Exploring a sample of university students’ perceptions of menstruation

This study aimed to explore how a sample of young South African women constructed their perceptions of menstruation. The sample comprised 16 racially/ethnically diverse female university students (blacks = 4, whites = 2, coloured = 8; Christians = 11; Muslims = 5; aged 18 to 23 years). They participated in one of three focus group discussions on their constructions of menstruation. Findings from the discourse analysis indicated that the women perceive social control experiences of their menstruation—even in the context of medical understandings.     

Coventry university students’ experience of mental health problems

Growing numbers of university students are reporting mental health problems and using counselling services. The purpose of this study was to examine Coventry University students’ experience of mental health problems. The Department of Health (DoH) Mental Health Survey questionnaire (2003) was used to examine the experience of mental health problems and help seeking behaviour. Within the last 12 months nearly three quarters of students had experienced anxious or depressed moods, or, personal, mental, nervous or emotional problems, with a third of students failing to seek help. Ethnic minority students were more likely to report problems and less likely to seek help when compared to white students. Male students were less likely to seek help compared to female students. There are few existing studies that have focused on the mental health of students at universities established after 1992 from existing polytechnics. Coventry University exceeds the Government benchmark targets for recruiting students from non-traditional backgrounds. Our results show that it is these groups of students who are more likely to experience mental health problems.     

Creativity of university students: What is the impact of field and year of study?

There is a long‐lasting dispute about development of students' creativity in the course of their university education. Both the duration and major field of study may represent the educational effects. To address the issue, the present study collected data (N = 859) from a series of surveys of students in Hong Kong to clarify educational effects by controlling a number of background characteristics and prior scores on creativity. Apart from measuring self‐reported creative traits and creative products, it measured divergent thinking with five tasks to elicit students' creative ideas, which led to scores of fluency, flexibility, novelty, innovativeness, and originality. Results indicate the trend of monotonic decline in creativity with years of study at university and the general superiority of verbal creativity among students of humanities and social sciences, whereas business students had the highest scores on self‐assessed creative traits and products.     

Student mental health: how can psychiatrists better support the work of university medical centres and university counselling services?

Student psychiatric morbidity is rising. Whilst the influence of university counselling services is widely reported, NHS involvement by psychiatrists and general practitioners is not so well described. Counselling and mental health service providers for students at the University of Leeds were approached for numerical data and a university Group on Student Mental Health discussed the findings. The Student Counselling Centre, the University Medical Practice and a dedicated student psychiatric clinic have all seen a rise in referral rates. The University Medical Practice has also seen a rise in the prescribing of psychoactive medication. Collaborative links at the University of Leeds are explored and options for the future discussed. These include self-help over the internet, a research project to assess student mental health needs and the provision of a dedicated NHS psychiatric team for the university.     

Black students' experiences of “acceptable” racism at a UK university

Our research, conducted with 30 Black students at a predominantly White institution, used mixed qualitative methods to investigate Black students' sense-making of experiences that signalled their non-belonging. All participants experienced both overt and covert racism including the n-word, racist humour, and negative stereotyping; and this occurred in public and intimate spaces. Our reflexive thematic analysis centred on interactional dynamics that can explain how racism on campus is rendered acceptable; and how and why this is consequential for how Black students can act. We found that White students' practices of “acceptable” racism entailed the denial of responsibility and the privileging of White experiences to deflect responsibility. Importantly, these devices signal that the use of racist discourses does not always arise from unconscious bias or naivety. The perceived power dynamics whereby White students decide who belongs and what is acceptable contributed to Black students' inability to act on their own terms.     

Predictors of university students’ willingness in the USA to use clergy as sources of skilled help

This exploratory study investigated U.S. university students’ perceptions (N = 186) and the predictor variables associated with their willingness to use clergy as a source of help. In the final regression analysis using the predicted variable of willingness to use clergy as a source of help (R = 0.816, R ²= 0.665, Adjusted R ²= 0.650), there were seven significant predictor variables: (a) trust of clergy, (b) empathic ability of clergy, (c) having previously sought help from clergy, (d) respondents’ dominant/minority cultural identification, (e) attendance at religious services at least once a year, (f) believing that spiritual counselling is as effective as psychotherapy, and (g) receiving religious/spiritual education as a child. An eighth variable was retained in the final regression model because of its proximity to significance (Friendships between clergy and people, p = 0.051). Accusations against clergy and the belief that clergy are held to a higher standard did not predict willingness to use clergy as a source of help. A general linear model (F = 125.696, df = 10, p < 0.001) revealed that those who self-identified with Protestant Christianity, Catholic/Orthodox Christianity, and Judaism were more likely to consider seeking help from clergy than those who self-identified with another religious tradition (Hinduism, Islam, or Buddhism), or adherence to spiritual not religious belief. Further, those who self-identified as Jewish or Christian were also more like to perceive clergy as trustworthy and empathic. Finally, African American/Caribbean Black respondents were more likely than either Latino/Latino American respondents or European American respondents to seek help from clergy, to perceive clergy as empathic, and to believe that spiritual counselling is as effective as psychotherapy (F = 1495, df = 12, p < 0.001).     

