A Study Of Mindfulness At The Georgia Institute Of Technology
Abstract
The objective of this study is to act as an exploratory pilot study to promote awareness of and engagement with mindfulness among students at the Georgia Institute of Technology. We aim to administer a
A Study of Mindfulness at the Georgia Institute of Technology
The rigorous academic climate of the Georgia Institute of Technology carries many implications for the psychological well-being of its students. The stressors they face as young adults in an increasingly competitive environment lend themselves to the onset of anxiety and depression, and the challenge of developing and engaging in effective coping strategies can further hinder students’ ability to truly thrive. In consideration of this problem, the Health Initiatives department within the Georgia Tech Health and Well-Being office has asked us to assess Georgia Tech student awareness of mindfulness— which has been linked with improved mental health in student populations—and determine a practicable and tangible way to foster mindfulness on Georgia Tech’s campus.
The ancient idea of remaining present and expressing gratitude for each moment as it comes has become the focal point for a budding domain of psychological research. Mindfulness has Eastern roots in centuries-old meditation practices but is progressively discussed and observed in the Western society of today, where it has come to denote the intentional concentration of attention on present experiences in a permissive and non-reactive manner. In this way, mindfulness runs contrary to the use of automatic cognitive processing and behaviors, and through its practice, seeks to divert attention away from anxieties, memories, daydreams, and plans. Buddhist philosophies maintain that regular exercises in mindfulness ease suffering and enhance well-being, compassion, tolerance, insight, and self-control. Since mindfulness first took hold in psychological research around fifty years ago, mental health experts and researchers have maintained that the practice of mindfulness may be valuable in individuals who contend with a range of troubles and disorders (Nagy & Baer, 2017).
Mindfulness-based treatments (MBTs) can take many forms and can be used either on their own or conjointly with other treatment interventions. MBTs have been shown to have comparable effectiveness with cognitive-behavioral therapy in addressing anxiety and depression, with lower average attrition. One popular approach, mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), consists of eight weeks of once-weekly intensive group instruction in mindfulness meditation, with daily mindfulness exercises practiced daily, and is effective in boosting mood, self-love, and quality of life in both non-neurotypical individuals and those who are psychologically healthy but who experience high stress levels. Another approach, mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT), is applied over eight weeks in two-hour weekly group sessions in which participants learn to understand that thoughts aren’t factual, aren’t automatically important, don’t necessitate a response, and can be permitted to come and go. This “decentering” is especially useful in individuals with depression, bipolar disorder, and anxiety. Relatedly, acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) incorporates acceptance- and mindfulness-based methods with behavioral change approaches. ACT includes focus on and acknowledgement of the here and now, as well as separation from thoughts. It also places emphasis on personal values, which allow individuals to live lives of purpose and significance, and the importance of aligning one’s values with his or her behaviors (Nagy & Baer, 2017).
Mindfulness research conducted among college undergraduate students has broadened the literature surrounding effective physical and mental health interventions. In one 2015 study, researchers hypothesized that students’ involvement in a six-week mindfulness-based stress reduction class would moderate their stress levels and boost their self-control, emotional intelligence, energy levels, and degree of mindfulness and that these outcomes would have a relationship with the amount of time spent performing the meditation exercises taken from the class. The class met for two-hour weekly sessions consisting of meditation, class discussions, lectures, and group trainings. Findings from the study confirmed the researchers’ hypotheses, and overall, the participants experienced marked improvements in mental health (Canby, Cameron, Calhoun, & Buchanan, 2015). Similarly, another study conducted with college freshmen found that participation in a six-week mindfulness program with encouragement of extra-class practice in the first semester of college led to greater happiness and decreases in anxiety, depression, and trouble sleeping over a control group (Dvořáková et al. , 2017).
A student’s integration of mindfulness techniques into his or her daily life may also be valuable to physical well-being and in cultivating healthy behaviors and habits. For example, it has been shown that there is a negative relationship between mindfulness and waist circumference and behaviors related to weight, including emotional eating, improper intake of fruits and vegetables, unrestricted eating behaviors, and irregular exercise (Grinnell, Greene, Melanson, Blissmer, & Lofgren, 2011). Additionally, therapist-led one-on-one mindfulness instruction over the course of one month has been linked with fewer instances of binge drinking and consequences of drinking, greater self-efficacy in alcohol refusal, and increases in mindfulness in college freshmen (Mermelstein & Garske, 2015). Relatedly, researchers have found that students who are higher in mindfulness are less likely to use alcohol as a mood enhancer, means of conforming with their peers, or coping mechanism than students lower in mindfulness (Roos, Pearson, and Brown, 2015).
