The Passive Approach: How Academically Motivated Students Approach their Mental Health.

Abstract

The research utilizes qualitative interviews and focus groups to understand how academically motivated students approach their mental health. Mental health is defined as “emotional, psychological, and social well-being,” by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and is becoming a more significant concern in collegiate student populations. At Portland State University, the effects of mental health concerns on students are nearly double that of students around the U.S (Community Commons, n.d.). Academically motivated students are a group who seemingly strive for success and likely experience high levels of stress daily. The study found that students often take a passive approach to their mental health because of lack of time, generational norms, educational system flaws, and inaccessibility of provided resources. In other words, students do not proactively care for their mental health and only do so as a short-term fix. Students lack time to care for themselves due to high workloads and time management expectations. In terms of generational differences, students may have been raised with mental health as taboo but can now be very casual around the topic with their peers. Most provided resources require significant time and effort to access or are inconvenient for students. Some of these services do not even feel worth using. Finally, academically motivated students were rarely taught about mental health throughout their education, making it incredibly challenging for students to learn healthy coping strategies as an adult.