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) |
students
See if length of stay impacts the average diagnostic scores rounded to two decimal places for international students, and order the results by descending order of the length of stay.
-- Check avg stay
SELECT stay, ROUND(AVG(todep), 2) AS average_phq, ROUND(AVG(tosc), 2) AS average_scs, ROUND(AVG(toas), 2) AS average_as
FROM students
WHERE inter_dom = 'Inter'
GROUP BY stay
ORDER BY stay DESC;
Counting all of the records in the data
So we have total of 268 Students
- 67 Dom students
- 201 International Students
-- Checking the dataset
SELECT *
FROM students;
-- Dom students count.
SELECT COUNT(inter_dom) AS Dom_Students
FROM students
WHERE inter_dom = 'Dom';
-- International students count.
SELECT COUNT(inter_dom) AS International_Students
FROM students
WHERE inter_dom = 'Inter';
--Checking if there's a null values
SELECT COUNT (inter_dom) AS Null_Values
FROM students
WHERE inter_dom IS NULL;
-- All Students Count
SELECT COUNT ( inter_dom)
FROM students;
Filter the data to see how it differs between the student types.
After checking the dataset, I've found the below:
- First we have the redion column, which contains values about the region of each students.
- We have the gender column, which contains Male and Female values.
- Another importnat column is age and stay_cate
- I think the japanese_cate is also an importnant column to measure the mental health based on the communication of the students, If they can communicate with Japanese well, does that Impact thet mental health or not?
- Also the english_cate as the English language is the most used langauge around the world.
- The last important column is the religion column, I think if the student is religious he wouldn't attempt suicide, but I find it very interesting to check this theory after checking the dataset.
-- start by checking the dataset again.
SELECT *
FROM students
WHERE religion = 'Yes';
-- Checking the avg dep score
SELECT round(avg(todep), 2) AVG_Dep_score
FROM students;
-- Checking the average depression score if the student is religious
SELECT round(avg(todep), 2) AS AVG_Dep_Score
FROM students
WHERE religion = 'Yes';
-- Checking the average depression score if the student not religious
SELECT round(avg(todep), 2) AS AVG_Dep_Score
FROM students
WHERE religion = 'No';
-- Checking if the region impact the dep score.
SELECT DISTINCT region
FROM students;
-- AVG dep for EA region is 8.2
SELECT round(avg(todep), 2)
FROM students
WHERE region = 'EA';
-- AVG dep for SEA region is 8.2
SELECT round(avg(todep), 2)
FROM students
WHERE region = 'SEA';
-- AVG dep for SA region is 7
SELECT round(avg(todep), 2)
FROM students
WHERE region = 'SA';
-- AVG dep for JAP region is 8.6
SELECT round(avg(todep), 2)
FROM students
WHERE region = 'JAP';
-- AVG dep for Others region is 7
SELECT round(avg(todep), 2)
FROM students
WHERE region = 'Others';
-- AVG dep based on gender -Male: 8 -Female: 8.4
SELECT round(avg(todep), 2)
FROM students
WHERE gender = 'Female';
-- Checking Japanese cat
SELECT AVG(japanese)
FROM students;
-- AVG japansee cat is 3
SELECt ROUND(AVG(todep), 2)
FROM students
WHERE japanese > 3;
-- AVG english cat is 3.6
SELECt ROUND(AVG(todep), 2)
FROM students
WHERE japanese > 3.6;
Findings
- If the student is religios he score an avg of 7.3 total dep, and if he is not religios he scores 8.6 there's a differrence but not huge.
- The most depressed students are from Japan.
- The most deprressed gender is female with an average of 8.4
- Even if the student is above avg on Japansese language, they still score avg of 8.2 dep avg.
- The same for English language with avg dep score of 8.1
Find the summary statistics of the diagnostic tests for all students using aggregate functions, rounding the test scores to two decimal places, remembering to use aliases.
checking for all students:-
- Avg dep score: 8.2
- Avg Social connectedness: 37.5
- Avg acculturative stress: 72.3
checking for International students:-
- Avg dep score: 8.04
- Avg Social connectedness: 37.4
- Avg acculturative stress: 75.6
-- First for all students
SELECT * FROM students;
SELECT ROUND(AVG(todep), 2) AS avg_dep_score, ROUND(AVG(tosc), 2) AS avg_social_connectedness, ROUND(AVG(toas), 2) AS avg_acculturative_stress
FROM students
WHERE inter_dom = 'Inter';