The deliberate university: Remarks on the ‘Idea of the University’ from a perspective of knowledge

The current discussion on the role of the (European) universities often starts off with a perspective on the university as a scientific and/or pedagogical institution and consequently runs into a conflict between both logics in which each element is somehow devalued from the other perspective. Therefore, it may be productive to analyse the university from a standpoint in between, a perspective of knowledge as such. In order to conceptualise such a third perspective of knowledge, the history of the European university is reconstructed and interpreted as a process of reflection on the ‘spiral of knowledge’. Before this background the idea of the university is renewed in terms of knowledge and summarised in the idea of a ‘deliberate university’.

Delayed disclosure of disability related needs: Experiences of “at-risk” students in a South African university

The present study explored disability disclosure influences on university students, and specifically the types of supports the students perceive to need. Informants were three differently abled students (female = 1 and males = 2). They participated in semi-structured and focus group interviews on their delayed disability disclosure. Thematic analysis of the data revealed students to contend with inaccessibility of information on support mechanisms, low self-confidence, stigma and doubt, and embarrassment to negotiate support. To best support students with disabilities in their disability disclosure, student counselling services should prioritise dealing with their anxieties and follow this up by supporting them in balancing their disability and academic needs.     

Higher education, democracy and citizenship – the democratic potential of the university?

From a historical point of view, theuniversity as an institution has had the roleof educating an elite, rather than any obvioustask of enforcing democracy. But what kind ofexpectations regarding citizenship anddemocracy can we justifiably have when it comesto the role of higher education and ouruniversities today when higher education isundergoing a process of massification. Couldthe university eventually become a place fordeliberative communication, developingdeliberative qualities among its many students?According to the contributions presented here –stemming from a conference on the theme``Higher education, democracy and citizenship'',held at Örebro university, Sweden 2000 –the answer is yes, to some extent, if there isroom for pluralism in different dimensions,opportunities to challenge one's own tradition,and tolerance and respect for the concreteother.     

Towards the knowledge democracy? Knowledge production and the civic role of the university

In this paper I ask whether the University has a special role to play in democratic societies. I argue that the modern University can no longer lay claim to a research monopoly since nowadays research is conducted in many places outside of the University. The University can, however, still lay claim to a kind of knowledge monopoly which has to with the central role Universities play in the definition of what counts as scientific knowledge. The problem is, however, that the University’s knowledge monopoly is predominantly understood in epistemological terms. This leaves only one role for the University in a democratic society, viz., that of the expert. Based on ideas from John Dewey and Bruno Latour I suggest a different way to understand the distinction between ‘scientific’ and ‘everyday’ knowledge. Against this background I argue that the University can contribute towards the democratisation of knowledge if it articulates the difference between scientific and everyday knowledge in non-epistemological terms.

Does graduation give rise to increased poignancy? Moderation roles of university identity and emotion regulation

Cross-sectional (Study 1) and longitudinal (Study 2) designs were used to examine the relationship between graduation and poignancy (i.e. feeling both happy and sad at the same time). Participants included college students who completed a short emotion checklist, and measures of university identity and emotion regulation strategies. Students who were about to graduate, experienced a higher level of poignancy than those who were further away from graduation. Yet, university identity and emotion regulation moderated this relationship. Students with a higher level of university identity and those with a lower level of emotional suppression experienced a higher level of poignancy when approaching graduation. These findings not only provide support for the postulate of socioemotional selectivity theory that anticipated endings increase poignancy, but also qualify it in terms of the moderators.     

Effects of university affiliation and “school spirit” on color preferences: Berkeley versus Stanford

The ecological valence theory (EVT) posits that preference for a color is determined by people’s average affective response to everything associated with it (Palmer & Schloss, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107, 8877–8882, 2010). The EVT thus implies the existence of sociocultural effects: Color preference should increase with positive feelings (or decrease with negative feelings) toward an institution strongly associated with a color. We tested this prediction by measuring undergraduates’ color preferences at two rival universities, Berkeley and Stanford, to determine whether students liked their university’s colors better than their rivals did. Students not only preferred their own colors more than their rivals did, but the degree of their preference increased with self-rated positive affect (“school spirit”) for their university. These results support the EVT’s claim that color preference is caused by learned affective responses to associated objects and institutions, because it is unlikely that students choose their university or develop their degree of school spirit on the basis of preexisting color preferences.     

