Cole was chosen to be the group's communication liaison, he is the main person responsible for handling the formal correspondence for our group. As soon as that was decided the group spoke of our availability. There were some cohesive times for group meetings within our schedules, so we sent that availability to Dr. B-Gardner as soon as we could.
Unfortunately, the meeting times of Dr. B-Gardner were really limited in comparison to our group schedule. We ran into a conflict of how to get our first formal meeting taken care of in the best way possible so all of us can be caught up and up to date on the proper information. We also wanted to make sure that we had the proper information before the weekend, so we would have the proper time to create at least 10 communication points, questions for the form, and to get an adequate amount of responses.
Due to everyone’s limited availability, we were not able to find a time where at least two of us could meet with Dr. B-Gardner before the weekend. Though we were in a difficult position, because the meeting took place on Zoom we had an advantage. Cole then suggested that he can attend the meeting and soon after he would be able to send us a meeting recording along with meeting notes for us to reference. So we spoke beforehand about what is the proper information we needed to acquire from the meeting. Since Cole was able to do this for us, I asked if I could take the responsibility of creating the form and sending it for approval. As soon as Garrett and I received the Zoom meeting recording along with the notes, we were able to collaboratively create 10 communication points, in which I was able to take those and expand on some even more within the google form survey.
Creating the Survey
I created the survey as soon as I could, sent it out to the group for their opinions, and then sent it off to our Professor. After a few changes, the survey met the approval standard. Soon after this out group collectively sent the survey out to their respective communities. I sent the form to my building group chat, asked some students within the library to help out, and reached out to some friends. As we began to receive responses for the survey I was watching over the “Class Year” section on our survey. Since for this survey we needed to get responses reflective of the Furman community, we needed to make sure that there was an even divide between all the class years at Furman.
The main challenge we ran into was the fact that we were all juniors and seniors. Majority of our friend and residential groups were juniors and seniors, so the freshman and sophomore response of our survey was lacking severely. As a result I reached out to whichever freshman and sophomores I knew, and Cole sent the survey to his Pathways professor. As a result, we began to finally see more balance between all of the class grades. I created the survey as soon as I could, sent it out to the group for their opinions, and then sent it off to our Professor. After a few changes, the survey met the approval standard.
Soon after this out group collectively sent the survey out to their respective communities. I sent the form to my building group chat, asked some students within the library to help out, and reached out to some friends. As we began to receive responses for the survey I was watching over the “Class Year” section on our survey.Since for this survey we needed to get responses reflective of the Furman community, we needed to make sure that there was an even divide between all the class years at Furman. The main challenge we ran into was the fact that we were all juniors and seniors. Majority of our friend and residential groups were juniors and seniors, so the freshman and sophomore response of our survey was lacking severely. As a result I reached out to whichever freshman and sophomores I knew, and Cole sent the survey to his Pathways professor. As a result, we began to finally see more balance between all of the class grades.
What we found within the survey is that many students were not familiar with the Trone rebrand of the Counseling Center. Many students agreed that having good mental fitness can be beneficial, but many of them said they do not see themselves going to the Trone Center for Mental Fitness.
The main split of why people said they did not want to go was either 1. They think they are already mentally fit and do not need to or 2. They have been before and they did not like their experience.
The 2nd point is not one we can personally address, but it could be one mentioned to the Throne Center for Mental Fitness. The first point however, I think could be built off of. Some of responses in the survey mentioned how they think anyone can benefit on going to therapy, even if it’s not often, to keep themselves “mentally fit”
What Can We Do?
We go to a doctor for a physical check up once, maybe twice a year? We can build off of that and say, even if you believe you are fit, keeping a consistent check up schedule can be beneficial for your “fitness”.
Going forward, I do think it is important to prioritize the “why” in the many questions we encounter when it comes to any research. With a lot of questions asked in the survey, we followed up with a “Why do you feel that way” question.” I felt that these options provided a lot more diversity to support the statistical answers, and gave the statistics more emotions. I mean, we got many responses from people saying they don’t go to Furman's Counseling Center. If we did not ask why, then we wouldn’t have known that some people don’t go because they are “too busy” and that some people don’t go because they think it’s “stupid”. That’s why we have been given this opportunity; to hear those opinions and see what we can do to help debunk these ideas so students are able to access resources for proper mental fitness without thinking it is not going to benefit them positively.
