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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 NameDescription
inter_domTypes of students (international or domestic)
japanese_cateJapanese language proficiency
english_cateEnglish language proficiency
academicCurrent academic level (undergraduate or graduate)
ageCurrent age of student
stayCurrent length of stay in years
todepTotal score of depression (PHQ-9 test)
toscTotal score of social connectedness (SCS test)
toasTotal score of acculturative stress (ASISS test)
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DataFrameas
students
variable
-- Run this code to save the CSV file as students
SELECT * 
FROM 'students.csv';

First, lets check the total records in the dataframe students, even though it can be seen in the bottom portion of the table shown.

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DataFrameas
total_rec
variable
-- Start coding here...
SELECT COUNT(*) AS total_records
FROM students

How many international students are we dealing with?

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DataFrameas
df1
variable
SELECT inter_dom, COUNT(*) AS count_inter_dom
FROM students
GROUP BY inter_dom

Inter national students =201 , Dom estic students=67, Null = 18. Now let's shift our focus to length of stay in Japan.

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DataFrameas
df2
variable
SELECT stay, count(*)
FROM students
GROUP BY stay
ORDER BY 2 DESC

Most students are in the 1-4 years of stay period. Now lets check the average score for the 3 diagnostic tests for all students.

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DataFrameas
df3
variable
SELECT AVG(todep), AVG(tosc), AVG(toas)
FROM students

How does this break down when compared for international vs local students?

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DataFrameas
df4
variable
SELECT inter_dom, AVG(todep), AVG(tosc), AVG(toas)
FROM students
WHERE inter_dom IS NOT NULL
GROUP BY inter_dom

How does length of stay factor in the whole equation? Specially for the international students. Let's see how many years the international students are in Japan.