Presenters: Spencer Jamison ; Maryn Rolfson ; Caitlin Kreutz ; McKenna Amdal
Authors: Maryn Rolfson, Caitlin Kreutz, McKenna Amdal, Abby Baker, Spencer Jamison
Faculty Advisor: Wendy Birmingham
Institution: Brigham Young University
College students experience high levels of stress, with 75% of students reporting moderate stress and 12% reporting high stress(Pierceall & Kiem, 2007). Because of a change in environment, discrimination, and differing social norms when attending college, it is thought that ethinic minority students may experience higher levels of perceived stress (Han & Pong, 2015) (Sanchez & Awad, 2014). While higher levels of stress in college may be inevitable, it has been found that adequate levels of institutional support reduces this perceived stress significantly (Civitci, 2015, Lepore, 1992; Carlisle, 2012; Birmingham, 2009).We aim to find the relationship between institutional support and minority stress. We predict that those who score lower on the institutional integration scale will score higher on the minority status stress scale . We also predict that ethnic minorities will score higher on the perceived stress scale than those of the majority. The poster contained 75 participants, 48 students of color , and 27 non students of color. Participants were recruited via flyers around the university campus and via social media. Measures used included the InstitutionalIntegration Scales (Pascarella & Terenzini, 1980), and the Minority Status Stress Scale(Smedley et al., 1993). Researchers ran the sum scores of the IIS and the MSSS through a linear regression on SPSS, controlling for religiosity, year in school, gender, anxiety and depression. Results were not significant. Researchers also ran a linear regression between a Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) score and students’ identity as a student of color or non student of color, controlling for religiosity, year in school, gender, anxiety and depression. Results were significant, F(7, 67) = 2.389, p= 0.030