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) |
SELECT inter_dom, COUNT(*) AS student_count
FROM students
GROUP BY inter_dom;
SELECT inter_dom, AVG(todep) AS avg_depression_score
FROM students
GROUP BY inter_dom;
SELECT CORR(todep, tosc) AS depression_social_corr,
CORR(todep, toas) AS depression_stress_corr
FROM students;
SELECT CORR(stay, todep) AS stay_depression_corr
FROM students;
SELECT CASE
WHEN stay < 1 THEN 'Less than 1 year'
WHEN stay BETWEEN 1 AND 3 THEN '1-3 years'
WHEN stay BETWEEN 4 AND 6 THEN '4-6 years'
ELSE 'More than 6 years'
END AS stay_category,
AVG(todep) AS avg_depression_score
FROM students
GROUP BY stay_category
ORDER BY avg_depression_score DESC;
SELECT
stay,
COUNT(*) AS count_int,
ROUND(AVG(todep), 2) AS average_phq,
ROUND(AVG(tosc), 2) AS average_scs,
ROUND(AVG(toas), 2) AS average_as
FROM
students
WHERE
LOWER(inter_dom) = 'International' -- Case-insensitive comparison
GROUP BY
stay
ORDER BY
stay DESC;