CAREER: Identifying Aspects of Research that Exacerbate Undergraduate and Graduate Student Depression and Developing Interventions to Improve Student Mental Health

该项目旨在通过促进本科生和研究生对科研经历与抑郁之间关系的理解，并通过开发干预措施来改善学生的心理健康，从而服务于国家利益。抑郁症是本科生和研究生最关心的心理健康问题之一，对那些在科学领域已经缺乏服务的人产生了不成比例的影响，包括女性、第一代大学生、社会经济背景较低的个人、LGBTQ+社区的成员和残疾人。最近的研究证实，科学研究经验的某些方面会加剧抑郁症状。然而，目前尚不清楚哪些方面的研究加剧了学生的抑郁，哪些方面的研究对学生的心理健康最有害，以及研究的特定方面是否对特定学生群体的抑郁产生了不成比例的影响。这个职业项目将通过访谈和调查研究来解决文献中的这些空白。此外，该项目将开发简短的、自我指导的在线干预措施，旨在帮助本科生和研究生研究人员有效地应对研究中可能会恶化心理健康的挑战。该项目将通过开发基于生物教育课程的本科生研究经验来整合研究和教学，这些经验将提供给亚利桑那州立大学在线生命科学理学学士学位课程的学生。在线学生将参与真实的研究活动，重点是科学教育和抑郁之间的关系。这个项目的目标是使用探索性顺序混合方法设计来检验科学研究与生命科学本科生和研究生抑郁症状的关系。此外，该项目旨在开发和评估单次干预措施，以帮助本科生和研究生应对可能加剧抑郁症状的科学研究方面。具体地说，探索性访谈研究将进一步探索为什么生物学本科生和研究生认为研究的各个方面会加剧、有时会缓解抑郁症状，并找出研究与学生抑郁之间关系的调节因素。这些研究还将探索创造更具包容性的研究环境的潜在目标。采访的结果将为全国性的调查研究提供参考，以评估研究与大规模生物学本科生和研究生抑郁之间的关系，以及本科生和研究生研究人员认为哪些方法在将研究空间转变为更具包容性方面最有效。这些研究的结果将被用来开发单次会议干预措施，以帮助学生应对研究中的常见挑战；这些干预措施将易于管理，独立于教师或导师，免费提供，并可大规模提供给学生。为了将研究和教学结合起来，旨在建立一个关于科学教育和抑郁症之间关系的基础研究机构，并使学生的心理健康担忧常态化，亚利桑那州立大学的在线生命科学学士学位课程将开发基于生物教育课程的本科生研究经验，并向学生传授。这种方法将为学生群体提供真实的研究体验，这些学生几乎没有研究机会，而且他们报告的抑郁症发生率往往高于他们的同龄人亲自完成学位的比例。该奖项由改善本科生STEM教育计划和NSF研究培训计划提供资金，以表彰该项目与这两个计划的目标的一致性，这两个计划分别侧重于本科生和研究生STEM教育企业。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project aims to serve the national interest by advancing the understanding of the relationship between scientific research experiences and depression among undergraduates and graduates, and by developing interventions to improve student mental health. Depression is one of the top mental health concerns among undergraduate and graduate students and disproportionately impacts those who are already underserved in science, including women, first-generation college students, individuals from low socioeconomic backgrounds, members of the LGBTQ+ community, and people with disabilities. Recent research has established that aspects of scientific research experiences can exacerbate depressive symptoms. However, it is unknown what aspects of research that exacerbate depression are most commonly experienced by students, which aspects of research are most detrimental to student mental health, and whether specific aspects of research disproportionately affect depression for particular student groups. This CAREER project will address these gaps in the literature using interview and survey studies. Additionally, the project will develop brief, self-guided online interventions designed to help undergraduate and graduate researchers productively cope with challenges in research that can worsen mental health. This project will integrate research and teaching by developing biology education course-based undergraduate research experiences that will be offered to students enrolled in Arizona State University’s online life sciences Bachelor of Science degree programs. Online students will engage in authentic research activities focused on the relationship between science education and depression.The goal of this project is to use an exploratory sequential mixed-methods design to examine the relationship between scientific research and depressive symptoms among undergraduate and graduate students in the life sciences. Additionally, the project aims to develop and evaluate single-session interventions to help undergraduate and graduate students cope with aspects of scientific research that can exacerbate depressive symptoms. Specifically, exploratory interview studies will further probe why biology undergraduate and graduate students perceive that aspects of research exacerbate, and sometimes alleviate, depressive symptoms, as well as identify moderators of the relationship between research and student depression. These studies will also explore potential targets for creating more inclusive research environments. The findings from the interviews will inform national survey studies to assess the relationship between research and depression among biology undergraduate and graduate students at scale and what approaches undergraduate and graduate researchers perceive would be most effective in transforming research spaces to be more inclusive. The results of these studies will be used to develop single-session interventions to help students cope with common challenges in research; the interventions will be easy to administer, independent of instructors or mentors, freely available, and deliverable to students at scale. To integrate research and teaching with the intent to build a foundational body of research on the relationship between science education and depression, and to normalize mental health concerns among students, biology education course-based undergraduate research experiences will be developed and taught to students in Arizona State University’s online life sciences Bachelor of Science degree programs. This approach will deliver authentic research experiences to a population of students who have very few research opportunities and who often report higher rates of depression than their peers completing degrees in person. Funding for this award is being provided by the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education program and the NSF Research Traineeship program in recognition of the alignment of the project with the aims of these two programs that focus on the undergraduate and graduate STEM education enterprises, respectively.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.