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College Student’s Academic Help-Seeking Behavior: A Systematic Literature Review

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Seeking academic help has a positive impact on students’ ability to handle challenges, leading to improved academic success. As the academic landscape becomes more competitive, the importance of students seeking and using academic support is widely recognized for enhancing their learning experience and achievements. The main objective of this study is to review the prior literature that has examined the academic support provided to college students, addressing the knowledge and methods required in an academic help-seeking process. Based on a systematic literature review, this study’s data were gathered from a review of 55 documents from the 11 years between 2012 and 2022. The literature was then individually analyzed using the ATLAS.ti 22 programs. The analysis shows five central themes: (1) Defining student help-seeking; (2) Academic help-seeking and academic performance; (3) Resources of academic help-seeking; (4) Factors of academic help-seeking; (5) Academic Help Seeking Online. This study also identifies potential new directions for future research that could be useful to school administrators in developing policies to assist students with help-seeking behavior, which could have significant implications for the theoretical development and practical guidance of student help-seeking behavior.

1. Introduction

As higher education entered the era of massification in many nations during the 20th century, an increasing number of individuals have been able to attend college [ 1 ]. Meanwhile, university assignments have become increasingly complex and challenging. At college, students face a variety of academic obstacles [ 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 ]. Learning is hardly ever accomplished alone. Therefore, students should seek help from their teachers or peers [ 6 , 7 , 8 ], the school’s counseling service [ 9 ], or the Internet [ 10 ]. The ability to actively seek academic assistance to promote academic success is one of the most important study skills college students must possess. If students struggle with completing their projects, they may want educational support to figure out the issue or challenge themselves [ 11 ]. People may experience this scenario psychologically in many ways, engage in various thought processes, and adopt various behaviors. From a learning adjustment perspective, academic help-seeking (AHS) is often considered to be a more important and effective self-regulation strategy [ 12 , 13 , 14 ]. Obtaining academic help is also an essential self-regulated learning strategy for college students, which plays a significant role in their academic careers [ 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 ]. AHS involves seeking support from individuals and other sources to help students do well in the academic environment [ 10 , 19 ].

Since the 1980s, numerous studies have been published that investigate the definition and structure of AHS as a construct [ 20 , 21 ] and relate it to other key variables in the education disciplines [ 22 , 23 , 24 ]. Nonetheless, due to its social aspects, AHS exhibits diverse individual traits. Its complexity manifests itself on various levels, including the factors that impact AHS, the performance of AHS, and its effects. Interest in this topic has developed during the past decade [ 25 ]. College students’ academic help-seeking behavior is a complex phenomenon that has garnered significant research attention. However, there is a need for a comprehensive understanding of this behavior, including its characteristics, trends, and various aspects related to its definition, relationship with academic performance, available resources, influential factors, and the impact of online platforms. Additionally, a systematic evaluation can synthesize existing research on college students’ academic help-seeking behavior and provide a holistic view of the topic. And hence, this study examines a selection of the literature about college students’ academic help-seeking behavior and focuses on answering the following questions:

RQ1: What are the characteristics and trends of the articles related to college students’ academic help-seeking behavior published between 2012 and 2022, considering the country of origin, journal sources, and publication timeline?

RQ2: What insights can be gained regarding college students’ academic help-seeking behavior, including its definition, relationship with academic performance, available resources, influential factors, and the impact of online platforms?

RQ1 focuses on identifying the characteristics and trends of articles published between 2012 and 2022, considering factors such as the country of origin, journal sources, and publication timeline. This analysis will provide insights into the research landscape, highlighting key contributors and temporal patterns in the field. RQ2 delves into the various aspects of college students’ academic help-seeking behavior, including its definition, relationship with academic performance, available resources, influential factors, and the impact of online platforms. By examining these dimensions, the study aims to uncover valuable insights that can inform the development of effective interventions and support services for college students. Furthermore, this systematic review will identify research gaps and propose future research directions. It will shed light on common barriers and facilitators affecting students’ engagement in academic help-seeking, ultimately contributing to the advancement of knowledge in this field.

2. Background Literature

2.1. academic help-seeking behaviors.

