Work to support student mental health and wellbeing is high on strategic agendas across the higher education sector. The number of students reporting a mental health condition on application to university has increased by 450% over a ten-year period, equating to nearly 1 in every 25 students. Moreover, ‘full-time students who reported a mental health condition have lower continuation, attainment and progression rates than full-time students overall’.
Maintaining a good study-work-life balance is important for all students, irrespective of whether they have a known mental health condition. With engagement with academic studies correlating to student outcomes and engagement impacted by student mental health and wellbeing, academic disengagement can provide a powerful means to identify potential wellbeing issues early.
StREAM provides a unique way to visualise student engagement and alert to changes in behaviour that could be related to a struggling student. Early intervention could be critical to a student dealing with a mental health or wellbeing crisis.
Here are 10 ways that StREAM supports mental health and wellbeing:
1. Real-time academic engagement insights for every student.
Daily engagement ratings in StREAM enable student and staff users to understand ‘normal’ engagement patterns for each student, and identifies students with low, very low or no engagement. Comparisons to the cohort average or top 25% of engaged students can establish a baseline to review exceptional engagement behaviour.
2. Holistic insight in one platform frees up time to concentrate on student support.
Various data sources, determined at institutional level, inform the engagement categories in StREAM via one easy-to-read dashboard, freeing staff to focus on meeting and supporting students rather than checking multiple systems.
3. Focus limited resources on students most in need of support.
The holistic view of engagement in StREAM objectively identifies which students may need support at any given moment in time, enabling staff to concentrate time and effort on those students most in need.
4. Changes in engagement behaviours provide early warning of a mental health or wellbeing issue
StREAM makes it easy to know when engagement changes unexpectedly, supporting timely and proactive outreach out to students to work with them to support any health and wellbeing issues.
5. Data insights that provide the basis to a meaningful, supportive conversation
Data insights in StREAM make it easy to initiate meaningful conversations with tutees triangulating contextual knowledge about the student and their academic programme with data on their participation in learning activities. Use the Exemptions feature to keep everyone informed of possible reasons for periods of lower or no participation due to difficult personal circumstances so they can respond compassionately.
6. Early awareness of risks to attainment and success
The StREAM engagement calendar makes it easy to explore engagement patterns and to follow-up where behaviour changes. Understanding reasons for a drop in engagement early in the academic year mean that action can be taken to support student success and prevent possible difficulties resulting in module or assessment failure.
7. Close the loop on interventions to stop students falling through the gap
Build a comprehensive interventions strategy aligned to institutional policy and process requirements for student support. The Interactions lifecycle helps monitor progress against agreed actions, close off completed interactions and follow-up with students where progress has been delayed or is incomplete.
8. Identify students who may not know there is an issue
The objective data insights within StREAM can indicate where a student may be struggling to engage with their learning, enabling early outreach conversations and support for all students that help to maximise their academic success.
9. Developing healthy engagement behaviours
Understanding that there is a natural ebb and flow to engagement makes it easier to identify when dramatic changes in engagement indicate a student may benefit from help.
These visual indicators provide valuable opportunities for tutors to offer coaching and guidance on achieving a healthy work-study-life balance and effective time management at stressful times in the academic year.
10. Data-driven insights that inform policy and strategy
Understanding what initiatives are most successful at supporting successful student outcomes helps manage increasingly limited resources and demonstrate value for money. Honestly reflecting upon fluctuations in service demand and identifying pinch-points across the academic year can inform preventative measures as part of strategic outreach campaigns and help with resource allocation.
Find out how StREAM can support student wellbeing at your institution by booking a StREAM demo.
