Effects of COVID-19 on College Students’ Mental Health in the United States: Interview Survey Study

Effects of COVID-19 on College Students’ Mental Health in the United States: Interview Survey Study Changwon Son Sudeep Hegde Alec Smith Xiaomei Wang Farzan Sasangohar

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Effects of COVID-19 on College Students’ Mental Health in the United States: Interview Survey Study 2020 Journal of Medical Internet Research 10.2196/21279 son2020-effects-of-covid-19-on-college-stu son2020-effects-of-covid-19-on-college-stu.txt, the project's staged copy 7252b6132d2948e23ac70a56d72c7ebdedacfa04 cc-by health-psychology

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0 spans located by searching the stored text for the quote's exact words, allowing any whitespace between them what the COVID-19 pandemic did to the mental health of undergraduates at one large university, asked in a semistructured interview a month after the state stay-at-home order Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. which pandemic stressors students report, how severely each affects them, and why so few used the counselling service available to them Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. an interview survey of undergraduates during the pandemic peak, carrying both a literature-derived twelve-category severity rating and an open thematic coding of the same transcripts Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. existence Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. student distress during a pandemic, recorded through two instruments at once - one whose categories were fixed by earlier papers and one with no categories at all Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. survey survey Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. the same interviews are read twice - once against twelve categories written by earlier papers and rated 0 to 3, once with no categories at all. Whatever the open coding surfaces that the twelve do not contain is a direct measurement of what the literature's vocabulary could not see. THE COMPARISON IS AVAILABLE IN THIS PAPER AND IS NOT DRAWN two apertures on one set of transcripts Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. open coding without a priori codes means the themes are whatever a trained reader sees. One person did all of it; two others were brought in afterwards to resolve discrepancies and discuss saturation. That is a review, not an independent coding, and no agreement statistic is available because none could be computed the coder is the instrument, and there was one Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. the interviews were run by 20 trained undergraduate researchers and none of the authors conducted one. That removes the authors' expectations from the elicitation and introduces twenty different interviewing styles into it - a trade the design makes deliberately and the paper reports plainly twenty interviewers, none of them the authors Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. recordings were transcribed by an AI service and verified for accuracy manually. The qualitative data is therefore a machine's reading of speech, corrected - and what a correction pass catches is a different set from what it misses a transcript produced by a machine and checked by hand Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. participants were also asked to describe stressors, coping strategies and barriers in a typical semester WITHOUT associating them with the pandemic. The within-person baseline is collected from the same person in the same sitting, which controls for who is answering and not for when they are answering a non-pandemic comparison inside the same interview Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. the sample is small compared with survey-only studies, traded for elaboration and clarifying detail Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. the sample is from one large university and may not generalize to all college students Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. a majority of participants were engineering majors; a stratified nationwide sample across wider disciplines is needed to verify and amend the findings Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. almost none of the participants who had not used the counselling service gave a reason, so the study's central practical question is left open Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. mental health problems were not analysed by demographic characteristics or by personal and social context Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. multiple analyses of the collected data are still in progress; only the PSS results and COVID-19-related findings appear here Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. grounded theory's open coding step, taken into a health-services interview study and run alongside a fixed rating scale on the same transcripts Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. automatic speech transcription, used as the route from recording to analysable text with a manual verification pass Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. the same participants asked to describe stressors, coping strategies and barriers for a typical semester, explicitly without associating them with the pandemic eliminates: pandemic-attribution of ordinary student stress - the baseline comes from the same person, so it cannot be a difference between populations · outcome: held Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. interviews conducted by 20 trained undergraduate researchers, with none of the authors conducting any eliminates: the authors' own expectations shaping what participants said, at the cost of twenty interviewing styles · outcome: held Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. machine transcription verified for accuracy manually before coding eliminates: transcription error being read as what the participant said - though the check is a human pass over a machine output, not two independent transcriptions · outcome: held Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. the single coder's themes discussed with two other trained coders to resolve discrepancies among related themes and discuss saturation eliminates: nothing that can be quantified - the second and third coders reviewed one person's coding rather than coding independently, so no agreement statistic exists to report · outcome: partial Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. a standing instrument, the Perceived Stress Scale-10, carried in unchanged alongside the study's own questions eliminates: the study's own severity ratings standing alone - PSS is comparable to every other study that uses it · outcome: held Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. only inclusion criterion recorded: enrolment