Life Skills Link to Mind Wandering Among University Students: An Exploratory Study

The occurrence of mind wandering (MW) leads to lower performance on memory tasks related to lecture contents in educational settings, which has been recognized as problematic. To date, several dispositional factors have been reported as being associated with MW. This study investigated whether another psychological component—life skills—is linked to MW. Specifically, it clarified the relationship between life skills and two types of MW: state MW (occurs while performing a given task) and trait MW (occurs subjectively in daily life), using a sample of university students. From the perspective of cognitive and emotional control functions, life skills are thought to be related to the occurrence of MW. In addition to common questionnaire surveys, by recording and analyzing the participants' self-reports for MW occurrence during the experimental task, we clarified not only the quantitative associations among the variables but also the qualitative differences. Multiple regression analysis for the data from 53 students showed that decision-making and coping-with-emotion skills are negatively related to the occurrence of mind wandering. The qualitative data additionally revealed that participants with high decision-making skills are more likely than those with low decision-making skills to attempt to maintain their concentration on the task by thinking about task execution. These results suggest that life skills are associated with MW and that the ability to inhibit MW may be enhanced by improving life skills because they comprise acquired, learnable behaviors and attitudes. Life skills training may help in reducing students' MW in educational contexts.

Download Full-text

Psicologia & saúde treino de habilidades de vida e saúde mental em universitários

10.31012/978-65-87836-06-5 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Leide Silva do Carmo ◽

Nelson Iguimar Valerio

Keyword(s):

Mental Health ◽

University Students ◽

Life Skills ◽

Low Cost ◽

Intervention Group ◽

Skills Training ◽

Risky Behaviors ◽

Group Life ◽

Academic Adaptation ◽

Anxiety Depression

Several factors can cause damage to the mental health of university students, e.g. academic adaptation, housing change, distance from family and friends, and dealing with stressors regarding new requirements, which need some resources to cope with such situations. The content of this book, from the Master's Dissertation developed by the authors at the Stricto-Sensu Psychology and Health Post-Graduation Program at the Medical School of São José do Rio Preto - FAMERP, aims at describing the presence of mental disorders and demonstrating the implementation of a life-skills training in university students (Medicine and Nursing), randomly chosen in a teaching institution in a medium-sized city, interior of São Paulo state. The participants expressed high symptoms of anxiety, depression and stress in the initial evaluation, however, after the training of group life skills, they showed significant improvements with maintenance of these rates during the follow-up. This training can be stood out to improve the mental health and life skills of the students. It is likely that the intervention group may have helped these students to cope with negative pressures, avoiding risky behaviors, communicating effectively; moreover, coping with adaptations and changes in such academic process. It is worthwhile to point out that this study may encourage further research in relation to mental health and life-skills in university students, and that it will encourage the insertion of programs with these skills training, due to their effectiveness, low cost, the participants´ acceptance, improvement in mental health, and provide increasing academic performance.

Download Full-text

Academic Course Combining Psychological Skills Training and Life Skills Education for University Students and Student-Athletes

Journal of Applied Sport Psychology ◽

10.1080/10413200305384 ◽

2003 ◽

Vol 15 (3) ◽

pp. 270-277 ◽

Cited By ~ 18

Author(s):

Lewis Curry ◽

Sameep Maniar

Keyword(s):

University Students ◽

Life Skills ◽

Student Athletes ◽

Skills Training ◽

Psychological Skills ◽

Psychological Skills Training ◽

Skills Education ◽

Life Skills Education

Download Full-text

Increasing Mental Health of University Students through Life Skills Training (LST)

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences ◽

10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.06.739 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 84 ◽

pp. 1255-1259 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Azar Pakdaman Savoji ◽

Kamran Ganji

Keyword(s):

Mental Health ◽

University Students ◽

Life Skills ◽

Skills Training ◽

Life Skills Training

Download Full-text

The Effect of Life Skills Training on the Educational Stress Deduction of the Islamic Azad University Students in 2013-2014

International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences ◽

10.18052/www.scipress.com/ilshs.52.122 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 52 ◽

pp. 122-126

Author(s):

Mehdi Rostami ◽

Qumarth Karimi

Keyword(s):

University Students ◽

Sample Size ◽

Life Stress ◽

Life Skills ◽

Skills Training ◽

Training Effect ◽

Control Group ◽

Life Skills Training ◽

And Control ◽

Experimental Group

This article aims to determine the level of life skills training effect on the educational stress of the Islamic Azad University students of Sanandaj in 2013-2014 and it was done by using the experimental research method with pre-test and post-test of interviewed (testifier) group. The statistic society of this article consist of all Islamic Azad University students of Sanandaj in 2013 – 2014 that based on statistics it was about 11000 persons that Cochran's model was used for estimating the sample size and 277 persons were chosen casually. According to the sample size, firstly the student life stress questionnaire was performed and 60 persons of people that had maximum students life stress depend on questionnaire scale were chosen and screened. The 60 screened persons were divided into two experimental group and control group. It means that 30 people in the experimental group that was taken under the life skills training and 30 people as Control group in order to being compared with the experimental group in the terms of life skills training effect of the educational stress. For surveying the variable s relation, analysis statics and independent T test were used. The result showed that in the terms of life skills training effect on educational stress (there is a meaningful difference between the experimental group and control group) or in other hand, life skills had meaningful effect on the educational stress deduction.

Download Full-text