• No se han encontrado resultados

INTERVENTION EFFECT OF MUSIC EDUCATION ON MENTAL HEALTH OF COLLEGE STUDENTS

N/A
N/A
Protected

Academic year: 2020

Share "INTERVENTION EFFECT OF MUSIC EDUCATION ON MENTAL HEALTH OF COLLEGE STUDENTS"

Copied!
6
0
0

Texto completo

(1)

Revista Argentina de Clínica Psicológica 2020, Vol. XXIX, N°2, 704-709

DOI: 10.24205/03276716.2020.299 704

I

NTERVENTION

E

FFECT OF

M

USIC

E

DUCATION ON

M

ENTAL

H

EALTH

OF

C

OLLEGE

S

TUDENTS

Shuailin Chen

Abstract

The mental health of college students has caused widespread concern. Many intervention methods, namely, music education, have been designed to promote their mental health. This paper mainly studies the intervention effect of music education on the mental health of college students. First, a questionnaire survey was conducted on 350 students of Beijing Normal University, who have taken the elective course of vocal music. Based on the survey data, the mental health of the respondents before and after receiving music education was analysed in details. The results show that the mental health education in most colleges of China is too formalistic, despite the growing proportion of college students with poor mental health; the college students of Beijing Normal University have multiple mental health problems, which is more severe than the national average; the main mental health problems of the respondents include interpersonal sensitivity, paranoid ideation, and anxiety; the music education has effectively reduced the proportion of students with mental health problems, indicating the promoting effect of music education on the mental health of college students. The research findings provide a useful reference for improving the mental health of college students and promoting their overall development.

Key words: Music Education, Mental Health, College Students, Intervention Effect. Received: 18-05-19 | Accepted: 12-08-19

INTRODUCTION

With the continuous acceleration of social development, college students have generally been faced with increasing pressures, which in turn triggers psychological problems such as anxiety, depression, and communication barriers etc. of the college students, and negatively affects their physical and mental health (Wang, Chan, Ho et al., 2014). It has become an important research topic for colleges and universities to adjust the psychological emotions of college students through their own educational functions and effectively solve their psychological problems (Subramanian, 2015). Music education is an art education that can enhance the aesthetics of college students. The

College of Music and Dance, Xinyang Normal University, Xinyang 464000.

E-Mail: shuailinchen@163.com

development of music education in colleges and

universities can effectively improve the

aesthetic ability of college students, enhance their comprehensive quality, and promote their all-round development, thereby improving the mental health to a certain extent. Therefore, the application of music education in solving the mental health problems of college students should be enhance, which is of great significance for promoting their healthy development (Francis, Katz, Yablon et al., 2004).

At present, the mental health of college students has become a key issue of social concern. It has been a key focus of scholars to improve the mental health of college students through music education. By now, many scholars and experts at home and abroad have thoroughly studied the relationship between music education and psychological health of college students, and formed a large number of research results. Some scholars have studied the

(2)

SHUAILIN CHEN

705

evaluation criteria of mental health (Leung, 2017), and other scholars have deeply analysed the role of music education in maintaining the mental health of college students (Jackson, Cherry, Smitherman et al., 2008). However, most of the current researches focus on theoretical research, and there have been few empirical studies through data analysis. Thus, the applicability of research results cannot be guaranteed, which is also an important direction of future research.

This paper attempts to deeply study the intervention effect of music education on the mental health of college students using the questionnaires and empirical research methods.

It’s expected to provide colleges and universities

with effective countermeasures for the

psychological health problems of college students, as well as useful references and experiences for their healthy growth.

BASIC THEORY OF MENTAL HEALTH

Connotation of mental health

Mental health mainly refers to a continuous and positive mental state and process, i.e., a strong adaptability, and a good ability to adjust and control so that one can constantly adjust its own state according to changes in the surrounding environment (Brooks-Gunn & Fisch, 1980). It means not only the absence of psychological barriers or improper behaviour, but also the optimal psychological effectiveness achieved by adjusting mental states (Silverman & Jennifer, 2018).

At present, there are many measure standards for mental health at home and abroad. Among them, the most commonly used measure is to classify the mental health problems into ten specific symptoms, mainly including obsessive-compulsive, hostility, and anxiety etc. (Huang, Tsai, & Chu, 2009), as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1

.

