Mental Health and Academic Performance in Postsecondary Education: Sociodemographic Risk Factors and Links to Childhood Adversity
Bibliographic record
Abstract
A significant body of literature has demonstrated that marginalized sociodemographic groups are subject to increased frequency and severity of stress, deemed ‘minority stress,’ associated with discrimination, harassment, systemic barriers, and oppression (Meyer, 2003 2015). Furthermore, early childhood adversity has been shown to be linked to increased stress reactivity and reduced mental health outcomes in early adulthood and across lifespan development (Fergusson Lynskey, 1996; Lupien, McEwen, Gunnar, Heim, 2009; Shonkoff et al., 2012). Experiences of stress in academic settings, while performance-enhancing at low and moderate levels, has been shown to be detrimental to performance and learning at chronic or severe levels (Hartley, 2011; Keogh, Bond, Flaxman, 2006; Liston, McEwen, Casey, Posner, 2012b). This dissertation leverages an ecological systems theoretical framework to identify differences in stress, wellness and learning among marginalized sociodemographic postsecondary students in Canada, and individuals who have experienced adverse childhood experiences. In study one, National College Health Assessment (2016) data from 43,780 participants across 42 Canadian postsecondary education institutions were analyzed. Findings showed that students who identified with marginalized identities were significantly more likely to experience poor wellness during their postsecondary studies, and that wellness served as a mediator between identifying with a marginalized sociodemographic group and reduced academic performance. In study two, links between stress and academic performance during transition into university were examined through a survey administered at a large, research-intensive university in Southwestern Ontario. This research demonstrated that stress was negatively related to sense of belonging and academic performance during first-year university, and that sense of belonging partially mediated the negative relationship between stress and academic performance. Furthermore, students who experienced chaotic family environments and childhood adversity were shown to have increased levels of stress and reduced academic performance during their transition into university. Collectively, this research underscores the critical role that wellness plays in student learning and establishes imperatives for postsecondary institutions to engage in efforts to enhance equity, inclusion, and transitional supports that create wellness-promoting educational contexts supporting the learning of all students, with particular benefit to communities who are vulnerable to systemic barriers and stress.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".