Grants and Contracts per year
Grants and Contracts Details
Description
Overview. National data show that engineering students with mental health concerns are significantly less
likely to seek professional help than their peers. While cisgender men, people of color, and first-
generation students are less likely to seek help in the general student population, such help-seeking
disparities are further pronounced in the field of engineering. Additionally, mental health concerns persist
past graduation, with engineers falling in the top five occupations with highest suicide rates. Development
of interventions targeted at reshaping engineering identity to be supportive of mental health related help-
seeking could improve success and retention of at-risk students. Furthermore, increased willingness to
seek help post-graduation could improve mental health in the engineering workforce. As a result, this
project aims to use a mixed methods approach to develop and refine an instrument to identify key
beliefs associated with mental health help-seeking in undergraduate engineering students.
The integrated behavioral model (IBM) is an empirically-supported social scientific framework that
provides a mixed methods approach for identifying the belief-based factors associated with behavioral
intention. A key component of the IBM is the use of qualitative interviews that eliminate the need for
researcher assumptions associated with the behavior. As a result, Objective 1 is to identify factors
associated with help-seeking in undergraduate engineers at the University of Kentucky through interviews
with a diverse student population (n = 30). Interviews will undergo coding and thematic analysis to
identify emergent themes and beliefs. Objective 2 is to design and refine a powerful quantitative research
instrument that reflects the lived experiences of these students. The instrument will undergo iterative pilot
testing (n1 = 20; n2 = 300) to ensure reliability, validity, and clarity for diverse engineering students. The
product of this proposal will be a robust research instrument that can be used to identify significant beliefs
predictive of help-seeking intention in undergraduate engineering students. Through collaboration with
educational psychologist PI Ellen Usher and counseling psychologist PI Joseph Hammer, this proposal
will expose engineering PI Sarah Wilson to the educational and social science research methods necessary
to further her goal of becoming a scholar in engineering education.
Intellectual Merit. Previous work on mental health related help-seeking has been limited by poor
conceptual/theoretical framing, convenience sampling, and/or examination of a narrow set of factors,
most of which are not amenable to change through intervention. Additionally, recent mental health-
related funding in engineering has been broad, with focus on further characterization of the mental health
problem and its effect on student outcomes. This study was developed based on national data identifying
a mental health related treatment-gap in engineering undergraduate students. The targeted mixed-methods
study will significantly advance knowledge by identifying belief-based factors that influence help-seeking
among diverse engineering students. Results will provide momentum for further funding opportunities
(e.g., NSF IUSE) to allow for large-scale survey implementation, and development and assessment of
interventions targeted at the underlying beliefs that drive help-seeking behavior. Additionally, the
resulting instrument could be more broadly implemented to examine generalizability to engineers in the
workplace and educational settings with varying geographic, demographic, and institutional profiles.
Broader Impacts. A theory-driven investigation into help-seeking beliefs can inform prevention and
intervention efforts within and beyond the engineering discipline and at similar institutions nationally.
Reshaping engineering identity to include willingness to seek help and encourage others to seek help for
mental health could reduce student psychological distress, thereby increasing student success through
college and into the workplace. This is particularly important for students who have been historically
marginalized in engineering, underrepresented in the engineering workforce and at higher risk for mental
health concerns. Results will be distributed via peer-reviewed interdisciplinary academic journals,
conference presentations and workshops. Additionally, an interactive website will be developed with
targeted communications toward (1) the general scientific community, (2) engineering educators, advisors
and administrators, and (3) the engineering student body at UK and other institutions.
Status | Active |
---|---|
Effective start/end date | 8/1/20 → 8/31/24 |
Funding
- National Science Foundation: $219,479.00
Fingerprint
Explore the research topics touched on by this project. These labels are generated based on the underlying awards/grants. Together they form a unique fingerprint.
Projects
- 2 Active
-
REU Supplement: Participant Support: Research Initiation: Development of a Survey Instrument to Identify Mental Health Related Help-Seeking Beliefs in Engineering Students
Wilson, S., Hammer, J. & Usher, E.
8/1/20 → 8/31/24
Project: Research project