Ten symptoms of mental health

problems

Main symptoms of mental health

Somatization symptoms

Obsessive compulsive symptoms

Anxious

Hostile

Terror Interpersonal

sensitivity Depressed

Others

Mental disease

Paranoia

Basic theory of mental health (1) Principles of psychodynamics

The theory of psychodynamics was originally proposed by Freud, and later revised and improved by his disciples. According to this theory, the key to good adaptability lies in the effective control and management of the original internal and external conflicting forces, and the rational distribution of mental energy through strong self-control ability, thus achieving the maximum instinct satisfaction and minimum punishment and guilt (Mcdermott, Orrell, & Ridder, 2014), as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2

.

Principles of psychodynamics

Self

Self in own eyes

Self in the eyes of

others Self in the fact Out-off-balance

Psychological distortion

Physiological needs Psychological needs

Behavior

(2) Theory of psychosocial development

Table 1.

Eight stages of psychosocial development

Age Content Quality

0-2 Trust and doubt Hope

2-4 Autonomy and shyness or doubt Self-control

4-7 Initiative and withdrawal guilt Purpose of life

7-12 Diligent and enterprising, self-deprecating and self-rate Ability

12-18 Identity and role confusion Loyal

18-25 Intimacy versus loneliness Love

25-65 Reproduction and stagnation stage Take care for sb.

(3)

INTERVENTION EFFECT OF MUSIC EDUCATION ON MENTAL HEALTH OF COLLEGE STUDENTS 706

This theory was proposed by Erikson of the United States. He believes that the formation of human self-consciousness mainly involves eight stages (Bradshaw, Ellison, Fang et al., 2015), as shown in Table 1. The order of these eight stages is determined by heredity, but the external environment also has a great impact on each stage.

ANALYSIS FOR MENTAL HEALTH STATUS OF COLLEGE STUDENTS IN CHINA

Status analysis

As China's social development continuously accelerates, the competition has become more intense, and psychological pressure on college students has also increased, resulting in some worrying psychological problems (Wager, 1987). At present, the proportion of college students with psychological disorders in China has increased year by year, as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3

.

The incidence of psychological

disorders among college students in China

In face of the increasingly serious mental health problems among college students, many colleges and universities are still formalistic in the psychological health education, and they do not pay enough attention to the mental health of college students. On the one hand, there is a lack of necessary investment in psychological education courses, teachers, etc.; on the other

hand, the students' mental health issue hasn’t

still been taken as an important assessment standard for teaching quality (Petering, Rhoades, Winetrobe et al., 2017). Therefore, students' mental health problems have not been effectively and fundamentally changed.

Reason analysis (1) Subjective reasons

Many students have achieved excellent results in the college entrance examination and then relaxed themselves after entering the university. However, the life of the university is far from their initial expectations, easily leading to a certain sense of loss (Knowlden, Hackman, & Sharma, 2016). In addition, there are still lots of students who suddenly lose their goal of struggle after being admitted to college, and are apt to give up strives. Thus, when faced with difficulties, they often feel overwhelmed and frustrated greatly.

(2) Objective reasons

After entering the university, the students have to face great changes in numerous aspects. In terms of learning, the previous step-by-step learning has changed to the self-study dominance; in terms of the living environment, it changes from the parent's careful care to the independent study and life in school; in terms of interpersonal relationship, the peers around have changed from familiar friends to the classmates from all over the world. Such changes in the surrounding environment can easily bring a great impact on students' psychology (Toyoshima, Fukui, & Kuda, 2011).

AN EMPIRICAL STUDY ON THE INTERVENTION EFFECT OF MUSIC EDUCATION ON THE MENTAL HEALTH OF COLLEGE STUDENTS

Survey respondents

This paper selects 350 college students in Beijing Normal University as the respondents. All of them have taken the vocal course as elective course. 350 questionnaires were issued, and 330 valid questionnaires were recovered, with an effective rate of 94.3%. Vocal music is a core course of music education at Beijing Normal University. It is highly representative to choose vocal music course for music education in this study.

Research methods

(1) Symptom Checklist-90 (SCL-90) scale SCL-90 is an internationally used scale for measuring mental health. It mainly includes 10 factors, each of which contains 9 questions, using the 0-4 scoring standard. If the score of each factor is below 2, it indicates a mentally health state; if over 3, it indicates that there are moderate or above psychological problems.

(4)

SHUAILIN CHEN

707

(2) Measurement time of mental health status

The SCL-90 scale was used to measure the mental health status of the selected respondents before and after the vocal music education.

(3) Statistical analysis

The data obtained from the questionnaires was analysed by SPSS15.0 software, and then compared with those of the national norm to obtain the final results.

