Exploring course experiences that predict psychological distress and mental wellbeing in Australian undergraduate and graduate coursework students

ABSTRACT

University students are known to be at heightened risk among their peers for experiencing psychological distress and mental health difficulties. To date, there have been few interventions designed to reduce stressors in the educational environment. This may be due to limited research investigating course-related correlates of students’ distress. The present study addresses that gap by identifying and exploring the extent to which six common elements of coursework programmes predict students’ scores on measures of depression, anxiety, stress, wellbeing and satisfaction with life. It finds that the investigated coursework experiences account for more variance in students’ wellbeing scores than factors such as financial strain, worry about future employment, English language difficulties and minority group status. It is hoped these findings assist university course coordinators and academic educators to design and develop curricula, teaching approaches and learning environments likely to mitigate students’ high levels of distress and actively support positive mental wellbeing.

KEYWORDS:

• University students
• course experiences
• mental health
• psychological distress
• coursework
• student wellbeing

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank all the students who participated in the present study; the Deans/Associate Deans of each participating faculty/school; the relevant student associations; and the University Counselling and Psychological Services. The research was funded by a grant from Chancellery, The University of Melbourne. We also thank the anonymous reviewers of an earlier version of this article for their careful and helpful suggestions for revision.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 However, the limitations of such group-based approaches are acknowledged, given that many ‘minority’ groups intersect and also that the commonalities within groups may be questionable (Naylor et al., 2018).