Improving Mentorship and Supervision during COVID-19 to Reduce Graduate Student Anxiety and Depression Aided by an Online Commercial Platform Narrative Research Group

Carol Nash

doi:10.3390/challe12010011

Abstract

Before COVID-19, post-secondary learning was dominated by in-person, institution-organized meetings. With the 12 March 2020 lockdown, learning became virtual, largely dependent on commercial online platforms. Already more likely to experience anxiety and depression in relation to their research work, perhaps no students have endured more regarding the limitations imposed by COVID-19 than graduate students concerning their mentorship and supervision. The increase in mental health issues facing graduate students has been recognized by post-secondary institutions. Programs have been devised to reduce these challenges. However, the additional attention and funds to combat depression and anxiety have not shown anticipated results. A new approach to mitigate anxiety and depression in graduate students through mentorship and supervision is warranted. Offered here is an award-winning model featuring self-directed learning in a community formed by adding together different, equal, diverse points of view rather than agreement. The approach, delivered through a commercial online platform, is non-hierarchical, and based in narrative research. The proposed model and approach are presented, discussed and limitations considered. They are offered as a promising solution to ebb the increase in anxiety and depression in graduate students—particularly in response to COVID-19.

Highlights

The course of the 2020/21 academic year posed exceptional challenges to graduate education as a result of COVID-19
Concurrent with the global pandemic was the shifting focus in graduate education to matters of inequality and inequity [1], producing a new mind-set that identified the disparity in some graduate research as able to continue during the lockdowns and other research being halted because labs were closed or the graduate student was unable to access resources [2], often as a result of historically hierarchical structures [3]
Graduate students have been recognized as among those most likely to be affected by depression and anxiety as a result of COVID-19 [5] decreasing the resilience that permits their successful adaptation that would lead to reducing in the deleterious effects of stress exacerbated by the pandemic [6]

Summary

Introduction

The course of the 2020/21 academic year posed exceptional challenges to graduate education as a result of COVID-19. Graduate students have been recognized as among those most likely to be affected by depression and anxiety as a result of COVID-19 [5] decreasing the resilience that permits their successful adaptation that would lead to reducing in the deleterious effects of stress exacerbated by the pandemic [6]. In encouraging self-direction in research, have been identified as unsurpassed in their ability to positively affect graduate students to increase their work satisfaction and fulfilment [8]. The question to be addressed is, how can the anxiety and depression graduate students face, as a result of inequities reinforced by COVID-19, be reduced with improvement in their mentorship and supervision in a way that supports self-directed learning while being attentive to inequality in graduate education?

Methods

Discussion

Conclusion