Analysis of research results

(1) Analysis for mental health of college students before receiving vocal music education Before taking the vocal courses, the survey data found that 35.68% of the respondents had psychological problems; the proportion of students with moderate or above psychological problems reached 15.75%, as shown in Figure 4. It can be seen that many students of Beijing Normal University have mental health problems, exceeding the national average.

Figure 4

.

Analysis on the mental health of

college students before music education

From the data analysis in Table 2, it can be seen that among the factors of mental health problems, the scores of interpersonal sensitivity, paranoid ideation, and anxiety were higher than the national norm, and the P value was less than 0.05, indicating that the difference is statistically significant; the other factors were not statistically significant.

(2) Analysis for mental health of college students after receiving vocal music education

After taking the vocal music course, the survey on the respondents was re-conducted to find that the proportion of students with mental

health problems has dropped to

24.32%significantly, and students with moderate or above psychological problems dropped to 8.91%, as shown in Table 5.

The analysis for the various factors of mental health in Table 3 showed that only the score of anxiety was higher than the national norm, and the value was less than 0.05, indicating that the difference was statistically significant; the differences of other mental health factors were not statistically significant.

Figure 5

.

Analysis on the mental health of

college students after music education

Table 2.

Scores of various factors of college students before receiving music education

Factor Research sample National norm P Value

Somatization 1.52±0.37 1.49±0.42 0.269

Obsessive compulsive symptoms 1.63±0.48 1.68±0.51 0.148

Interpersonal sensitivity 1.82±0.49 1.73±0.55 0.019

Depressed 1.54±0.45 1.56±0.55 0.418

Anxious 1.58±0.51 1.45±0.48 0.018

Hostile 1.51±0.54 1.53±0.59 0.315

Terror 1.31±0.59 1.35±0.52 0.538

Paranoia 1.84±0.62 1.66±0.57 0.012

Psychosis 1.38±0.49 1.41±0.43 0.626

(5)

INTERVENTION EFFECT OF MUSIC EDUCATION ON MENTAL HEALTH OF COLLEGE STUDENTS 708

Table 3.

Scores of various factors of college students after receiving music education

Factor Research sample National norm P Value

Somatization 1.49±0.48 1.51±0.53 0.287

Obsessive compulsive symptoms 1.59±0.52 1.57±0.42 0.156

Interpersonal sensitivity 1.77±0.51 1.69±0.49 0.079

Depressed 1.42±0.55 1.48±0.56 0.317

Anxious 1.44±0.47 1.43±0.41 0.025

Hostile 1.66±0.49 1.59±0.53 0.127

Terror 1.48±0.39 1.46±0.49 0.317

Paranoia 1.52±0.45 1.58±0.48 0.123

Psychosis 1.41±0.61 1.48±0.55 0.572

Others 1.37±0.48 1.42±0.44 0.386

Table 4.

Scores of various factors of college students before receiving music education

Factor Before After P Value

Somatization 1.52±0.37 1.49±0.48 0.197

Obsessive compulsive symptoms 1.63±0.48 1.59±0.52 0.098

Interpersonal sensitivity 1.82±0.49 1.77±0.51 0.025

Depressed 1.54±0.45 1.42±0.55 0.365

Anxious 1.58±0.51 1.44±0.47 0.019

Hostile 1.51±0.54 1.66±0.49 0.274

Terror 1.31±0.59 1.48±0.39 0.153

Paranoia 1.84±0.62 1.52±0.45 0.244

Psychosis 1.38±0.49 1.41±0.61 0.099

Others 1.65±0.41 1.37±0.48 0.431

(3) Comparative analysis of college students’

mental health before and after vocal music education

Through a comparative analysis before and after receiving music education in Table 4, it can be found that among the ten factors, the scores of most of the factors before the music

education were higher than those after music education, indicating that music education can significantly improve college students' mental health; among these factors, P values of interpersonal sensitivity and anxiety were below 0.05, and the differences were statistically significant.

From the comparison results in Table 4, it can be seen that music education cannot only improve the aesthetic ability of college students, alleviate their psychological pressure, but also promote their physical and mental health, and enhance the all-round development (Semenza, 2017). Therefore, music education should be widely conducted among college students.

CONCLUSIONS

Based on the basic principles of psychology, this paper deeply studies the intervention effect of music education on college students' mental health. For this, it selects 350 students who have taken a vocal music course in Beijing Normal University as the respondents, and uses the questionnaire and empirical research methods. The conclusions have been drawn as follows:

(1) With the increasingly fierce social competition, the proportion of college students

with poor mental health in China has been rising year by year, and the mental health education of many colleges and universities has been still very formalistic.

