Use of Social Network Analysis to Provide Better Mental Health Support to Students at the Lahore University of Management
Sciences (LUMS)
Background: The
Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) is the premier research
university in Pakistan. It was founded in 1984 by the benefaction of the
business industrial community. LUMS established the business school in 1986 with
advice from the Harvard Business School and $10 million grant from USAID and
since then, it has established an undergraduate liberal arts school, an
engineering school and a law school. LUMS also launched a program, under the
name of the National Outreach Program, to provide financial aid to students
coming from remote underdeveloped regions of the country and to those who can
otherwise not support their degree due to financial constraints. In order to
diversify its student body, it collaborated with the Afghan government to
provide scholarships to Afghan students to come and study at LUMS[1]. Therefore,
LUMS hosts a diverse set of student body (4000) ranging from different cultures
and ethnicities, social setting and conservative to liberal backgrounds.
LUMS, where I studied
from 2011-2015, is the country’s most expensive, selective and progressive
university with high academic standards and integrity. The university has been
known for its conducive and ‘healthy’ environment, however, over the past few
years the incidence of mental health issues among the students has been growing.
This is quite alarming as this year alone LUMS witnessed two suicides along
with one attempt to suicide and 5 drop outs[2]. Students
have also begun to come out in the open on social media platforms about their
growing anxiety, depression and stress issues. During my time, I had personally
witnessed the metal health of fellow students deteriorate and had heard of a
few suicide attempts. Although a few of these reported issues have been
attributed to family or medical emergencies and sexual harassment, some have
been related to drug abuse, sexual orientation and depression which has been
traced back to the stressful environment and the inability of students to
adjust[3].
LUMS attempted to
address this issue by taking a few immediate steps in 2015: First, the
institute an anti-narcotics raid was launched to have a ‘clean university’. The
institute had an intolerable policy towards drugs. Night wardens were employed
so that they could keep tabs on the consumption of these illegal items in the
dormitories[4].
Students who were suspected of consuming drugs had to get urine tests conducted.
Second, the university got a counsellor on board, whom the students could visit
regularly for their mental, emotional and psychological well-being. Third, the
university instituted a sexual harassment policy with strict actions taken
against harassers[5].
While it is pertinent
to have a regulated school environment with code of conduct requirements and a
psychological support mechanism in place, it is also important to nurture
student support networks to help sustain challenges through these years. Prevailing
literature on this topic establishes a direct relation of student support
networks with healthy, depression –free school years. LUMS itself has been keen
on fostering friendships among new students by dividing them into groups during
the orientation week to engage in lots of activities.
Primary Question: What is the
correlation between weak social support networks and dropouts/ students with
psychological issues? How can Social Network Analysis be used to identify these
students and to foster stronger connections with their peers?
Secondary Questions: What
is the network of these students? Do birds of feather flock together? Are
connections made on the basis of same school/degree, regional associations or
extra curriculars?
Are there certain
students who can leverage their connections to develop stronger connections?
Hypothesis: Students
who have a bigger or stronger network within LUMS are more likely to adjust and
cope up with the challenging environment and less likely to fall prey to
depression and psychological issues. These students complete all years of their
degree program.
Core courses, group
projects, extra-curriculars and similar backgrounds (belonging to same region
or high school) are known to foster friendships among students at LUMS.
Data Collection and
Methodology: Ideally I would want to conduct surveys with
students in their freshman year first and then with the same students in their
last year to assess how their network has evolved and which factors have
attributed to it. As that is not realistically possible due to the long time lag
I would want to conduct a survey among students in the second semester of their
sophomore year. This is a good population as students in their second year have
had sufficient time and exposure to this new diverse environment and can articulate
if their friendships from the orientation week sustained. Moreover, sophomores
would be useful in testing the hypothesis as they would account for the role of
co-curricular activities, group projects in evolving their network.
In order to maintain
confidentiality, students would be ascribed with aliases. In my experience
students would willingly fill out this survey as they are concerned with the
emotional and mental well-being of their peers, and most of them have gone
through a similar ‘rough’ patch while some passing with flying colors and
others struggling in the quagmire of depression.
Some sample questions
of the survey would be:
- Where are you from?
- Which high school
did you attend?
