Revista Argentina de Clínica Psicológica 2020, Vol. XXIX, N°1, 1112-1117
DOI: 10.24205/03276716.2020.158 1112
I
NFLUENCE OF
F
OLK
-A
RT
E
DUCATION ON
M
ENTAL
H
EALTH OF
C
OLLEGE
S
TUDENTS
Yan Xia
*Abstract
Folk-art works offer a glimpse of the beauty of folk culture. Taking painting as an example, this paper attempts to determine the influence of folk-art education on the mental health of college students. First, a questionnaire survey was carried out among 160 college students to evaluate the mental pressure of college students and identify the status quo of folk-art education in colleges. Next, comparative experiments on college students with or without painting training. Through the analysis of the experimental results, it is concluded that mental problems are common among college students; most college students agree that folk-art education can alleviate mental pressure; painting art can significantly promote the self-consistence and mental health of college students. This research provides a reference for applying folk-art in mental health education in colleges.
Key words: Folk-Art Education, Painting, College Students, Mental Health.
Received: 06-03-19 | Accepted: 15-09-19
INTRODUCTION
As the pace of social life continues to accelerate, when facing problems in study, employment and emotions, college students often feel physical and mental exhaustion and may have depression, anxiety, solitude and other psychological problems. According to the survey results of college students’ psychological state, the proportion of college student with psychological problems has increased year by year (Puig, 2006). If their psychological problems are not alleviated effectively, they will seriously affect the individual development of college students and the stability and unity of society.
College students are the future of the country. In order to cultivate versatile talents that can meet the requirements of national and social development, art education and physical and mental health have been included in the
Chongqing College of Electronic Engineering, Chongqing 401331, China.
E-Mail: [email protected]
quality education as important components (Froggett & Little, 2012). Various colleges and universities have set up elective courses of folk-art education and mental health education. And the folk-art education can not only improve the quality of students, but also influence their mental health (Cook & Ledger, 2004). Art works can express feelings and emotions, and focus attention on the context of art activities.
Therefore, folk-art education has an
irreplaceable role in cultivating people (Muro & Artero, 2017). Taiwanese scholar Fan Qiong (Van Puyvelde, Rodrigues, Loots et al., 2014) believes that in the process of art education, individuals can use art creation to project their emotions, thus changing their behaviors, thinking and emotions. Modern art education scholar Yin Shaochun (Leung, 2017) pointed out that individuals can better blend in the collective and life through art education activities. Plato
(Roberts, Camic, & Springham, 2011) argued that
art can not only improve physical and mental health but also treat diseases. American art educator Lowenfeld (Wager, 1987) found a theoretical basis for the combination of art
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education and art therapy.
Based on the above analysis and relevant literatures at home and abroad, firstly, this paper conducts a questionnaire survey on the status quo
of college students’ psychological stress and folk-art
education in colleges and universities, the survey results show that college students have certain recognition of alleviating psychological pressure by folk-art education, and they are willing to take courses in pressure alleviation with art; then, with painting art course as an example, this paper uses comparative analysis to design and implement an experiment on the influence of folk-art education on
college students’ mental health level, and the results
show that the paining art can significantly improve college students’ self-consistency level and mental health level. At last, this paper puts forward some suggestions on how to better apply folk-art education to promote the mental health of college students.
QUESTIONNAIRE SURVEY ON CURRENT
SITUATION OF PSYCHOLOGICAL PRESSURE OF COLLEGE STUDENTS AND FOLK-ART EDUCATION IN COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES
Survey purpose and subjects
In order to further understand the psychological status of college students and the specific views of college students on folk-art education, this paper selected 160 students from the first to fourth grades of a university, 40 from each grade, to conduct the questionnaire survey.
Survey results and analysis of college students' psychological pressure
Table 1 shows the results of the questionnaire survey of college students' psychological pressure. It can be seen from the table that employment and enter a higher school (postgraduate entrance exams), interpersonal relationship and study-induced pressure are the current problems of
college students' psychological problems, and the higher the grade, the more the people, and the greater the pressure; it also can be seen from the summary of the survey results that the pressure of female students is greater than that of male students, which is also related to the psychological and physiological tolerance of female students.
Questionnaire survey of college students’
folk-art education
(1) What kind of activities can alleviate psychological pressure? From the survey results shown in Figure 1, it can be seen that among the contemporary college students, the proportion of students who choose to go online or play games to alleviate psychological pressure is the highest, reaching 53%. Students who use painting and listening to music to relieve psychological pressure account for 45% and 31%, respectively.
Figure 1
.