Effects of classroom context on university students’ judgments about cheating: mediating and moderating processes

Hypothetical vignettes were used to examine the effects of classroom context variables (pedagogical quality and classroom goal structure) on undergraduate (study 1) and graduate (study 2) students’ judgments about cheating. Consistent with attribution theory and previous findings, poor (versus good) pedagogy and performance (versus mastery) goals structures resulted in more teacher blame and less student blame for cheating, and cheating was rated as more acceptable and more likely in these situations. Participants’ own prior cheating history but not their experience as a classroom teacher also affected these judgments. Relations between classroom context variables and assigned blame for cheating were mediated by students’ assessments of the fairness of the classroom situation.     

Attitudes of pre‐service physical educators at a faith‐based university toward individuals with disabilities

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of an undergraduate adapted physical education course on the attitudes of pre‐service physical educators toward individuals with disabilities using the Physical Educators Attitude toward Teaching Individuals with Disabilities, third edition. The participants for this study were 108 students enrolled in undergraduate adapted physical education courses at a faith‐based university.

Statistically significant differences were found between the participants’ pre‐ and post‐intervention attitudinal scores on all measured areas. There were no statistically significant differences in the attitudinal scores based on the respondents either enrolling in both the lecture course and the laboratory, or alone enrolling in the lecture course. Surveys indicated other findings as well.     

Changing Polish university students’ attitudes toward cluttering

PurposeThis quasi-experimental design study in Poland explored the extent to which attitudes toward cluttering of university students could be changed or improved after a series of activities dedicated to attaining deeper recognition of problems associated with fluency disorders.MethodUniversity students were assigned to either an Experimental or a Control group, with 39 in each (total = 78). They all completed the Polish version of the Public Opinion Survey of Human Attributes–Cluttering (POSHA–Cl) on two occasions up to eight weeks apart.Participants in the Experimental group attended the following intervention activities: watching and discussing an educational video on cluttering, participating in a workshop on the nature of cluttering, and watching and discussing a documentary on the life experiences of people struggling with fluency disorders. The Experimental group also filled out an open-ended questionnaire at the end of the study.ResultsPre-intervention comparisons indicated that participants assigned to either of the Experimental or Control groups differed significantly on 2 of the 15 summary ratings (13 %) of their pre-POSHA–Cl attitudes toward cluttering. For the Experimental group, the intervention resulted in significant positive changes in cluttering attitudes on 8 of the 15 summary ratings (53 %). In contrast, pre- and post- POSHA–Cl scores for the Control group were essentially unchanged (0 of 15 ratings).ConclusionsThis quasi-experimental study demonstrated that it is possible to positively modify the cluttering attitudes of university students. This has implications for the length, content, and experiential components of interventions designed to improve public attitudes toward fluency disorders.     

The effect of group psychological counselling in Greek university students’ anxiety,depression, and self-esteem

Objective: During the last decades there has been a marked increase in both the number of students with severe psychological problems on campus and the number of students seeking counselling services. The present study measured the effect of a group psychological counselling program on university students’ anxiety, depression, and self-esteem. Design: Data were derived from six separate groups and a total of 53 participants (19 male, 34 female). The intervention was based on Cognitive-Behavioural Group Therapy (CBGT) and included cognitive and behavioural techniques in eight, two-hour weekly sessions. The quasi-experimental longitudinal study used a pretest/posttest group design. The participants completed the Spielberger's State–Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), and the Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale (RSE) before and after the intervention. Data were analyzed using t-tests. Results: The results indicated the existence of meaningful differences in terms of state and trait anxiety, depression and self-esteem from pre-treatment to post-treatment. Conclusion: The program was effective in decreasing significantly participants’ anxiety and depressive symptoms, as well as increasing their self-esteem. These are encouraging results demonstrating an effective form of the intervention on student population.     

What kind of networking strategy advice should career counsellors offer university graduates searching for a job?

This study investigated the relationship between social networking and job placement of university graduates. It explored whether getting a job through social contacts is the consequence of an intentional investment in social capital or is related to the biographical and psychological characteristics of the job-seeker; to what extent job-search strategies are related to the chance of being offered a job; and, finally, the relationships between social networking, social support and psychological well-being. Results showed two different approaches to the process of job entry-use of formal or informal contacts in job-finding-which led to different patterns of job-seeking strategies and employment outcomes after graduation. Significant differences were found between use of formal and informal sources of help relating to graduates' job-search intention and confidence in using social networks to find a job. No significant relationship was found between use of different sources of help and psychological well-being. Implications for university guidance services are discussed.     

Factorial complexity and validity of the Sahin–Francis Attitude toward Islam Scale among Pakistani university students

English‐speaking Pakistani university students responded to the Sahin–Francis Attitude toward Islam Scale, along with other religious measures and a social desirability scale. This scale was multidimensional. Correlations with religious measures confirmed its validity and were not explained by a social desirability response set. These data identified the Sahin–Francis Scale as a useful measure for studying Muslim attitudes within an Islamic society.