Researchers conducting 鶹ý’s groundbreaking Student Life Study will reach out to its participants via their phones to offer ways to combat stress and anxiety as the weight of the spring semester mounts.
The study, now in its fourth semester, recently reached the milestone of having 2,000 students participating, said John Gunstad, Ph.D., professor of psychological sciences. Gunstad and Karin Coifman, Ph.D., professor of psychological sciences, are co-directors of the study.
The pair, who shared updates with Kent State Today, also are celebrating the success of having been awarded a $500,000 state grant for mental health research, treatment and intervention to aid in the study, and the achievement of having 45 student researchers active on the project.
The Student Life Study, which began in August 2023, aims to sign up 10,000 student participants. Researchers hope the study will generate data for decades to come that will help inform decision-making to guide university administrators, legislators and others who make educational policies and decisions.
Sign up to be part of the study.
The main goal of the study is for researchers to better understand what it is like to be a modern-day college student and to offer wellness and health information and interventions along the way. Eventually, the goal is to share the data with universities across the country to make others better able to adapt to the needs of current-day college students.
Data gathered so far already bears out the ongoing mental health crisis among young people. This semester, Coifman said, participants will receive some helpful interventions to aid in stress reduction and improve their overall well-being.
“We are going to start by offering an intervention that John and I developed during the COVID-19 pandemic that we have already tested, which has shown its effectiveness with college students,” she said.
Stress levels typically begin to peak for students during the second half of the spring semester, which is when the interventions will begin. Students will receive a message via their phones, which will link to a series of activities and exercises to help them manage stress.
“It’s called the Daily Coping Toolkit, and it is a series of activities that takes only about four to five minutes,” Coifman said.
For example, she explained that students may be asked to write a summary of something bad that happened that day and then will be instructed to engage in an exercise to release the tension attached to the stressful event. This intervention has been shown to work in other groups and is expected to be effective in students.
The pair hopes to glean valuable research data from the student responses and their use of the toolkit to determine its effectiveness.
“We want to know who benefits the most from this, and what are the factors that allow them to feel the best from it,” Coifman said.
Student Researchers
Currently, 45 students, both graduate and undergraduate, are taking part in the study as student researchers. The group represents a wide variety of majors outside of psychological sciences.
Several undergraduate researchers from the project will be traveling to the annual conference of the Midwest Psychological Association in Chicago in April to present research they have conducted as part of the study, a point of pride for Gunstad and Coifman.
The undergraduate students work in teams with a doctoral candidate or post-doctoral fellow, so the effort becomes a multi-level mentorship experience for students, Coifman said.
The students and their research topics are:
- Caleb Hicks, a senior psychology major from Canton, Ohio, presenting on “Do daily fluctuations in cognitive control interact with momentary negative affect to predict maladaptive behaviors?”
- Parastoo Aramesh, a senior fashion design major from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Sienna Wilson, a senior psychology major from Pickerington, Ohio, resenting on “Investigating the relationship between positive childhood experiences and chronic pain among young adults over and above adverse childhood experiences.”
- Izzy Niedermier, a senior psychology major from New Washington, Ohio, and Megan McGrath, a senior psychology major from Stow, Ohio, presenting on “Do protective childhood experiences predict positive outcomes in daily life in emerging adulthood (i.e., more positive affect, better sleep, more adaptive coping)?”
- Katelyn Brown, a senior nursing major from Toledo, Ohio, and Tanushree Ujjineni, a junior neuroscience major from Hyderabad, Telangana, India, presenting on, “Does emotional self-efficacy drive adaptive health behaviors?”
“This is an amazing opportunity for them,” Coifman said.
Rapid Recruitment
This year, the research team began recruiting incoming first-year students when they are on campus for tours and other visits. The interactions have been helpful because the parents can also ask questions, Coifman noted.
“This semester we’re focusing on specifically recruiting students who are newly admitted in hopes of assessing them before they arrive on campus,” she said. “This approach allows us to better understand the challenges that students experience in the first month after transitioning to college.”
Coifman and Gunstad say the rate of recruitment to date – 2,000 students in four semesters – shows that the goal of 10,000 student participants is achievable.
“We are recruiting about 150 students a week, which doesn’t sound like a ton, but for psychology research, that’s an unprecedented pace of recruitment,” Coifman added.
For the 2025 fall semester, recruitment will extend to the Regional Campuses, Gunstad said.
The rapid recruitment, he said, shows that not only are students aware of their ongoing struggles but they are interested in information that can help.
“Lots of students feel overwhelmed and stressed on a regular basis, and this is a chance for us to better understand where that is coming from and then to help them do something about it,” he said.
The study is based in rooms 205 and 231 of the Design Innovation Hub on the Kent Campus.
Learn more about the Student Life Study or register to participate.