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 save the CSV file as students
SELECT *
FROM 'students.csv';-- Count all of the records in the data
SELECT COUNT(*) AS record_count
FROM students;The total number of records in the 'students' table is 286
-- Count the records per student type to see how the records are categorized and scored
SELECT inter_dom, COUNT(*) AS record_count,
FROM students
WHERE inter_dom IS NOT NULL
GROUP BY inter_dom;There are 67 domestical students, and 201 international ones. So there are 18 null registrees.
-- Filter the data to see how it differs between the student types.
SELECT
inter_dom,
ROUND(AVG(age),1) AS avg_age,
MIN(stay) AS min_stay,
MAX(stay) AS max_stay,
FROM students
WHERE inter_dom IN('Inter' , 'Dom')
GROUP BY inter_dom;Upon analysis of the numeric fields, we can conclude that international students are slightly older than their domestic counterparts, and they tend to extend the duration of their stay on campus, potentially doubling the number of years compared to domestic students.
-- 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.
SELECT
inter_dom,
ROUND(AVG(todep),2) AS avg_todep,
ROUND(AVG(tosc),2) AS avg_tosc,
ROUND(AVG(toas),2) AS avg_toas,
FROM students
WHERE inter_dom IN('Inter' , 'Dom')
GROUP BY inter_dom;Examining the average scores in each test reveals that domestic students score slightly higher in depressive symptoms (PHQ-9 test) and social connectedness (SCS test). It is important to note that the observed differences may fall within the confidence interval.
However, in the Alcohol, Smoking, and Substance Involvement Screening Test (ASISS test), the average score is higher by more than 12 points for international students compared to domestic students.
-- Repeat this to summarize the data for international students only.
SELECT
inter_dom,
ROUND(AVG(todep),2) AS avg_todep,
ROUND(AVG(tosc),2) AS avg_tosc,
ROUND(AVG(toas),2) AS avg_toas,
FROM students
WHERE inter_dom = 'Inter'
GROUP BY inter_dom;-- 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.
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;