Abstract
College students’ mental health concerns have dramatically increased in prevalence and severity over the past decade, overwhelming the capacity of counseling centers to meet demand for services. In response, institutions of higher education (IHEs) increasingly emphasize prevention, education, and outreach efforts aimed at improving well-being. Although this focus has prompted an increase in research on student well-being, few studies have investigated the unique contributions of malleable psychosocial factors on student outcomes. This study aims to address this gap in the literature by examining the relative impact of an array of psychosocial factors—adaptive and maladaptive perfectionism, co** self-efficacy, social connectedness, perceived burdensomeness, grit, resilience, and meaning in life—on academic performance and distress and suicidality in a sample of 7505 students from 15 U.S. IHEs. Controlling for institutional selectivity and non-malleable aspects of students’ identities and pre-college experiences, facets of perfectionism, grit, and emotion-focused co** self-efficacy were the psychosocial factors most strongly associated with GPA, and perceived burdensomeness, social connectedness, emotion-focused co** self-efficacy, and resilience were most strongly associated with distress and suicidality. Among non-malleable factors, race/ethnicity explained the most variance in GPA and gender identity explained the most variance in distress and suicidality. Results are discussed in light of persistent, identity-based disparities in academic achievement and suicide risk and the potential of psychosocial factors as intervention targets to improve academic performance and reduce suicide risk.
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Data availability
In line with data sharing terms and conditions agreed upon by participating institutions, datasets generated from this study are not publicly available and must be formally requested by contacting the corresponding author.
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All study procedures were agreed upon by counseling center directors and registrars at participating institutions. Formal review of study materials and protocols was conducted by The University of Texas at Austin Institutional Review Board (IRB), which served as the IRB of record, and all participants provided informed consent.
Chris Brownson, Ashley Boynton, Erika Jonietz, Ben Spear, Stuart Irvin, Sarah Christman, Michael Balsan, and David Drum contributed to study conceptualization, preparation of materials, and data collection. Brittany Boyer and Chris Runyon performed data management and analysis. Brittany Boyer and Chris Brownson wrote, revised, and edited the manuscript, with editing and revising contributions by Erika Jonietz. Chris Brownson and David Drum provided supervision from study inception to manuscript completion. All authors reviewed and approved the final manuscript. We have no conflicts of interest to disclose.
We would like to thank counseling center directors and institutional records staff for facilitating longitudinal academic data collection, and Norian Caporale-Berkowitz, Erin Morpeth-Provost, and Sam Pitasky for their help with initial review of Fall 2016 academic data.
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Brownson, C., Boyer, B.P., Runyon, C. et al. Focusing resources to promote student well-being: associations of malleable psychosocial factors with college academic performance and distress and suicidality. High Educ 88, 339–359 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-023-01120-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-023-01120-x