(2) Mental health problems exist widely among college students in Beijing Normal University, exceeding the national average. Among the factors of mental health symptoms, the scores of interpersonal sensitivity, paranoid ideation, and anxiety were higher than the national norm, and the difference was statistically significant.

(3) Through empirical analysis and

comparative study, it is found that the proportion of students with mental health problems was effectively reduced through music education, indicating that music education can significantly improve the mental health of college students.

(6)

SHUAILIN CHEN

709

REFERENCES

Bradshaw, M., Ellison, C. G., Fang, Q., & Mueller, C. (2015). Listening to religious music and mental health in later life. Gerontologist, 55(6), 961-971. Brooks-Gunn, J., & Fisch, M. (1980). Psychological

androgyny and college students' judgments of mental health. Sex Roles, 6(4), 575-580. Francis, L. J., Katz, Y. J., Yablon, Y., & Robbins, M.

(2004). Religiosity, personality, and happiness: a study among israeli male undergraduates.

Journal of Happiness Studies, 5(4), 315-333. Huang, Y. T., Tsai, P. L., & Chu, C. N. (2009). Incidence

and risk factors of playing-related injuries for Chinese traditional instrumentalists in Taiwan.

International Journal of Rehabilitation Research, 32, S11.

Jackson, E. M., Cherry, K. E., Smitherman, E. A., & Hawley, K. S. (2008). Knowledge of memory aging and Alzheimer\"s disease in college

students and mental health professionals. Aging

& Mental Health, 12(2), 258-266.

Knowlden, A. P., Hackman, C. L., & Sharma, M. (2016). Lifestyle and mental health correlates of psychological distress in college students. Health Education Journal, 75(3), 370-382.

Leung, C. H. (2017). University support, adjustment, and mental health in tertiary education students in Hong Kong. Asia Pacific Education Review, 18(1), 115-122.

Mcdermott, O., Orrell, M., & Ridder, H. M. (2014). The importance of music for people with dementia: the perspectives of people with dementia, family carers, staff and music therapists. Aging & Mental Health, 18(6),

706-716.

Petering, R., Rhoades, H., Winetrobe, H., Dent, D., & Rice, E. (2017). Violence, trauma, mental health, and substance use among homeless youth

Juggalos. Child Psychiatry & Human

Development, 48(4), 642-650.

Semenza, D. C. (2017). Feeling the beat and feeling better: musical experience, emotional reflection, and music as a technology of mental health.

Sociological Inquiry, 88(3).

Silverman, M. J., & Jennifer, B. (2018). Acute care

mental health workers’ assumptions and

expectations of music therapy: a qualitative

investigation. The Arts in Psychotherapy, 59,

94-100.

Subramanian, S. K. (2015). Effect of structured and unstructured physical activity training on cognitive functions in adolescents - a

randomized control trial. Journal of Clinical and

Diagnostic Research, 9(11), CC04.

Toyoshima, K., Fukui, H., & Kuda, K. (2011). Piano playing reduces stress more than other creative art activities. International Journal of Music Education, 29(3), 257-263.

Wager, K. M. (1987). Prevention programming in mental health: an issue for consideration by

music and drama therapists. Arts in

Psychotherapy, 14(2), 135-141.

Wang, C., Chan, C., Ho, R., Chan, J., Ng, S., & Chan, C. (2014). Managing stress and anxiety through qigong exercise in healthy adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized

controlled trials. BMC Complementary and

Referencias

Documento similar

research has been carried out on the impact on the mental health of university students dur- ing the pandemic [7,8], most have been conducted during the first months of the pandemic

Los keywords empleados fueron los siguientes: alfabetización en salud mental, educación, escuela, mental health literacy mental health and education, patient education as topic

The Dwellers in the Garden of Allah 109... The Dwellers in the Garden of Allah

49. The RCGP recommends that there is increased investment in research and development and funds to support primary care mental health services to increase education and training

• Webinar 1 was held on 24 September 2020 and focused on promoting and protecting the mental well-being of the health and care workforce – from self-care to dedicated support.. •

We welcome the Initiative and agree with its rationale, i.e., the need to address the burden of NCDs and promote good mental health (made even more urgent by the negative impact of

• More research is required on the impact of psychosocial interventions that aim to: reduce mental disorders (depression and anxiety), substance use, self-harm and suicide;

These include the World Health Report in 2001 [12]; the two Lancet series on global mental health in 2007 and 2011; the Movement for Global Mental Health [13]; WHO’s Mental Health