# data[].attributes.body
The purpose of this research proposal is rather personal to me while extending relevancy to Educational Psychology and Technology.  I am currently developing an App that will allow college students, who are experiencing negative physiological conditions such as test anxiety, to access therapy from their mobile phones anywhere and anytime therapy is needed.  The App will be called "E-Mobile Therapy".

# data[].attributes.body
Morris, Kathawala, Leen, Gorenstein, Guilak, DeLeeuw, and Labhard (2010) conducted a case study that evaluated cell phone applications dispersing mobile therapy to participants who wanted to improve their mental health. The findings reported that participants reported "changes over the course of the study in their mood patterns and coping skills, and ascribed these changes to use of the application."

# data[].attributes.headline
An article written in 'Psychology Today' reported that college students are stressed...

# data[].attributes.subject
An article written in 'Psychology Today' reported that college students are stressed...

# data[].attributes.body
"College students who are struggling with mental health issues are able to decrease their stress to a manageable level" when utilizing helpful resources, specifically, mental health therapy apps. The article also noted that for many students who are suffering with mental health issues and do not seek help, the rigors of a collegiate life can result in severe psychological problems...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Psychological stress among college students has been getting a lot of attention recently, thanks to articles this year in the New York Times, Huffington Post, and Inside Higher Ed. Research on student stress goes back at least half a century, to David Mechanic's 1962 book Students Under Stress, which was on graduate students. Student stress research seems to have really become vigorous in the 1980s, however. One of the first research studies I ever worked on investigated student stress. In 1983, during the fall term of my senior year at UCLA, the professor of my survey-research course, Christine Dunkel-Schetter, had the class conduct a phone survey of stress on campus.

Think about what many college students go through. Leaving the family home, feeling intense pressure to obtain high grades in connection with career aspirations, taking final exams, trying to establish a romantic/ social life, dealing with (often very high) costs of college and possibly working at a job during the school year. What kind of jobs (if any) students can get after college also remains tenuous given the multi-year recession. On top of all that, students in many parts of the U.S. must deal with snow and subfreezing temperatures that, in the words of a colleague who once taught in Buffalo, leave students "really dragging by December."

I ask you: Considering the above, how can college students not be highly stressed out?

Some will argue that college students are in many ways advantaged, compared to those who don't or can't attend a university. Point well taken, but that shouldn't diminish the stress experienced by students.

The New York Times article reports on Fall 2010 national findings from UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute -- based on students' reflections on their senior year of high school -- showing record levels of poor emotional health among incoming first-year undergraduates (UCLA press release). The actual survey questionnaire is available here (when the new page opens, scroll to "Questionnaire" under "The Freshman Survey").

Researchers understandably want to keep their questionnaires as short as possible, to encourage participation. Because the UCLA survey probes many different areas (e.g., politics, values, in addition to school-related matters), the measures of stress and emotional health are limited to isolated items. On a checklist of feelings and behaviors experienced during the past year, for example, appears the item "Felt overwhelmed by all I had to do," to which participants reply "frequently," "occasionally," or "not at all." Elsewhere in the survey, respondents were asked to rate themselves on a set of traits, including "Emotional health," compared to what they would see as the average person their age. Though brief measures may be necessary in some studies, I would recommend a more extensive one, such as the Undergraduate Stress Questionnaire developed by my friend and colleague Chris Crandall.

The Inside Higher Ed article focuses on studies of stress at Columbia University and the University of San Diego, which aimed to identify types of stress that different subgroups of students (e.g., according to field of study, race- ethnicity, sexual orientation, and holding a job while going to school) considered most pernicious. Examples of findings from USD are that "black students are the most stressed out by disrespectful remarks and property damage; campus climate is the only stressor with significantly worse impact for LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer) students than heterosexual ones; and students who hold jobs report much higher levels of stress from their families, finances and time management."

In addition to sources and experiences of stress, there is also a great deal of research on how people (including college students) attempt to cope with and manage the stress they're under. One general typology divides coping into two broad categories: problem-focused (attempting to tackle a problem directly at its source, such as asking one's dormitory Resident Assistant for a room change to escape a bothersome roommate) and emotion-focused (attempting to manage one's emotions, e.g., by putting things in perspective, when one cannot or chooses not to address the underlying source of the problem). As an example of stress-coping research, this 2009 article examines male and female college students' strategies for coping with stress.

What can be done about stress? The University of Georgia's University Health Center offers an online resource entitled " Managing Stress: A Guide for College Students." It offers modules on several specific topics, such as sleep, healthy relationships, and time- management. In addition, the University of Illinois's Counseling Center provides several stress-management tips for first-year students. At my university, Texas Tech, the Student Counseling Service has similar resources as at other institutions. Plus, rubberized stress-relief squeeze toys in the shape of the university's Double-T logo are available.