Furthermore, when mindfulness is practiced through physical exercise programs, students meet with success in finding new avenues for emotional regulation and stress reduction. For example, regular practice of Pilates, GYROKINESIS, or Taiji quan—all exercise programs that use elements of meditation and that are shown to heighten mindfulness— among college students has been correlated with lower perceived stress levels, and improvement in sleep quality, mood, and sense of self-efficacy over a fifteen-week period (Caldwell, Harrison, Adams, Quin, & Greeson, 2010). Likewise, practice of Koru, a mind-body intervention that draws on tenets on mindfulness, has been shown to afford college students significantly increased gratitude, self-love, and mindfulness over four hour-and-fifteen-minute-sessions, with daily ten-minute meditation (Greeson, Juberg, Maytan, James, & Rogers, 2014).
While the Georgia Tech experience is marked with its own unique challenges and obstacles, students at the Institute share in behaviors and environments akin to those at other institutions of higher learning. Sleep troubles, alcohol use (and abuse), improper nutrition, stress, anxiety, depression, and low self-efficacy are universal aspects of student culture. As evidenced by mindfulness studies conducted with college students, mindfulness is a powerful tool that can be used to mitigate the effects of these difficulties and ultimately improve students’ quality of life as they advance through their college careers and beyond.
Methods
Participants
Participants of the “Evaluation of Stress and Mindfulness at Georgia Tech” survey will be both undergraduate and graduate students. The survey will be sent via email to all students on the main campus email list. Although the email will be sent to the entire student body, even if we only get a 10% response rate, we would still have results from around 1500 students, and hope that the responses would be from a variety of majors and year levels. The same is true for responses from graduate students, a 10% response rate would give us about 1300 responses. Participants of the survey will not receive any compensation for their time.
For the pilot study, students in Psych 1101 classes will participate. We expect the sample population of these two classes to primarily consist of freshman students. We hope to have at least 150 students participate, which would equate to about three psychology 1101 class sections. Students will be compensated with extra credit provided by their professors.
Materials and Measures
We will be using a combination of scales and open ended questions in our “Evaluation of Stress and Mindfulness at Georgia Tech” (ESM-GT)survey. The first scale used is the Mindfulness Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS), which has been used in many mindfulness studies and has shown high reliability and validity, especially in participants who are new to mindfulness practices (MacKillop, & Anderson, 2007). It will be used to assess students current level of mindfulness in both the undergraduate and graduate populations. The second scale is the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), which we will use to assess students perceived stress about their lives over the past month, which would be a month in the middle of the semester. The PSS has been shown to have high reliability and validity, even among college students (Cohen, Kamarck, & Mermelstein, 1983). The final portion of the survey will consist of open ended questions involving students current mindfulness practices, if they are interested in mindfulness, and how they would prefer to incorporate mindfulness into their academic lives (see: Appendix A).
For the mindfulness intervention pilot, participants will be given an initial survey, similar to the ESM-GT survey. It will include the MAAS and PSS, as well as a consent form to participate in the pilot study, but no open ended questions. With these initial surveys, participants will be given a randomized participant number. During the course of the intervention, after the daily mindfulness practice, students will be given a sheet of paper that includes a question on whether or not they participated ( in order to track participation for extra credit), as well as a question on how engaged they were (to track participation in the pilot for analysis purposes). The questions will be seperated, with the participation question and their names being saved for the professor and the engagement question having their participant ID applied and being saved for analysis. At the end of the pilot study, participants will again be given the MAAS and the PSS, as well as a few qualitative questions about how they enjoyed mindfulness being presented in class to them,if they believed it helped reduce stress, and whether they would like it to be implemented in other classes or offered elsewhere on campus.
Procedure
Proposed Analysis Methods
From the ESM-GT survey, we will calculate and average the scores for the MAAS and PSS for the undergraduate and graduate students, giving us an overview of how stressed and how mindful students are. Further analysis can be done based on grade level as well as gender, though for the purposes of this study, it should not be necessary. We will then go through and code the qualitative questions to determine what level of interest there is in mindfulness being incorporated into students academic life and how. No a priori coding schemes were developed.
After removing students who did not participate in every session, we intend to find students scores on the MAAS as well as the PSS. We will then run a **What type?**T-test to determine if the intervention had an effect on mindfulness and stress by comparing pre and post experiment results. The qualitative questions will also be analyzed based on a coding scheme to determine the level of interest in continuing the in class mindfulness intervention.
Risk Mitigation
Certain Psyc 1101 classes meet three times a week for lectures while others meet only two days a week. We plan to only have students participate in the mindfulness intervention activity (how should I say this?) ** only twice a week, so classes that meet three times a week will … Extra credit will be given for participating in this study in some Psych 1101 classes and possibly not in others. If we have enough participants, we will only include classes that give extra credit.
References
Nagy, L. M. , & Baer, R. A. (2017). Mindfulness: What Should Teachers of Psychology Know? Teaching of Psychology, 44(4), 353–359.
