Work-in-Progress: STEM students’ mental health during the Covid-19 pandemic
D'Mitris Singleton
Of great current concern is the wellness of students across the entire nation due to the changing landscape of education in the throes of the Covid-19 global pandemic. In our experience teaching a first-year college freshman course, we became aware of many of the struggles, including serious mental health and wellness issues, which our undergraduates face. According to the National Academies Press, the long-term effects for the mental health of our students is expected to be substantial, given the already-growing number of students who experience significant mental health problems (2021). For undergraduate students obtaining degrees in the demanding and often competitive fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), the added anxiety and stress that the pandemic bring have shown to be potentially crippling to our students.
In this work-in-progress, we share intermediate results of our phenomenological study in our efforts to answer the research question: In what ways has the Covid-19 pandemic affected Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics students’ mental health? To answer this question we have conducted three focus groups using a semi-structured protocol with a total of 20 participants, who are all full-time undergraduate students in various STEM majors such as chemistry, biology, environmental science, and computer and information systems. Our analytical techniques include emergent and focused coding of the verbatim transcripts of over 300 minutes of digitally recorded audio to determine the essence of the lived experiences and perceptions of current STEM students. Our findings reveal important implications and suggestions for current and future students that are not only salient to STEM majors, but also other majors and disciplines.
D’Mitris Singleton is junior biology major with a minor in psychology. D’Mitris serves as a LINK Peer Leader and a human physiology tutor. D’Mitris plans to attend physical therapy school after graduating from Lander University.