With the help of family, friends, and perhaps campus stress-management resources, many students are able to keep their stress levels relatively under control or even thrive in the college setting. However, for some students, the challenges and frustrations of campus life appear to lead to severe emotional problems. I address this topic in next month's column.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Psychological stress among college students has been getting a lot of attention recently, thanks to articles this year in the New York Times , Huffington Post , and Inside Higher Ed . Research on student stress goes back at least half a century, to David Mechanic's 1962 book Students Under Stress , which was on graduate students.

# data[].attributes.body
My proposed research is relevant to the field of Educational Psychology and Technology because epistemology is stimulating rapid advances in technology to effect change in societies of people and organizations, i.e., educational settings. The current research proposal will examine the efficacy of mobile therapy for college students whose progress in academics is declining due to overwhelming stress and anxiety.  As is with applied research, my app will be utilized by college students to also improve self-esteem.

# data[].attributes.body
For my dissertation topic I will examine the “Efficacy of Technology-Assisted Therapy in Reducing Symptoms of Test Anxiety in Freshman College Students, by Gender”.  The research design I have selected is the Solomon Four Group Design (SFGD).  SFGD, developed by Richard Solomon in 1949, is a pretest-posttest two-group design and the posttest only control design, which reduces the influence of confounding variables and allows the researcher to test whether the pretest itself has an effect on the subjects (Navarro & Siegel, 2018).  Dimitrov and Rumrill (2003) claimed, “pretest-posttest designs are widely used in behavioral research, primarily for the purpose of comparing groups and/or measuring change resulting from experimental treatments.”  One major benefit of the SFGD is that it averts pretest influences on post test scores.  Another important benefit of SFGD is that it minimizes threats to internal and external validity (https://www.slideshare.net/rodsazon/threats-to-internal-and-external-validity).

# data[].attributes.body
One of The current contemporary issue in today's society is the magnitude and direction of technological advances.  Technology is advancing the world around and changing the way we learn in America (http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.357.1969&rep=rep1&type=pdf).  My research is based on the wide use of technology in the behavioral sciences. Technology is one gateway for college students to access the needed services for mental health therapy, from a confidentiality perspective. Mobile therapy is a giant leap towards mental health as reported by Alan Reifman Ph.D. for Psychology Today.  Almost forty years ago, research examining stress found that college students lacked effective skills to manage stress that emanates from a college lifestyle (Beard, Elmore, &
Lange, 1982).  Findings from research conducted thirteen years ago found that for female college students, managing stress has become more challenging (Dyrbye, Thomas, &
Shanafelt, 2006).  Recent survey research conducted by American College Health Association (2018) revealed that "three out of five students experienced overwhelming anxiety and two out of five students were too depressed to function." The data further revealed that the top mental health issues among college students are anxiety, depression, and substance abuse and only a very small percentage of those students are seeking help from their campus counseling center.  The percentage of students that are not seeking help, are still struggling. (https://www.higheredtoday.org/2018/12/17/rise-mental-health-college-campuses-protecting-emotional-health-nations-college-students/).

# data[].attributes.body
External validity begs these and other questions:  Are the results of a study generalizable?  Additionally, is the sample a good representation of the larger population from which the sample was taken?
Finally, another important threat to validity, among many others, is that the administration of a test could influence the performance of a participant of a study (Retrieved from https://www.slideshare.net/rodsazon/threats-to-internal-and-external-validity).

# data[].attributes.body
Events that could alter the outcome or results of a study also changes that may occur during the study in the participants, that are not apart of the study, but that may impact study results (i.e., weight increase).  In SFGD, a threat to internal validity occurs when effects of a pretest impact the performance of participants' performance on a posttest, for example, if subjects are aware that they are being studied, their performance on the posttest(s) may be influenced.  The Solomon Four Research Design is one way to minimize a threat to Internal Validity (Retrieved from https://www.slideshare.net/rodsazon/threats-to-internal-and-external-validity).

# data[].attributes.body
Is Mobile Therapy more Effective  than In-Person Therapy in reducing Test Anxiety among Freshman College Students?

# data[].attributes.body
Participants:  Male and Female
Population:  College Freshmen;
N = 65
Age:  18 - 21
Data Collection:  Paper Questionnaires/Surveys for Pretest baseline measurements and Post-test intervention measurements. Data will query for therapy intervention, duration, and symptom tracker.
Research Setting:  College Campus