Students In Northern Ireland Research Articles

Mental well-being among nursing students in Slovenia and Northern Ireland: A survey

Mental well-being is a key for successful and productive living of each individual. An imbalance can occur due to various stressors and environmental factors. Due to academic pressures, distance from home and financial burden, nursing students often meet with mental health problems. The objective of this study was to determine the mental well-being of nursing students in Slovenia and Northern Ireland, and to compare the results obtained. A descriptive cross-sectional study design was used. The survey was carried out in 2017 among nursing students in Slovenia and Northern Ireland using the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale. The study included 90 students from Slovenia and 109 from Northern Ireland. Nursing students in both countries reported average level of mental well-being. Nursing students in Slovenia have significantly higher (p < 0.001) level of mental well-being than nursing students in Northern Ireland. There are some areas that demand special attention by nurse educators to support the mental well-being of students and the impact of this on their education. Further research needs to be undertaken to find out how to improve students’ mental well-being and identify factors that are influencing mental well-being of nursing students.

Before and After: Digital story telling with social work students in Northern Ireland

Abstract: This article is developed from a presentation given at the 12th International practice teaching conference in Oxford (2018). The authors share their experiences as academics and practice educators of using digital storytelling with social work students in Northern Ireland. Storytelling took place at two distinct points of the students’ learning journey before and after placement. Undergraduate social work students (n=40) in their first semester of year one teaching participated in classroom based digital storytelling with the first author. Placement students created digital stories at two key points during their placements, at the beginning (first to third week of placement) and at the end (16th to 18th week of placement). Several themes emerged including; self-evaluation and reflection, producing and receiving feedback and team work. This collaborative article offers a basis for practice development and professional discussions across disciplines on the use of digital storytelling with students studying for a professional qualification.

Socio-demographic, mental health and childhood adversity risk factors for self-harm and suicidal behaviour in College students in Northern Ireland

BackgroundPrevalence estimates of suicidal behaviour in the college student population are consistently higher than rates for the general adult population. This study examines mental health disorders and childhood adversities as predictors of self-harm and suicidal behaviours. MethodsThe Ulster University Student Wellbeing study commenced in September 2015 as part of the WHO World Mental Health Surveys International College Student Project. In Northern Ireland (NI) 739 students participated (462 female, 274 male and 3 other specified), with the WMH-CIDI used to examine psychopathology. Mean age was 21 years old. ResultsThirty-one percent endorsed suicidal ideation (24.3% of males and 36.9% of females) with almost 1 in 5 students having made a plan for suicide in the 12 months prior to the survey. Latent profile analysis revealed three profiles of childhood adversity (high, moderate, and low risk). Logistic regression analyses showed that there was an increased likelihood of all queried self-harm and suicidal behaviours in those who were not heterosexual orientation, and among those with either moderate or high levels of childhood adversities. Probable alcohol dependence was associated with a significantly increased likelihood of suicide attempt or self-harm with either a suicide plan or a suicide attempt. LimitationsInfluences of self-report measures and the generalizability of the sample are discussed. ConclusionsPolicies and strategies for early identification of those with mental illnesses or adversities that increase their risk, should be prioritised. It would also be useful to identify individuals at risk in secondary schools to allow for additional support to be offered to them during the key time of transitioning into higher education.

Assessing the Mediating Role of Social Support in Childhood Maltreatment and Psychopathology Among College Students in Northern Ireland.

The detrimental impact of early trauma, particularly childhood maltreatment, on mental health is well documented. Although it is understood that social support can act as a protective factor toward mental health for children who experience such adversity, few studies have addressed the experience of childhood maltreatment and the important function of social support in adulthood. The current study aimed to assess the mediating role of social support in the relationship between childhood experiences of maltreatment and mental health outcomes including anxiety, depression, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and problematic alcohol use in a sample of university students (N = 640) from Northern Ireland. Results of binary logistic regression analyses indicated that those reporting experiences of childhood maltreatment were at increased odds of mental health outcomes of PTSD, anxiety, and depression, but not alcohol use. Those reporting greater social support were significantly less likely to report on these mental health outcomes. In addition, the indirect paths from childhood maltreatment through social support to PTSD, depression, and anxiety were all significant, suggesting that social support, particularly family support, is a significant mediator of these relationships. Such findings have important implications for the social care response to children experiencing maltreatment and future support for such children as they transition to adolescence and adulthood.

