Does going to university in a different country affect your mental health? A Japanese international university surveyed its students in 2018 and published a study the following year that was approved by several ethical and regulatory boards.
The study found that international students have a higher risk of mental health difficulties than the general population, and that social connectedness (belonging to a social group) and acculturative stress (stress associated with joining a new culture) are predictive of depression.
Explore the students data using PostgreSQL to find out if you would come to a similar conclusion for international students and see if the length of stay is a contributing factor.
Here is a data description of the columns you may find helpful.
| Field Name | Description |
|---|---|
inter_dom | Types of students (international or domestic) |
japanese_cate | Japanese language proficiency |
english_cate | English language proficiency |
academic | Current academic level (undergraduate or graduate) |
age | Current age of student |
stay | Current length of stay in years |
todep | Total score of depression (PHQ-9 test) |
tosc | Total score of social connectedness (SCS test) |
toas | Total score of acculturative stress (ASISS test) |
-- Run this code to view the data in students
SELECT *
FROM students;Clean Table: Remove null records
Say NO to inaccurate, redundant, inappropriate data !
-- Start coding here...
-- SELECT stay, inter_dom, japanese_cate, english_cate, depression score , social connectedness score, stress score
SELECT stay, inter_dom, academic, age, japanese_cate, english_cate, todep, tosc, toas
FROM students
WHERE age IS NOT NULL;GROUP BY "stay"
- Group by "stay" allows comparison between stats by each year.
- This allows show the relationship between number of years of stay and PHQ-9, SCS, and ASISS test scores
-- GROUP by stay
-- For each year, COUNT number of inter_dom (sum) students and take the average of test scores (all rounded to 2 D.P)
-- Depression (PHQ-9 test): higher score, more depression
-- Connectedness (SCS test): higher score, more connectedness
-- Acculturative stress (ASISS test): higher score, more stress
SELECT stay as years, COUNT(*) AS num_students, ROUND(AVG(japanese), 2) AS japanese, ROUND(AVG(english), 2) AS english, ROUND(AVG(todep), 2) AS depression, ROUND(AVG(tosc), 2) AS connectedness, ROUND(AVG(toas), 2) AS stress
FROM students
WHERE age IS NOT NULL
GROUP BY stay
ORDER BY years;Graph of Depression (PHQ-9 test) vs Time of Stay Abroad (Years)
Depression (PHQ-9 test) vs Time of Stay Abroad (Years)
Graph of Social Connectedness (SCS test) vs Time of Stay Abroad (Years)
Social Connectedness (SCS test) vs Time of Stay Abroad (Years)
Graph of Acculturative stress (ASISS test) vs Time of Stay Abroad (Years)