“Help-seeking” is a structured and interactive social behavior that has been found to have a positive correlation with academic achievement among students [ 26 ]. In one of the earlier studies, Karabenick and Knapp [ 14 ] noted that the distinction between formal and informal academic assistance was made. The formal ones included resources from mentors and schools, while the informal ones included friends, peers, and family. Nelson-Le Gall and Jones [ 27 ] found two types of student help-seeking behavior observed: one in which students were more independent in their use of AHS behavior and another in which they were more dependent. When seeking executive assistance, students wish to receive answers to their questions without any effort on their part. When students wish to improve their learning and problem-solving abilities, they seek instrumental assistance. It is also viewed as a self-regulatory learning strategy for students to seek academic assistance [ 28 ]. Another definition of help-seeking is by Ryan and Pintrich [ 29 ], who defined it as the capacity to utilize others or other resources to solve problems when confronted with learning difficulties or challenges and complex situations. Umarani [ 30 ] reminds us that seeking academic help is a learning strategy that can effectively facilitate student learning and ultimately benefit students’ academic performance. About the help-seeking process, Karabenick and Dembo [ 31 ] outlined eight steps: (1) decide whether a problem exists; (2) decide whether assistance is required or desired; (3) determine whether to request assistance; (4) choose the type of help you want (executive or instrumental); (5) choose the person you want to seek for help; (6) ask for help; (7) get help; (8) process the help you got. These steps must be carried out in an effective manner, which calls for cognitive, social, and emotional competencies that are instructible to students who might be lacking in these abilities.

2.2. Relationship between Academic Help-Seeking and Academic Success

For many years, researchers have researched the relationship between AHS and academic performance, with most studies indicating that academic help-seeking behavior has a favorable effect on academic success. Micari and Calkins [ 32 ] showed that teachers who are receptive to students’ requests for assistance will receive increasingly higher grades. In other words, students will have a higher GPA and eventually succeed in college if they ask their teachers for assistance more frequently. One study by Umarani [ 30 ] found that students with academic difficulties who actively seek academic assistance can improve their academic performance. In general, students who refuse academic support perform worse in school than those who regularly interact with their teachers. Another study by Algharaibeh [ 33 ] offered an analysis of the various sources of academic help, including the fact that formal sources are typically school teachers and academic service centers provided by the school, whereas informal sources are typically parents, peers, classmates, etc.

Whether formal or informal, help-seeking can improve academic performance, encourage positive learning, and increase students’ sense of self-efficacy. Previous research on academic help-seeking has demonstrated that seeking assistance from official sources (e.g., teachers and academic service centers) or informal sources (e.g., peers and family) promotes positive learning trends, increased self-efficacy, and enhanced academic performance [ 19 ]. While students’ academic help-seeking behavior is very negative in traditional learning environments, primarily because students believe that asking for academic help in public implies that they are not capable of learning and because they believe it has an impact on their self-esteem [ 34 ].

3. Materials and Methodology

This study employs a literature review approach to fulfill its objective of identifying the key aspects of a subject or topic through analysis of previous research to identify research gaps. Specifically, the study is a thematic review of relevant literature. By allowing for thematic grouping, a thematic literature review enables researchers to showcase the specific topics that are most relevant to their research. The present study employs a thematic literature review as its primary analytical technique, which involves searching for and analyzing relevant data obtained from databases. This approach has been utilized by numerous previous studies [ 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 ]. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) were used to manage the literature search [ 39 ].

3.1. Databases and Search Terms

Multiple strategies were employed to obtain a wide range of related studies within the scope of this SLR [ 40 ]. We use the electronic databases Web of Science (WOS) and Scopus, ERIC (Education Resource Information Center), PsycINFO (EBSCO), and ScienceDirect to search the included articles. For each characteristic (help-seeking, college students), we used multiple terms to enhance our ability to find as many relevant articles as possible. For the characteristic of help-seeking, we use terms: Online academic help-seeking OR OAHS OR academic help-seeking OR AHS OR academic help-seeking’ OR ‘academic advising’ OR ‘academic advice’ OR ‘intrusive advising’ OR ‘support service’ OR ‘support services’ OR ‘academic support’ OR “help seeking” OR “help-seeking” OR “Help-seeking behavior” “Help-seeking intentions” OR “Learning strategies” OR “Question asking” OR “self-regulated learning”. For the characteristic of college students, we used the terms: “university” OR “college” OR “academy” OR “higher education” OR ‘university student’ OR ‘university students’ OR ‘college student’ OR ‘college students’. Within each category, keywords were joined with OR, and terms were joined with AND between each category A string was adopted in five databases ( Table 1 ). To ensure the assessment was comprehensive, we also used backward and forward snowball search techniques [ 41 ]. The five focal databases were then mined for a total of 1839 articles.