- What is the strength
of friendships/connections on the basis of talk/meet frequently, less
frequently, rarely, never
- How many friendships
have you sustained since your first year? Who? At what level? (For 4th year students)
- How many friendships
have you developed from your group projects? Who? At what level?
- How many friendships have you developed
by being force enrolled in core courses? Who? At what level?
- How many elective
courses do you take in a year with group projects? None, 1, > 2, > 4, > 6
- How many friendships
have you developed from your extra-curricular activities? Who? At what level?
- Do you identify
yourself as minority of religion, cast, ethnicity, sexual orientation,
financial status?
- What is your spoken
proficiency of the English language? Native, professional, conversational,
basic, none
- Have you experienced
feelings of loneliness, depression, stress, culture shock? Yes No
- Do you talk to your
peers/friends or do your peers/friends help you out on the above issues? Often,
sometimes, rarely
- How frequently do
you visit the counsellor? Regularly, sometimes, rarely, never?
- How helpful is it? Very,
little, useless
I would first analyze
the data to look at the friendship networks at various levels by applying some
whole network measures such as density and average distance to give an idea of
how dense the overall network is and what is the level of interconnectedness
among various friendship groups. After this I would analyze the data on a
subgroup level by Girvan Newman to find out the more closely connected friendship
groups. Applying some centrality measures on these subgroups would give an idea
of who are the bridges and eigenvectors in these networks.
I would also be
interested in noting how students are connected to other students via certain
extra-curricular activities/clubs and students connected to other students via
group project courses, therefore, developing 1 to 1 mode matrices would be
helpful in this case. Which students are emerging as informal leaders in those?
It would be interesting to note if students who were emerging as leaders or
influencers were also on the student council. Then I would find the overlap of
friendships and group projects and core courses to assess the importance of
these tools in fostering closer ties.
I would also look into
how cliques are formed- are they on the
basis of high schools, core courses, ethnicity, language? Do students having
feelings of loneliness or depression forge deeper connections with one another?
Application of node centrality measures will allow me to assess if there is a
direct correlation between students having fewer connections and having
feelings of depression, culture shock, loneliness. If so then do these students
share attributes of ethnicity, cast, language, etc.? I would also like to
determine if these students visit the counsellor, and those who visit the
counsellor frequently how many connections/friendships are they fostering. This
would explain the effectiveness of the school counsellor.
To directly test the
hypothesis, I would find out if students with a high degree and eigenvectors
have feelings of isolation, depression, culture shock. If this does not hold
true, then students are less likely to drop out.
I would pay close
attention to students who have identified themselves as minority. By looking
into their ego network I would get an estimate of their number of connections
and the strength of their ties. If these students have many friends or strong
ties, then this would support the hypothesis. However, it would be interesting
to notice if these students have formed clusters on the basis of their
minority, if they share negative feelings and if any one of them has a high
eigenvector. This would make them ‘negative influencers’ and translate into
more negativity being spread.
Recommendations & Conclusion:
SNA would be helpful in leading towards an organizational change in LUMS. Students
who emerge as eigenvectors or influencers should be nominated on the student
council and should be asked to hold weekly sessions where other students can
come up to discuss problems. If courses with group projects are helping to
foster relationships, then the design of some popular courses should be changed
to include group projects. Similarly, if students with core courses have
greater/stronger friendships then more of the degree programs should have at
least a few core courses. The analysis would also demonstrate the effectiveness
of the counsellor and if there is a need to replace him/her or give him/her training
on how to be an effective therapist. Similarly, the effectiveness of
extra-curricular activities would also demonstrate if it is necessary for the
students to be a part of at least one club.
If language comes out to be a
strong barrier, then LUMS should also hold regular English classes after school
hours, as the medium of instruction is in English and students coming from
remote areas are not fluent in the language at all.
1 comment:
Interesting and worthwhile project, especially after the rather confrontational approach taken by the school (e.g. urine tests.) Your SNA approach is certainly extensive, although in a shotgun kind of way, as you suggest a range of survey Qs and analytic tools without linking many of them to the recommendations (which make good sense, by the way.) Also, some of that are linked are difficult to understand, e.g. "I would find out if students with a high degree and eigenvectors have feelings of isolation, depression, culture shock. If this does not hold true, then students are less likely to drop out."
My other major point is that you need to define what you mean by strong and weak support. A clearer definition would help you refine your net Qs and your analysis.
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