as an undergraduate at the time of the interview, with recruitment by email, text and snowball sampling eliminates: very little - snowball recruitment on a single stated criterion is a weak control, and recording it as held is recording how weak it is · outcome (stated by the tagger, no quotation): held Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. open coding open coding Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. a priori codes a priori codes Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. categories categories Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. stressors stressors Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. PSS PSS Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. single coder single coder Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. interview survey interview survey Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. survey-only studies survey-only studies Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. counseling service counseling service Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. saturation saturation Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. the stressor set - AS FIXED IN ADVANCE: twelve academic-, health- and lifestyle-related categories derived from existing literature, rated 0 to 3 Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. the stressor set - AS FOUND IN THE TRANSCRIPTS: themes from an open coding process that uses no a priori codes and takes what can be extracted directly from the data Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. stress - AS SCORED: a PSS-10 total, a widely used instrument measuring overall stress in the past month Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. stress - AS ELABORATED: whatever the participant said when asked to explain each severity rating Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. the comparison condition - AS DESIGNED: the same students describing stressors and barriers in a typical semester, asked without associating them with the pandemic Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. builds-on → existing literature identifying prominent factors affecting college students' mental health, from which the twelve rating categories were taken Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. extends → survey-based studies of student mental health during the pandemic, by adding elaboration and clarifying detail at a smaller sample size Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. qualifies → its own generalisability - one university, a majority of engineering majors, and no demographic breakdown Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. open coding —distinct-from→ a priori codes open coding a priori codes differs in: whether the category existed before the data did · the relation itself is separately evidenced · strength of the relation: 0.95 · differs in (stated by the tagger, no quotation): whether the category existed before the data did · the relation stated: the open coding process uses no codes created before the analysis and takes what can be extracted directly from the data - which is the opposite of the twelve literature-derived categories used on the same transcripts Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. interview survey —distinct-from→ survey-only studies interview survey survey-only studies differs in: whether the participant can elaborate on an answer · the relation itself is separately evidenced · strength of the relation: 0.95 · differs in (stated by the tagger, no quotation): whether the participant can elaborate on an answer · the relation stated: the interview design trades sample size for elaboration and clarifying detail, and the authors position it as complementing rather than replacing the larger survey studies Audit 2026-09-28: DOUBTFUL - read against its full span and kept, but the span says the interview sample was small compared to survey-only studies; distinct-from is loose. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. Pandemic-specific stressors were elicited across 12 categories derived from existing literature on college students' mental health. Pandemic-specific stressors were elicited across 12 categories derived from existing literature on college students' mental health. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. the same transcripts were also coded with no a priori codes at all, taking themes directly from the data the same transcripts were also coded with no a priori codes at all, taking themes directly from the data Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. A single coder identified the themes and discussed them with two other coders to resolve discrepancies and discuss saturation. A single coder identified the themes and discussed them with two other coders to resolve discrepancies and discuss saturation. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. interviews were conducted by 20 trained undergraduate researchers and none of the authors conducted any interviews were conducted by 20 trained undergraduate researchers and none of the authors conducted any Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. participants also described stressors and barriers for a typical semester without associating them with the pandemic participants also described stressors and barriers for a typical semester without associating them with the pandemic Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. a vast majority had not used the university counselling service and only a few gave any reason a vast majority had not used the university counselling service and only a few gave any reason Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. mental health problems were not analysed by demographic characteristics or social context mental health problems were not analysed by demographic characteristics or social context Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. a process which does not use a priori codes or codes created prior to the analysis, placing emphasis on information that can be extracted directly from the data open coding Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. the Perceived Stress Scale-10, a widely used instrument to measure overall stress in the past month PSS Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. academic-, health- and lifestyle-related outcome categories, fixed from existing literature before any interview 12 Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. undergraduate researchers conducted the interviews; none of the authors did 20 Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. PSS PSS Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. stressors stressors Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. categories categories Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.

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