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
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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.
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.
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(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
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.
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