Asee peer logo

Work in Progress: Stigma of Mental Health Conditions and its Relationship to Conditions’ Knowledge and Resource Awareness among Engineering Students

Download Paper |

Conference

2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Portland, Oregon

Publication Date

June 23, 2024

Start Date

June 23, 2024

End Date

July 12, 2024

Conference Session

Educational Research and Methods Division (ERM) Technical Session 11

Tagged Division

Educational Research and Methods Division (ERM)

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/48513

Request a correction

Paper Authors

biography

Matilde Luz Sanchez-Pena University at Buffalo, The State University of New York Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0002-3511-0694

visit author page

Dr. Matilde Sánchez-Peña is an assistant professor of Engineering Education at the University at Buffalo – SUNY where she leads the Diversity Assessment Research in Engineering to Catalyze the Advancement of Respect and Equity (DAREtoCARE) Lab. Her research focuses on developing cultures of care and well-being in engineering education spaces, assessing gains in institutional efforts to advance equity and inclusion, and using data science for training socially responsible engineers.

visit author page

biography

Muhammad Ali Sajjad University at Buffalo, The State University of New York

visit author page

First year, first semester PhD student in Engineering Education at University at Buffalo.

visit author page

Download Paper |

Abstract

This work in progress paper considers intergroup contact theory to explore how increased awareness of mental health resources and heightened contact with people living with MHCs among engineering undergraduate students reflect in lower levels of stigma of Mental Health Conditions (MHCs). Large scale interventions have shown the positive effect of campus initiatives and the availability of resources for mental health in reducing stigma among college students. However, research has shown that engineering students tend to have lower proclivity to seek help for their MHCs when needed. Stigma of MHCs is known to negatively influence help seeking attitudes. Reducing stigma through exposure and contact has the potential to enhance help seeking. Through the use of established instruments we collected stigma, contact and awareness measures in a survey (n=1,151) and we explored the relationships between MHCs stigma and (1) Knowledge of MHCs, measured as the number and strength of relationships with people living with MHCs and (2) Awareness of campus resources related to mental health. Through correlation analyzes we found consistently significant negative correlation between stigma and both measures. Analyzed through the lens of contact theory, these results support the view that exposure to knowledge about MH can reduce stigma, which on its own could have the potential to enhance students help-seeking attitudes. We discuss the implications of these results, and future work in this space of inquiry.

Sanchez-Pena, M. L., & Sajjad, M. A. (2024, June), Work in Progress: Stigma of Mental Health Conditions and its Relationship to Conditions’ Knowledge and Resource Awareness among Engineering Students Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. https://peer.asee.org/48513

ASEE holds the copyright on this document. It may be read by the public free of charge. Authors may archive their work on personal websites or in institutional repositories with the following citation: © 2024 American Society for Engineering Education. Other scholars may excerpt or quote from these materials with the same citation. When excerpting or quoting from Conference Proceedings, authors should, in addition to noting the ASEE copyright, list all the original authors and their institutions and name the host city of the conference. - Last updated April 1, 2015