Identify College Students Research Articles

An examination of heavy drinking, depressed mood, drinking related constructs, and consequences among high-risk college students using a person-centered approach

IntroductionResearch has identified college students who experience depressed mood and consume alcohol are at an increased risk for experiencing alcohol problems. The present study identified profiles of differential alcohol use, depression, key psychosocial indicators of drinking (e.g., normative perceptions) and examined the relationship between these profiles and alcohol-related consequences. MethodStudents with a history of risky drinking and elevated depressed mood (n=311; 62.4% female) completed a web-based survey assessing typical and peak drinking, depressive symptoms, descriptive norms, drinking to cope motives, protective behavioral strategies, and alcohol-related consequences. RESULTS: Latent profile analysis was used to classify participants into distinct profiles focusing on alcohol use patterns and level of depressed mood and drinking related constructs. Profiles were then compared based on their association with reported rates of alcohol-related consequences. Four profiles emerged: 1) Mild Depression, Heavy Drinkers; 2) Mild Depression, Severe Drinkers; 3) Moderate Depression, Heavy Drinkers; and 4) Moderate Depression, Severe Drinkers. Findings revealed significant differences between the four profiles on both risky drinking and alcohol-related consequences. ConclusionThese findings suggest the importance of assessing and addressing depressive symptoms among college students in order to reduce rates of risky drinking and alcohol-related consequences.

Undergraduate Students' Exposure, Knowledge, Utilization, and Intended Use of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.

Suicide is a leading cause of death among college students. Crisis hotlines play a role in linking suicidal individuals to help. Despite leading to favorable outcomes, low utilization of crisis outlines has been reported. To explore exposure, knowledge, and utilization of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (NSPL) among a sample of university students; to determine if knowledge and perceived helpfulness of NSPL predict intent to use NSPL. The researcher surveyed 560 students attending a Midwestern university to assess knowledge of, and attitudes toward, the NSPL. Those who reported seeing the NSPL advert (50%) perceived the NSPL to be more helpful than those who had not seen the advert. Only 29% (n=160) were able to identify who would answer the NSPL (a trained, skilled counselor). Only 1% (n=4) reported utilization. Participants who reported past exposure to the NSPL advert reported higher levels of perceived helpfulness of the NSPL. Perceived helpfulness of the NSPL was a weak predictor of likelihood to use the NSPL. The study limitations include its small sample size; participants' likelihood to use the NSPL was assessed using independent symptoms. Further research is needed to identify college students' underlying attitudes toward the NSPL.

Alcohol-related blackouts among college students: impact of low level of response to alcohol, ethnicity, sex, and environmental characteristics.

Objective:To explore how a genetically-influenced characteristic (the level of response to alcohol [LR]), ethnicity, and sex relate to environmental and attitudinal characteristics (peer drinking [PEER], drinking to cope [COPE], and alcohol expectancies [EXPECT]) regarding future alcohol-related blackouts (ARBs).Methods:Structural equation models (SEMs) were used to evaluate how baseline variables related to ARB patterns in 462 college students over 55 weeks. Data were extracted from a longitudinal study of heavy drinking and its consequences at a U.S. university.Results:In the SEM analysis, female sex and Asian ethnicity directly predicted future ARBs (beta weights 0.10 and -0.11, respectively), while all other variables had indirect impacts on ARBs through alcohol quantities (beta weights ~ 0.23 for European American ethnicity and low LR, 0.21 for cannabis use and COPE, and 0.44 for PEER). Alcohol quantities then related to ARBs with beta = 0.44. The SEM explained 23% of the variance.Conclusion:These data may be useful in identifying college students who are more likely to experience future ARBs over a 1-year period. They enhance our understanding of whether the relationships of predictors to ARBs are direct or mediated through baseline drinking patterns, information that may be useful in prevention strategies for ARBs.

Is there a relationship between students' knowledge of HIV/AIDS ways of transmission and their responses regarding their proximity to people living with HIV/AIDS?