National assessment policy reform 14–16 and its consequences for young people: student views and experiences of GCSE reform in Northern Ireland and Wales

This paper uses data from a mixed-methods research project which explored the views and experiences of students in Northern Ireland and Wales on the assessment and reform of GCSEs. The research found that while students were generally supportive of the substance of the reforms in each region, they raised concerns about the rapid pace of reform, and questioned whether changes were in their best interests. Participants expressed particular anxiety about the end of three-country regulation of GCSEs and the consequences of this development for students. As those most affected by changes to qualifications, they wanted a greater role in determining national assessment policies. Considering the impact of such reforms on young people, and recognising the important perspectives they can offer on how qualifications are enacted in practice, it is argued that the concept of student voice should be broadened to accommodate young people’s involvement in national assessment and educational decisions.

Exploring the impact of mindfulnesss on mental wellbeing, stress and resilience of undergraduate social work students

Mindfulness is becoming more popular as emerging research demonstrates its benefits for self-care, by cultivating calmness and decreasing stress or anxiety. This pilot study aimed to measure the impact of a six-week Mindfulness course, modelled on the manualised treatment programme developed by Kabat-Zinn on the mental well-being, stress and resilience of undergraduate social work students in Northern Ireland. This was a mixed methods study involving two groups: (1) intervention group participants who attended a six-week Mindfulness course (April–May 2016) and (2) control group participants. Basic socio-demographic data were collected from all participants and all were invited to complete the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale, the Perceived Stress Scale and the Resilience Scale during weeks 1 and 6. Statistical tests were used to compare mean scores from the scales, and qualitative data were manually analysed using thematic content analysis. Findings indicated significant changes in the scores for well-being, stress and resilience for the intervention group, but not for the control group. Mindfulness may not appeal to all students so it should not be a mandatory component of training, but may be offered as one of the wider approaches to self-care for undergraduate social work degree students.

Group-centric attitudes mediate the relationship between need for closure and intergroup hostility

A model of the relationship between need for closure (NFC) and intergroup hostility was tested in four studies. According to the model, heightened NFC promotes glorification of the ingroup which fosters support for extreme measures against the group’s perceived enemies. In a parallel process, high level of NFC induces perceptions of ingroup victimhood, which also adds support for aggressive actions toward rival outgroups. In the first two studies, conducted in Palestine’s West Bank (Study 1) and in the United States (Study 2), NFC promoted a greater sense of moral entitlement to engage in violence against the outgroup, and this was mediated by perceived ingroup victimhood. The subsequent two studies tested the full hypothesized parallel mediation model among students in Northern Ireland (Study 3) and Jewish-Israelis (Study 4). Results largely supported the proposed model. Findings are discussed in relation to additional evidence linking NFC to phenomena of intergroup hostility.

Religious experience among Catholic and Protestant sixth-form students in Northern Ireland: looking for signs of the presence of God

ABSTRACTJohn Greer conducted major surveys of sixth-form religion in Protestant schools in Northern Ireland in 1968, 1978, and 1988. John Greer’s colleagues continued that research tradition in Northern Ireland in 1998 and 2010, and extended the survey to include sixth-form students in Catholic schools. Greer’s survey routinely included a question on religious experience, drawing on the approach of Alister Hardy and the Religious Experience Research Unit. The 2010 survey provided the data from around 1500 sixth-form students analysed in the present paper. These new data offer two main points of contrast, between students in Catholic and in Protestant schools, and between students in 1998 and 2010. The analysis preserves Greer’s historic descriptive categories of religious experience styled help and guidance, exams, God’s presence, answered prayer, death, sickness, conversion, miscellaneous, and difficulty in describing.

