Students and Graduates
Teaching Storytelling: Improving Medical Student Well-being with Creative Writing Workshops
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Candice Kim
Burnout is prevalent among medical students, indicating an urgent need to promote their well-being. Creative writing, which has previously been shown to improve patient well-being, represents a possible but understudied way to enhance medical student well-being. A creative writing workshop was offered to all medical students with 25 participating voluntarily. The 7-hour workshop combined didactic sessions and dedicated writing time. Well-being was assessed using the validated Medical Student Well-Being Index (MSWBI), which measures well-being on a scale of 0 to 7 with 7 indicating maximum distress. The MSWBI was administered to students immediately before the workshop and one week later. Of the 25 available workshop spots, there was 100% (25/25) participation. 80% (20/25) completed the pre-workshop MSWBI, and 76% (19/25) completed the post-workshop MSWBI. The average pre-workshop MSWBI was 3.40. The average post-workshop MSWBI was 1.68, with a 51% decrease compared with the pre-workshop average. Of the 14 participant-matched pre and post-workshop MSWBI, 64% (9/14) showed a decrease, 29% (4/14) showed no change, and 7% (1/14) showed an increase. The average decrease in MSWBI was by 3.22.
A Conceptual Framework for Examining the Importance of Emotional Intelligence on the Occupational Well-being of Recent College Graduates
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Mark Lasota, Leticia Lasota
When transitioning into the job market, there are numerous challenges that plague young adults. Research suggests 75 percent of mental-health conditions begin by age 24, which parallels the transition from college students to the workforce (National Alliance of Mental Health, 2017). This time period is critical for individuals to develop coping skills to handle change and new responsibilities. As technology continues to become an essential and influential part of everyday life, the need for young professionals to develop emotional intelligence to manage occupational well-being is imperative. Bar-On (2006) defined emotional intelligence as one’s ability to effectively understand oneself and others, relate effectively to others, and adapt to and cope with one’s immediate surroundings. Goleman (1995) mentioned five key elements to emotional intelligence: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills. Recent studies on multiple professions indicate a correlation between emotional intelligence and both job performance and satisfaction (O’Boyle, Humphrey, Pollack, & Story, 2011; Dhani, 2016; Pekaar, 2017). Bringing awareness to this body of research can help recent college graduates navigate the professional world and sustain satisfying employment experiences. According to Hettler (1976), “an occupationally well individual contributes his or her unique skills/talents to work that is meaningful and rewarding.” In this presentation, we present a conceptual framework based on an extensive literature review examining the dynamics between emotional intelligence and occupational well-being among recent college graduates. Our framework will be guided by previous models on emotional intelligence (Greenspan, 1989; Salovey and Mayer, 1990; Goleman, 1995) and adapted for recent college graduates.
Putting Students’ Wellness at the Center of Student-centered Learning: A Systemic View
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Jocelyn Chapman, Karen McClendon
Wellness is a transdisciplinary concern, one that is inextricably linked to students’ academic success. Health not only affects a student’s ability to focus and concentrate, it influences her attitude, motivation, persistence, and self-identity (Anderson, 2015, 2016; LaFountaine, Neisen, and Larsen, 2007; Killams and Degges-White, 2017). Therefore, wellness should be central to a student-centered approach to education. To teach the whole student, we must see the student as a human being with a body, heart, and spirit. By helping students make the connection between their well-being and academic success, we can increase their personal responsibility for both. Using concepts from systems science, we propose a non-dogmatic approach to integrating attention to self-care across the disciplines. Context, goals, feedback loops, and leverage points are some of the concepts we will elaborate on, building on previous research and practices in systems thinking inspired health promotion (Newton, Dooris, & Wills, 2016; Naaldenberg, et al, 2009, Peters, 2014; Swanson, et al, 2012). Teachers are not required to learn a lot of principles in systems thinking to begin implementing some effective interventions and practices. Investing in providing students with appropriate information and skills-training to see their role in developing healthy lifestyle habits can result in more engaged and alert learners. It is our belief that teachers will find a systems approach to addressing wellness so rewarding that they will want to increase their systems know-how and experiment with using it in their primary discipline. We conclude with a discussion and promotion of “healthy universities.”
Teachers’ Comfort, Care, and Confidence in Dealing with Issues of Student Suicide: A Longitudinal Study
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Teresa j rishel Rishel, Deborah K. Zuercher
Due to the crisis of suicide activity and self-harming behaviors, teachers must realize the crucial role they can play in the life and death decisions of students. The first critical step is for teachers to acknowledge and assess their own level of competence and comfort about this challenging topic. In research published over a decade ago, researchers stated that teachers are considered to be the front line in handling issues of student suicide, bound with a caveat that although teachers are on this front line, they are ill-prepared to handle suicide. My findings supported their claims, often in spite of required suicide training. Teachers’ perceptions of their competence, comfortableness, and front-line position in handling student suicide issues were examined in this longitudinal phenomenological research study. Participants included 236 elementary (124) and middle school (112) teachers in fourteen school districts in two Midwestern states and a U.S. territory over a twelve-year span. Based on a Likert scale of self-reporting questionnaires and follow-up interviews with 104 of the participants, findings indicated that while 99% of the participants felt that they were the front line in handling student suicide issues, over half felt uncomfortable in doing so. Regarding competence, 75% of the participants felt they were not at all competent. Teachers’ responses in 2012 or later showed higher feelings of both comfort and competency, which indicated they may have benefited from the emergence of state-mandated suicide training. During later years, findings indicated that social media played a key role in teachers’ competence.