What kind of activities can alleviate
psychological pressure
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
Painting Listening
to music Reading
Watching
movies
Play gam
es
or go on line Talk to p
arents
and frie nds
(2) Whether art can regulate psychological pressure? Figure 2 shows the survey results of whether art can alleviate the psychological pressure of college students, from the figure we can see that most students think art can alleviate psychological pressure.
Table 1.
Survey results of college students' psychological pressure
Options Number of people Proportion The proportion of boys The proportion of girls
Employment pressure 105 65.63% 30.4% 41.6%
Study-induced pressure 78 48.75% 11.5% 38.6%
Enter a higher school
(postgraduate entrance exams) 92 57.5% 13.2% 15.7%
Interpersonal relationship 79 49.38% 5.2% 9.7%
Love problem 67 41.88% 9.9% 12.2%
INFLUENCE OF FOLK-ART EDUCATION ON MENTAL HEALTH OF COLLEGE STUDENTS 1114
Figure 2
.
Whether art can regulate
psychological pressure
59%
30% 11%
No General Yes
(3) Are you willing to take courses related to pressure alleviation with art. The survey results in Figure 3 show that 60% of students are willing to take courses related to pressure alleviation with art, and students who are unwilling to take the courses only accounted for 9% of the total number.
Figure 3
.
Are you willing to take courses
related to pressure alleviation with art?
60%
31% 9%
Unwilling General Willing
According to above data and combining with the survey analysis results we can see that, college students generally have psychological problems, they have certain recognition of alleviating psychological pressure by folk-art education, and they are willing to take courses in pressure alleviation with art.
EMPIRICAL STUDY ON THE INFLUENCE OF FOLK-ART EDUCATION ON THE MENTAL HEALTH OF COLLEGE STUDENTS
Design and implementation of the experiment (1) Design of the experiment. As the psychological quality of college students tends to be mature and stable, more guidance is needed to achieve the effect of alleviating psychological pressure. According to the survey results, this paper selected a class (40 students) of sophomore
students who had participated the paining elective course as the experimental group, and anther natural class (40 students) who hadn’t participated the paining elective course as the control group, to conduct the empirical study on the influence of folk-art education on college students’ mental health. The mental health of the two groups of students before and after the experiment was measured by SCCS (Self Consistency and Congruence Scale) and SCL-90 (90 Symptom Check List) (Carrotte, Vella, Hellard et al., 2016).
(2) Implementation of the experiment. The painting elective course had 32 class hours, which
were divided into five parts: destined
acquaintanceship, grow-up together, recent
annoyance, touch your true self, and prospect of beautiful days (Lenette, 2015). The teacher guided the students to paint according to the theme, including paint the emotions, the awkward moment, my troubles, and the beautiful days, wherein the theme of beautiful days ran through the entire course, and students could modify their works at any time according to their own feelings during the course, and then the works were handed in as the final assignment after the course ended.
Figure 4 shows a student's paintings at different stages, wherein (d) is the work of the theme “the
beautiful days” that the students finally handed in.
Figure 4
.
A student's paintings at different
stages
(a) (b)
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Experimental results and discussion
(1) SCCS test results. Figure 5 and Figure 6 show the statistical results of the mean and standard deviation of SCCS of the two groups of students before and after the experiment. Table 2 shows the t-value and significance of the SCCS of the two groups of students.
Figure 5
.
Statistical results of mean value of
SCCS of the two groups of students before
and after the experiment
15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55
Self-descriptive Self-flexibility
Self and experience are not harmonious
Pretest test group M value Pretest control values M Post test group M value Post-test control M value
M
v
alue
Figure 6
.
Statistical results of standard
deviation of SCCS of the two groups of
students before and after the experiment
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Self-descriptive Self-flexibility
Self and experience are not harmonious
Pretest test group SD value Pretest test group SD value Post test group SD value Post-test control SD value
SD
v
alue
Based on the above figures and tables, compared with the control group, the experimental group had improved in the aspects of three factors: self-stereotype, self-flexibility, and self and experience inconsistency (Ledger & Edwards, 2011). In terms of
self-flexibility, there’s significant differences
(P<0.05), and as for the self-flexibility and self and
experience inconsistency, there’re extremely
significant differences (P<0.01), indicating that the painting art can significantly promote college
students’ self-consistency level.
Table 2.
The t-value and significance of SCCS in
the two groups of students
Factor
Experimental
group Control group
t Sig. t Sig. Self and experience
inconsistency 4.593 .005**
-1.025 .358 Self-flexibility -2.742 .051* .000 1.001 Self-stereotype 2.324 .075 -.217 .816
Figure 7
.