Delivering social work education on inquiry reports addressing harm to vulnerable people: An exploratory study

Summary This article outlines a research study examining how social work education, in relation to case reviews and inquiry reports, was structured and delivered to a range of social work students in Northern Ireland. Adopting a qualitative design, nine social work educators in the region were interviewed and asked about their approach to presenting findings from the reports to social work students and the issues this raised for the research sample. The results revealed three key themes: the salience of the organizational context; how learning was structured and organized; and the various attempts to build social work competence. Findings These themes showed that the co-ordinators were delivering a complex area of knowledge. It was clear that they had given considerable thought to the essential messages from the reports even though the constraints of time and setting were apparent. Moreover, they employed a range of innovations in the way the reports were theorized and how the knowledge coming from them was disseminated. The importance of the ‘fear factor’ within students was a primary issue affecting teaching and learning strategies. Applications The findings can be used as a foundation for further research into this area, looking at student feedback, the attainment of learning outcomes and, importantly, ways of enhancing teaching and learning approaches on this sensitive area. The research can also contribute to the identification of social work educators' learning needs and how to approach emotionally laden case studies of significant harm to vulnerable individuals.

Protocol: A randomised controlled trial evaluation of Cancer Focus NI’s ‘Dead Cool’ smoking prevention programme in post-primary schools

This paper presents a research protocol for a randomised controlled efficacy trial of the ‘Dead Cool’ smoking prevention programme. Dead Cool is a three to four-hour programme designed to be used by teachers with Year 9 students in Northern Ireland. The main outcome of the programme is to prevent students from starting to smoke. The protocol reports a research design intended to test the efficacy of the programme in 20 post-primary school settings. Selected schools included those from secondary /grammar/integrated/single sex/coeducational, rural and urban schools from both the maintained and controlled state sector and independent sector schools. Outcome measures include self-reported behaviours, monitoring of carbon monoxide (CO) in exhaled breath and focus groups designed to assess implementation fidelity and opinions on efficacy in intervention schools and explore the ‘counterfactual’ potential treatments in control schools.

Predictors of Illicit Drug Use Among University Students in Northern Ireland, Wales and England

Introduction:The use of illicit drug/s among university students is a public health concern. Nevertheless, many UK studies investigated a narrow spectrum of variables to explore their association/s with illicit drug/s use.Methods:We assessed the associations between a wide range of socio-demographic, health and wellbeing variables (independent variables) and having used illicit drug/s regularly, occasionally or never in life (dependent variables). Data (3706 students) were collected from seven universities in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, using a self-administered questionnaire.Results:About 5% of the sample had regularly used illicit drug/s, 25% occasionally, and 70% never. Regular drug use (RDU) was significantly more likely among males aged 21-29 years, daily smokers, those with heavy episodic drinking or possible alcohol dependency (CAGE test), and those who perceived their academic performance better than their peers. RDU was less likely among students with high health awareness and those living with parents. The predictors of occasional drug use (ODU) were similar to those of RDU. However, in addition, students with higher perceived stress were less likely, and students who felt financial burden/s were more likely to report ODU, while no association with academic performance was found. Never use of illicit drug/s was inversely associated with most of the variables listed above, and was positively associated with religiosity. Illicit drug/s use goes along with other substance use (alcohol and smoking). The finding that illicit drug/s use was higher among students reporting good academic performance was surprising and raises the question of whether illicit drug/s may be used as performance enhancing drugs.Conclusion:The factors identified with illicit drug/s use in this study could be utilized to develop appropriate public health policies and preventive measures for the health of students. Multilevel, value based, comprehensive, and strategic long-term intervention plans are required. This could include social interventions aimed at generating recreations alternatives and opportunities for youth, and a critical review for current authorities’ interventions and services. Suggestions for coping with problems of campus illicit drug use/abuse also need to be offered.