This paper aims to identify college students' knowledge of HIV ways of transmission and correlate it with their answers concerning the proximity to people living with HIV/AIDS. We applied a questionnaire from the Brazilian Ministry of Health to 591 health undergraduate students. We analyzed the 10 questions about the virus ways of transmission, evaluating the number of correct answers and verifying the association between the number of correct answers and questions related to the proximity to people living with HIV/AIDS. Most students (96%) answered correctly 7 to 10 questions related to HIV ways of transmission (Group A) and 4% answered correctly 3 to 6 questions (Group B). Correlating these two subgroups and the answers about the non-acceptance of proximity to people living with HIV/AIDS, we found significant association between Group B and the agreement that the employer should fire an employee living with HIV and the statement that they would feel uncomfortable if a child living with HIV/AIDS studied at the same school as their own children. Negative opinions concerning the proximity to people living with HIV/AIDS were less prevalent, but were correlated to the lower knowledge of HIV ways of transmission.

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), Stress and Mental Health in College Students.

The goal of this short-term longitudinal study was to examine whether adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) could be used to identify college students at risk for mental health problems and whether current level of stress mediates the relationship between ACEs and mental health. Data on ACEs and mental health (depression, anxiety and suicidality) were collected at the beginning of the semester, and data on current stressors and mental health were collected toward the end of the semester (n=239). Findings indicated that ACEs predicted worsening of mental health over the course of a semester and suggested current number of stressors as a mediator of the relationship between ACEs and mental health. Results suggest that screening for ACEs might be useful to identify students at high risk for deterioration in mental health. Results further suggest that stress-related interventions would be beneficial for students with high levels of ACEs and point to the need for more research and strategies to increase help-seeking in college students.

Religiousness and Rape Myth Acceptance: Risk and Protective Effects.

This study addressed the lack of research simultaneously examining multiple dimensions of religiousness when predicting rape myth acceptance, and extended prior findings of a mediating role for right-wing authoritarianism (i.e., uncritical submission to authority and aggressive attitude toward those who do not conform to social norms) in the association between religiousness and prejudice. The sample consisted of 99 undergraduate and graduate students (M age = 31.87 years, 66.7% female, 80.82% White, and 93% Christian affiliated) from a religiously affiliated university in the Midwest United States. As hypothesized, dimensions of religiousness exhibited differential associations with rape myth acceptance. Religious motivation characterized by openness and exploration (i.e., quest religiousness) was a significant negative predictor of rape myth acceptance, directly, and indirectly through right-wing authoritarianism. In contrast, rigid adherence to religious beliefs, assumed to be "right" and absolutely true (i.e., religious fundamentalism), and extrinsically motivated religiousness each exhibited a positive association with rape myth acceptance through right-wing authoritarianism. In addition, internally motivated religiousness and religious fundamentalism each moderated the nonlinear effect for quest predicting rape myth acceptance. Findings suggest that uncritical religious and secular submission to external authorities or uncommitted and nonexploring religiousness may have increased the extent to which persons adhered to rape myths, whereas religious exploration was protective. Practical implications center on the need for socioculturally relevant prevention and intervention efforts with religious identifying college students.

Students' persistent preconceptions and learning economic principles

ABSTRACTEconomic views held by the general public tend to differ significantly from those of economic experts. Would these differences fade away if people were exposed to some economic instruction? In this article, the authors identify college students' preconceptions about economic issues at the beginning of the semester, verify their persistence throughout the semester, and test whether their beliefs are correlated to course performance. The authors conduct a survey at the beginning and end of the semester on a sample of first-year students taking an economic principles course. They find evidence of preconception persistence and reasoning inconsistencies, pointing to some cognitive biases as a plausible cause. Most students do not integrate the newly learned tools into their thinking process, even if they perform well in tests.