Statistical results of mean value of
SCL-90 of the two groups of students before
and after the experiment
1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9 2.0 2.1 2.2
M
v
alue
Paranoid Anxiety Depression Interpersonal sensitivity Total average score
Pretest test group M value Pretest control values M Post test group M value Post-test control M value
Figure 8
.
Statistical results of standard
deviation of SCL-90 of the two groups of
students before and after the experiment
0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0
Paranoid Anxiety Depression Interpersonal sensitivity Total average score
SD
v
alue
Pretest test group SD value Pretest test group SD value Post test group SD value Post-test control SD value
(2) SCL-90 test results. Due to the limited space, after statistical analysis, this paper selected four
INFLUENCE OF FOLK-ART EDUCATION ON MENTAL HEALTH OF COLLEGE STUDENTS 1116
representative mental health factors of college students (Cashell & Miner, 1983): interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anxiety, and paranoid, as examples for analysis. Figures 7 and 8 are statistical results of mean and standard deviation of SCL-90 the two groups of students before and after the experiment, Table 3 shows the t-value and significance of the SCL-90 of the two groups of students before and after the experiment.
Table 3.
The t value and significance of SCL-90
of the two groups of students before and after
the experiment
Factor
Experimental group
Control group
t Sig. t Sig. Total average score 4.845 .005** 1.824 .121
Interpersonal
sensitivity 2.903 .035* .595 .574 Depression 3.731 .013* 1.226 .269 Anxiety 2.589 .049* 1.522 .183 Paranoid 3.513 .018* 1.225 .271
It can be seen from the above chart that the experimental group has improved in the aspects of the four factors selected after the experiment, and the results obtained before and after the experiment showed significant differences (P<0.05), and the total score of the experiment was extremely significant (P<0.01). However, the control group did not show significant differences in the total score and the four factors selected before and after the experiment, which indicates that the painting art can
significantly promote college students’ mental
health.
Suggestions on promoting the mental health of college students by folk-art education
(1) Provide students with a pressure alleviation environment through diversified art education modes. College students often encounter all kinds of troubles in daily life and study, if they have no channel to release their bad mood, they would produce psychological troubles, therefore, colleges and universities can set up art pressure alleviation work studios (Dosamantes-Beaudry, 1999), such as painting or clay pressure alleviation experiencing halls, which can not only cultivate students' interests and hobbies, but also relieve their psychological pressure when they encounter problems. In the pressure alleviation work studios, students’ works are mainly creation, through the whole-hearted engagement in works they could make their bad mood precipitate and express their feelings through
their creation works. And the instructors do not evaluate the works directly, but only answer questions when students encounter problems in the creative process.
(2) Popularize psychological pressure alleviation method by folk-art education. Through lectures, class meetings, and other forms, explain to the students about using paining or other art forms to express and record their psychological pressure, so that they can record their emotions quickly with painting or other art forms they like or are good at, which can also be called the sketching diaries (Boris, 2001), in which they can quickly record their daily feelings and emotions such as sorrows and happiness, in the meantime, the student’s own heart will also analyze and judge the problems and precipitate his/her emotions. This process is also a process of alleviating psychological pressure.
(3) Enrich the teaching content of art education, and let students participate by creating contexts. The main purpose for most colleges and universities to set up folk-art courses is to improve students' artistic accomplishment and cultivate their sentiment, so most art courses focus on art appreciation. In order to achieve the role of folk-art courses in promoting the mental health of college students, when designing the courses, certain art or life contexts should be set so that students could blend in the learning context and participate in the courses through game, music or other forms. When introducing artists and their art works, teachers should convey their life experiences and the positive meanings of their paintings to the students, so that they can have the courage to face all kinds of difficulties and setbacks, realizing the effect of alleviating pressure.
CONCLUSION
(1) The survey results of the current status of college students’ psychological pressure and the folk-art education in colleges and universities showed that psychological problems are common among college students, they have certain recognition of alleviating psychological pressure by folk-art education, and they are willing to take courses in pressure alleviation with art.
(2) With painting art as an example, this paper adopted the empirical research method to design and implement the experiment of the influence of folk-art education on the mental health of college students. The results showed that the art of painting
can significantly promote college students’ self
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(3) From three aspects of enriching art education mode, art teaching content and popularizing art education, this paper proposed suggestions for using folk-art education to promote the mental health level of college students.
Acknowledgement
This study was supported by (1) Chongqing social science planning and cultivation project, Study on alienation of productive protection of intangible cultural heritage in Chongqing (No.2018PY89); (2) Chongqing College of Electronic Engineering scientific research projects, Construction of talent training mode for art majors in higher vocational colleges under the background of skill competition (No.XJSK201708).
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