Communication accommodation in a divided society: Interaction patterns between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland

This paper investigates the impact of religious affiliation on dyadic interactions between university students in Northern Ireland. Despite over 30 years of concerted internecine strife and acute civil violence, few attempts have been made to study the patterns of face-to-face communication between those from the Catholic and Protestant communities when politico-religious identity is made salient. Significant differences were found in strategies of accommodation employed by students during communication with those from the in-group as compared to interactions with out-group members. Dyadic interaction with the in-group was marked by cues identifying group identity, more instances of verbal agreement, protracted topic discussion and convergence. Communication with members of the out-group tended to be characterized by accommodation through discourse management, especially in relation to topic selection appropriate to the religious background of the interactive partner. However, measures of interpersonal attraction failed to demonstrate any significant differences across religion. The implications of these findings are discussed in terms of the utility of Communication Accommodation Theory as an explanatory framework for interaction patterns between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland.

GPS tracking of some Northern Ireland students – patterns of shared and separated space: divided we stand?

Northern Ireland is a fundamentally divided society and there is evidence of the two main communities there, Protestant and Catholic, leading essentially separate lives. These divisions are reflected in the largely segregated residential patterns for the communities and in the separate schooling that most of them experience. This paper examines these divisions and the young people's perceptions of their impact. Global positioning system (GPS) tracking devices are used to explore the patterns of movement of some young people and the effectiveness of this method of recording spatial mobility is examined. These devices seem, only recently, to be becoming a technology that Geography teachers would consider using in their classrooms and in the field to support learning and to develop an interest in GPS and other spatial technologies. It is argued that there are many potential uses of the devices by Geography teachers.

Wellbeing, academic buoyancy and educational achievement in primary school students

The study explored the relationship between student wellbeing and academic achievement among 7–11 years old students and whether the relationship was moderated by gender and deprivation. 1081 students in Northern Ireland participated in a cross-sectional survey that captured data on academic achievement and a range of wellbeing indicators. Findings suggested the existence of an underlying wellbeing factor, which was positively related to achievement. The relationship was not moderated by gender and/or deprivation. Findings were explored using a model of ‘academic buoyancy’. There was no evidence that suggested efforts to improve achievement that focus on wellbeing should be targeted specifically at students in economically deprived areas or be modified in terms of gender.

DipSW students’ satisfaction with practice teaching on their first placement

This research report explores the influence of specific elements of the practice teaching role on students’ experience of placement learning. The findings provide a valuable insight at a time when placement learning is being reviewed.The entire population of first placement students in Northern Ireland (approximately 240) was surveyed using a short questionnaire. 149 Questionnaires were returned providing a response rate of 62.5%.Students did not indicate any strong preference for long-arm or singleton practice teaching identifying strengths and weaknesses specific to each model. There was some evidence that these two models provide distinctly different forms of placement learning. Students seemed to value well organised support groups but attitudes to group supervision were mixed. Supervision style seemed to be influenced by practice teacher gender and model of supervision. The practice teacher/ student gender mix and the age and experience of the student were found to influence the placement experience.

Trying to “See Things Differently”: Northern Ireland Students’ Struggle to Understand Alternative Historical Perspectives

This study illustrates the processes by which 8 pairs of adolescents in Northern Ireland struggled to come to grips with tensions between school and community history. Findings are based on data collected through open-ended, semi-structured interviews with students from a variety of backgrounds. Although these students appreciated the attempt by schools to present a neutral and balanced approach to the past, many had difficulty fully engaging with alternative historical perspectives. These findings suggest that a balanced history curriculum may fail to challenge students deeply enough to help them integrate competing views of the past in ways that withstand community pressure. Greater engagement with multiple historical perspectives may require that schools address the affective component of contentious history, that they help students reflect on contemporary representations of the past, and that they expose students to the diversity of perspectives that exist within seemingly monolithic political and religious categories.