Daehr

Electronic health records (EHR) provide a rich source of temporal data that present a unique opportunity to characterize disease patterns and risk of imminent disease. While many data-mining tools have been adopted for EHR-based disease early detection, linear discriminant analysis (LDA) is one of the most commonly used statistical methods. However, it is difficult to train an accurate LDA model for early disease diagnosis when too few patients are known to have the target disease. Furthermore, EHR data are heterogeneous with significant noise. In such cases, the covariance matrices used in LDA are usually singular and estimated with a large variance. This article presents Daehr , an extension of the LDA framework using electronic health record data to address these issues. Beyond existing LDA analyzers, we propose Daehr to (1) eliminate the data noise caused by the manual encoding of EHR data and (2) lower the variance of parameter (covariance matrices) estimation for LDA models when only a few patients’ EHR are available for training. To achieve these two goals, we designed an iterative algorithm to improve the covariance matrix estimation with embedded data-noise/parameter-variance reduction for LDA. We evaluated Daehr extensively using the College Health Surveillance Network, a large, real-world EHR dataset. Specifically, our experiments compared the performance of LDA to three baselines (i.e., LDA and its derivatives) in identifying college students at high risk for mental health disorders from 23 U.S. universities. Experimental results demonstrate Daehr significantly outperforms the three baselines by achieving 1.4%--19.4% higher accuracy and a 7.5%--43.5% higher F1-score.

The association between sensation seeking and e-cigarette use in Texas young adults: A cross-sectional study

ABSTRACTObjective: To examine the associations between sensation seeking and ever and current e-cigarette use in Texas young adults (18–29 years old). Current cigarette use was examined as a potential effect modifier of the associations. Participants: Participants included college students enrolled in four-year and two-year colleges in four metropolitan areas in Texas (n = 5,418) who completed the survey between November 2014 and February 2015. Methods: This cross-sectional study utilized mixed effects logistic regression to determine the associations between mean sensation seeking scores and ever and current e-cigarette use after controlling for covariates. Results: After controlling for covariates, significant associations between sensation seeking and both ever and current e-cigarette use were observed; however, these associations were significant for noncurrent smokers only (adjusted odds rations [AOR] = 1.55, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.39, 1.73; AOR = 1.82, 95% CI = 1.54, 2.15, respectively). Conclusions: Sensation seeking is an important factor in identifying college students who may be at increased risk for e-cigarette use behaviors.

Using the WHO–5 Well-Being Index to Identify College Students at Risk for Mental Health Problems

Using the WHO–5 Well-Being Index to Identify College Students at Risk for Mental Health Problems

College Students’ Perceptions Regarding Medical Waivers for Wellness Incentives Under the Affordable Care Act

Background and Purpose: The use of health-contingent financial incentives in promoting employee wellness is controversial because of potential discrimination against those who could not reach certain health goals due to health factors. To protect consumers from such discrimination, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) requests protective mechanisms; however clear and detailed guidelines for the medical waivers have yet to be developed. This study aimed to identify college students’ opinions about employee wellness programs where monetary incentives are given for those whose Body Mass Index falls into the normal range with particular attention to medical waivers. Methods: A cross-sectional survey study was conducted with participants consisting of a convenience sample of 58 college students in California. Results: Some scenarios were considered more legitimate for waivers than others (pregnancy, 67.3%; chronic back pain; 43.1%; broken leg, 38%; and steroid use; 34.5%). The non-medical reason of "trying to lose weight" was also considered legitimate by 21% of respondents. Responses varied by participants’ gender and their own weight status. Conclusion: College students did not view all scenarios as legitimate reasons for medical waivers. These findings call for physicians to develop a list of legitimate reasons for medical waivers, and for physician preparedness in discussing these issues with patients.

Physics Training and Talent Search Programme

A Physics Training and Talent Search (PTTS) programme for final year B Sc students from all over India was held last year. The aim was to identify college students who are motivated to study physics, train them and nurture their academic growth. The relationship with the students, we hope, will continue on a long-term basis so that we help in fulfiling their aspirations. We hope to create a stream of talented students opting for research in universities and institutes, while those who become teachers turn out to be of high standards. Furthermore, by developing and sharing better techniques for teaching physics, we hope to enhance the quality of physics education in theory and experiments across India.

Vocational Anticipatory Socialization

Framed by social cognitive career theory, this study identified college students’ perceptions of the most influential sources and content of encouraging/discouraging career messages (vocational anticipatory socialization [VAS]). A survey of 873 university students found that mothers, followed by teachers/professors, friends, and fathers, were perceived to be the most influential encouraging VAS sources. However, first-generation college students were more likely to identify teachers/professors as their most influential VAS source. Friends were identified as most influential source of discouraging messages. The most frequently identified VAS messages gave career details. Mothers were most often described as conveying messages telling their children to pursue a passion for their career, while teachers/professors were frequently reported as providing career detail messages. Based on the VAS messages reported, we speculate that some VAS messages help students overcome perceived barriers by boosting self-efficacy and outcome expectations, confirming students’ individual skills and helping students envision themselves in particular career settings.

