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Targeting components of social capital on campus to alleviate Canadian post-secondary students’ academic stress

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Abstract

This study measured the effect of various dimensions of social capital on the reporting of stress impacting the academic performance of Canadian undergraduate students. The American College Health Association collects information on undergraduate students’ habits, behaviors, and perceptions of various health topics through the National College Health Assessment-II (NCHA-II) survey. This cross-sectional study utilized the Spring 2019 NCHA-II survey data from 55,284 respondents across 58 Canadian post-secondary institutions. Of this, 31,091 undergraduate students (56.2%) reported being stressed within the past year and were included in our analysis. Nine factors were selected from the questionnaire based on their relevance to social capital in the literature, and an additional seven socio-demographic factors were controlled for in subsequent analyses. The associations between these predictor variables and stress impacting students’ academic performance were examined by fitting univariable and mixed-effects logistic regression models. Our study found having warm and trusting relationships with others, feeling a sense of belongingness, and feeling society is a good place for all individuals significantly decreased the odds of students reporting stress impacting their academic performance. Campuses that support student mental health, institutions that provide information regarding stress reduction, and feeling safe on campus also lowered the odds of students reporting stress adversely affecting their academics. These components of social capital should be targeted at higher education institutions to cultivate social capital, alleviate the implications of stress affecting academic success, and promote interpersonal resiliency skill-building among students.

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Data Availability

The data analyzed during the current study are available in the American College Health Association repository, https://www.acha.org/documents/ncha/NCHA-II_SPRING_2019_CANADIAN_REFERENCE_GROUP_DATA_REPORT.pdf

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the American College Health Association for both capturing and sharing these data with our research team.

Funding

The lead author was supported by funding from a scholarship at their own institution.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Population Medicine, University of Guelph, 50 Stone Road East, Guelph, ON, N1G 2W1, Canada

    Konrad T. Lisnyj, David L. Pearl, Jennifer E. McWhirter & Andrew Papadopoulos

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  1. Konrad T. Lisnyj
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  2. David L. Pearl
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  3. Jennifer E. McWhirter
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  4. Andrew Papadopoulos
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Konrad T. Lisnyj.

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Conflicts of Interest/Competing Interests

The opinions, findings, and conclusions reported in this article are those of the authors, and are in no way meant to represent the corporate opinions, views, or policies of the American College Health Association (ACHA). ACHA does not warrant nor assume any liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information presented in this article/presentation. The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethics Approval

The American College Health Association granted permission to use their anonymized data for this work. Ethics approval for this study was received from the authors’ institutional Research Ethics Board (Certificate #18–04-009).

Consent to Participate/Publish

The American College Health Association granted permission to utilize their data for this work. Additional approval from the authors’ institutional Research Ethics Board was received for this work (Certificate #18–04-009), in accordance with the ethical standards presented in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments. All participants provided informed consent before completing the National College Health Assessment-II survey, and all data was collected anonymously.

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Lisnyj, K.T., Pearl, D.L., McWhirter, J.E. et al. Targeting components of social capital on campus to alleviate Canadian post-secondary students’ academic stress. Curr Psychol 42, 13–23 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-021-01376-5

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