“You Can Form Your Own Point of View”: Internally Persuasive Discourse in Northern Ireland Students’ Encounters with History

BackgroundResearch on historical understanding has sometimes depicted adolescents and adults as either appropriating or resisting particular narrative accounts, and resistance seems to be especially common when school-based narratives differ from those encountered outside school. In Northern Ireland, however, school history does not present an alternative narrative to community-based histories, but takes a different approach altogether; school history represents an evidence-based, analytic subject that emphasizes multiple perspectives and avoids connections to contemporary identifications or political positions.PurposeIn this study, we sought to understand both how young people in Northern Ireland approached historical information in school and how they made sense of conflicting perspectives on the past.Research Design and ParticipantsUsing qualitative, task-based interviews, we interviewed 253 secondary students, approximately equal numbers of whom had completed each of the 3 required years of historical study; these interviews included students of both genders and from differing school types in a variety of regions within Northern Ireland.FindingsWe found that these students had experienced history in more complicated ways than has been evident in most previous research. They had learned about the past in a variety of formal and informal settings, and they navigated among these multiple sources in a conscious attempt to refine and extend their historical understanding as they followed up on interests initiated in one setting by seeking out information elsewhere. Although some students simply assimilated this information into dominant community narratives, most were aware that such narratives can be used for contemporary political purposes, and they appreciated that school history encouraged a more complete and balanced historical perspective, particularly by exposing them to the motivations and experiences of the other community. Even as they sought expanded historical viewpoints, however, they were unwilling to abandon the political commitments of their communities, and they sought greater contemporary relevance for history than they were likely to encounter in school.ConclusionsThese students thus were not simply appropriating or resisting particular historical narratives; they were engaged in a more complex process that involved developing internally persuasive discourse as they drew from multiple historical discourses in an attempt to form their own point of view on the region's troubled past.ImplicationsThis research suggests that students in Northern Ireland and elsewhere might benefit from a curriculum that attends more directly to their active construction of historical meaning and supports them in constructing critical perspectives on the contemporary relevance of the past.

Introducing the Modified Paranormal Belief Scale: Distinguishing between Classic Paranormal Beliefs, Religious Paranormal Beliefs and Conventional Religiosity among Undergraduates in Northern Ireland and Wales

Previous empirical studies concerned with the association between paranormal beliefs and conventional religiosity have produced conflicting evidence. Drawing on Rice's (2003) distinction between classic paranormal beliefs and religious paranormal beliefs, the present study proposed a modified form of the Tobacyk Revised Paranormal Belief Scale to produce separate scores for these two forms of paranormal belief, styled ‘religious paranormal beliefs’ and ‘classic paranormal beliefs’. Data provided by a sample of 143 undergraduate students in Northern Ireland and Wales, who completed the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity alongside the Tobacyk Revised Paranormal Belief Scale, demonstrated that conventional religiosity is positively correlated with religious paranormal beliefs, but independent of classic paranormal beliefs. These findings provide a clear framework within which previous conflicting evidence can be interpreted. It is recommended that future research should distinguish clearly between these two forms of paranormal beliefs and that the Tobacyk Revised Paranormal Beliefs Scale should be routinely modified to detach the four religious paranormal belief items from the total scale score.

Alternative placements in initial teacher education: An evaluation

The paper evaluates a programme of short alternative placements for final-year B.Ed. students in Northern Ireland, which aims to broaden student teachers’ experience and develop their transferable skills. The alternative placement programme is set first in an international context of evolving pre-service field placements and then set in a local context marked by a surplus of teachers; a Revised Curriculum that emphasises the importance of employability, lifelong learning, and enterprise and entrepreneurship; and the introduction of the Extended Schools programme. The evaluation is based on feedback from the 2007 to 2008 cohort of students whose comments confirm the value of exposing student teachers to non-traditional educational environments.

The importance of social identity content in a setting of chronic social conflict: Understanding intergroup relations in Northern Ireland

Two studies (N=117, 112) were conducted with school students in Northern Ireland to investigate the neglected relationship between social identity content and intergroup relations. Study 1 tested and found support for two hypotheses. The first was that the association between in-group identification and negative behavioural intentions would be moderated by antagonistic identity content. The second was that the antagonistic identity content mediates the relationship between the experience of intergroup antagonism and negative behavioural intentions. Study 2 replicated these findings at a time of reduced intergroup violence, and supplemented them with a qualitative-quantitative analysis of participants' written responses. In addition, findings demonstrate the importance of appreciating the content and meaning of social identities when theorizing about intergroup relations and developing conflict management interventions.