Steve Jobs or No Jobs? Entrepreneurial activity and performance among Danish college dropouts and graduates

Are college dropouts successful entrepreneurs? Other than anecdotal evidence on illustrious college dropouts who managed to become self-made billionaires, there is only limited empirical evidence to answer this question. This paper addresses this issue by investigating the relationship between college dropout or graduation and entrepreneurship activity as well as performance. Using information from the Danish labor market register, we identify college students, whether these students graduate, and if they registered a new venture. We find that a larger share of dropouts starts a business, but this reflects the endogeneity of the decision to exit from college. On average, becoming an entrepreneur does not allow dropouts to escape from their punishment in the labor market.

Identifying College Students’ Multiple Intelligences to Enhance Motivation and Language Proficiency

<p>While most research studies on the theory of multiple intelligences focused on the application of the multiple intelligences domains as separate components, this quasi-experimental research targeted the effect of multiple intelligences as integrated abilities for teaching and learning English at higher education. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of students’ multiple intelligences profiles on their motivation and language proficiency. The quantitative data was collected from the students of the College of Languages and Translation at Al-Imam Mohammad Ibn Saud Islamic University in Saudi Arabia. The researchers prepared a Likert scale questionnaire to identify students’ multiple intelligences. The participants formed two groups from male and female students who studied English courses at level 3. The first group studied English in a traditional classroom where they relied on memorizing grammatical rules while the second group studied English after identifying their multiple intelligences profiles. Using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences software (SPSS), data analysis results indicated that ineffective teaching strategies that depended on encouraging learners memorizing language rules hindered students from boosting their language proficiency. The analysis of the data also showed that when students became aware of their multiple intelligences profiles, they managed to enhance their motivation, which helped them improve their language skills. The recommendations of the current research provide creative ideas for using multiple intelligences at higher education, including a model for integrating multiple intelligences for teaching English. The current research is also a contribution in teaching English to college students since it is among only a few studies that have applied Gardner’s theory at higher education.</p>

Identifying College Students’ Feelings and Thoughts about Online Shopping

Abstract The Internet has been an essential part of everyday life with the information technologies developing rapidly. It has become a common place for people where they communicate with others, do banking transactions, shop and so on. Notably, supplying all kinds of needs through online shopping has turned into an outstanding phenomenon. Electronic web based shopping systems which are growing in number day by day have took the place of traditional, face-to-face and written trade systems based on record forms. Not only the benefits has it offered for customers preferring online shopping, but also the advantages it provides for the companies make it popular for both sides. This study aims to investigate the feelings and thoughts of college students about online shopping. The study was conducted on college students studying at Trakya University, Kesan Yusuf Capraz School of Applied Disciplines. The students’ feelings and thoughts about online shopping were evaluated by analyzing the obtained data.

대학생들의 수면 형태와 수면에 대한 인식

Purpose. The purpose of this study was conducted to identify college students' sleep type and awareness of sleep. Methods. We researched 250 students in a college using the Korean Translation of Composite Scale(KtCS) and awareness of sleep questionnaire. Results. The sleeping hour of college students was 395.28 minute in average. The research showed that the biggest reason for the lack of sleep is using the computer, mobile and watching TV(22.6%), and most of them said that the lack of sleep is causing drowsiness during the daytime( 29.2%). For the questions asking when they feel drowsy during the daytime, most of them forcing themselves to stay awake(29.2%) and they caught up on sleep on the weekend(32.5%). Conclusions. Therefore college students to keep relevant sleep time and to know about the importance of the sleep.

Screening for Suicide Risk in the College Population

Suicide is the third leading cause of death in college students, but there is limited consensual evidence to guide clinicians’ assessment and management of suicide. The aim of the current study was to assess the capability of a simple and practical measure, the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) suicide item, to identify college students at high risk of suicide. Exploration of this research question could have important implications in this vulnerable population for identifying those at risk for suicide. Six-hundred-and-fifty-seven college students participated in a mental health screening and completed the BDI and the Suicidal Behaviors Questionnaire-Revised (SBQ-R), which is a detailed measure of suicide risk. We dichotomized the BDI suicide item, which measures suicidal ideation within the past week (presence vs. absence of suicidal ideation) as well as the SBQ-R total score (low vs. high risk of suicide). We computed the kappa statistic for the examination of agreement between these two measures. The kappa coefficient for the BDI suicide item and the SBQ-R was 0.57 for dichotomized scores. The BDI suicide item had a positive predictive value of 74 %, and a negative predictive value of 93 %. In a hierarchical linear regression, the BDI suicide item alone significantly predicted elevated scores on the SBQ-R [Chi square (1) = 128.427, p < 0.001]. These results suggest that affirmative responses on the single BDI suicide item indicate elevated suicide risk. However this single item screening approach will miss some at-risk students.

Enhancing depression screening to identify college students at risk for persistent depressive symptoms

BackgroundDepressive symptoms in college students are prevalent and are associated with considerable academic impairment. Many universities have implemented depressive symptom screening programs and the number of students identified as in need of services following screening greatly exceeds available mental health resources. The present study sought to refine depressive symptom screening programs by identifying predictors of a persistent course of depressive symptoms and developing cut-scores for accurately identifying students who will experience a persistent symptom course. MethodStudents (n=262) who reported elevated depressive symptoms both an initial screening and baseline assessment (n=150) were invited to participate in telephone-based follow-up assessments 4, 8, and 12 months post-baseline. ResultsTwo depressive symptom courses were identified: a persistently elevated depressive symptoms course and a decreasing depressive symptoms course. Baseline social disconnection and negative feedback-seeking both significantly predicted membership in the persistently elevated depressive symptoms course. Cut-scores that robustly discriminated between the two symptom courses were identified. LimitationsThe present sample was predominantly female and Hispanic; the four-month spacing of assessments may have resulted in a failure to identify individuals who experience brief, yet impairing, recurrent depressive episodes. ConclusionThese findings can inform approaches to identifying college students most in need of mental health services for depressive symptoms based on the presence of social disconnection and/or negative feedback-seeking. Screening cut-points on social disconnection and negative feedback-seeking measures can reduce the number of cases identified as needing mental health services while retaining the majority of cases who will experience a persistent depressive symptom course.

Applicability of the Chinese version of the 16-item Prodromal Questionnaire (CPQ-16) for identifying attenuated psychosis syndrome in a college population.

The aim of this study was to examine the reliability, validity, sensitivity and specificity of the Chinese version of the 16-item Prodromal Questionnaire (CPQ-16) for identifying attenuated psychosis syndrome (APS) in a college population. The participants were recruited from a university. Five hundred seventy-nine students completed the CPQ-16 and the Symptom Checklist-90. One class (n = 79) was randomly selected to be retested with the CPQ-16 after 2 weeks. A randomly selected group of 49 individuals who tested positive and 50 individuals who tested negative were interviewed using the Structured Interview for Prodromal Syndromes (SIPS). The internal consistency reliability was good (Cronbach's α = 0.72). The test-retest reliability was 0.88. The total score on the CPQ-16 was moderately to highly correlated with the total score on the Symptom Checklist-90 and all of the subscales (r = 0.39-0.67, P < 0.001). A cut-off CPQ-16 score of 9 was used to differentiate between those with a APS diagnosis on the SIPS versus those with no SIPS diagnoses; this cut-off value yielded 85% sensitivity, 87% specificity, a positive predictive value of 63% and a positive likelihood ratio of 6.69. The area under the ROC curve (AUC) was significant for the CPQ-16 total score (AUC = 0.93, SE = 0.026, 95% CI = 0.87-0.98, P < 0.001). Based on the proposed cut-off score, the CPQ-16 yielded a positive rate of 5.0% (29/579). The CPQ-16, administered in a face-to-face interview, demonstrated high reliability and the ability to identify college students at risk for psychosis.