Search string.

3.2. Inclusion/Exclusion Criteria

All searches were carried out in June 2023. Papers were included for consideration using the following criteria: (1) publication dates range from 2012–2022; (2) the following keywords must be included: college students, academic help-seeking, help-seeking behavior, and undergraduate students; (3) the language used in the article is English; (4) quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods studies are included to consider this research topic in different dimensions. The chosen period for this study is 2012–2022. This selection is based on several factors. Firstly, during this timeframe, online resources were widely used, allowing us to examine the impact of technology integration on college students’ academic help-seeking behavior. Secondly, focusing on the years 2012–2022 ensures access to recent and relevant literature, enabling us to capture the latest trends and advancements in understanding this behavior. Lastly, a narrower time frame allows for a thorough review of the literature, enhancing our understanding of college students’ academic help-seeking behavior.

Criteria for exclusion: (1). Articles focusing on individuals outside the college student population, such as K12 students, adults, elderly individuals, disabled individuals, and non-college groups, will be excluded from the review. (2). Articles that primarily focus on help-seeking behaviors related to physiological concerns, psychological issues, or mental health conditions, rather than academic help-seeking, will be excluded. (3). Articles that do not directly address the research question and are not related to the definition of academic help-seeking, resources for academic help-seeking, influencing channels, and factors of online academic help-seeking will be excluded. (4). Non-empirical articles, such as literature reviews, theoretical papers, opinion pieces, and editorials, will be excluded from the review. Only empirical studies reporting original research findings will be considered. (5). Articles written in languages other than English will be excluded from the review, as the analysis will focus on English-language publications. (6). Papers that are not available in full text.

3.3. Selection of Articles and Descriptive Overview

All searches were carried out in June 2023. Web of Science (WOS), Scopus, ERIC (Education Resource Information Center), PsycINFO (EBSCO), and ScienceDirect were used to conduct the literature search for this study, and they returned 1839 results. In the first step, 1839 articles were stored in Endnote X9, and 442 duplicates were removed. We went on to remove 156 documents based on the range of time and language. In the second phase, two independent investigators screened the articles against the eligibility criteria based on the title, abstract, and keywords, 1135 articles were removed. After a full-text examination, 55 articles published between 2012 and 2022 were selected for qualitative synthesis. Figure 1 summarizes the three phases of the process of choosing references for analysis and prior studies (identification, screening, and inclusion).

PRISMA flow diagram of the research process.

3.4. Quality Assessment of Included Studies

To assess the quality of each study included in the review, we utilized Crowe’s critical appraisal tool (CCAT). The suitability of this tool for the study was justified by its capability to accommodate various study designs, such as quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods studies. Moreover, CCAT is highly reliable [ 42 , 43 ]. The CCAT consists of eight category items, which are Preliminaries, Introduction, Design, Sampling, Data Collection, Ethical Matters, Results, and Discussion. Each category item is scored on a five-point scale, resulting in a maximum aggregate score of 40. (See Appendix A   Table A1 ) The CCAT User Guide provides detailed explanations and references for how each category item can be scored [ 44 ] (See Supplementary Materials ). The CCAT was utilized by the first author for each study, and the second author independently applied it to more than half of the research. Any discrepancies that arose were resolved through ongoing discussions. The characteristics and CCAT scores for all 55 studies are presented in Table A2 (See Appendix B Table A2 ).

3.5. Approach to Analysis and Synthesis

For analysis, 55 articles in total were uploaded to ATLAS.ti 22. And using ATLAS.ti, 22 were used for the literature review analysis introduced by Zairul [ 45 ]. Each article was categorized by the author, journal name, journal number, publisher, and year of publication. Quantitative and qualitative findings are presented in this paper. The quantitative section focuses primarily on the regional, journal, and national distribution of academic research articles. In the section on qualitative data analysis, the primary method employed was thematic analysis, which was used to classify and summarize the articles and ultimately construct the framework while ensuring that the framework and data were linked [ 46 ]. This method involves coding, categorizing, and refining themes extracted from raw data [ 47 ]. The present research follows the 6-step framework outlined by Braun and Clarke [ 48 ]. The steps follow as (1) becoming familiar with the data, (2) generating codes, (3) identifying themes, (4) reviewing themes, (5) defining themes, and (6) explaining themes.

We began the thematic analysis by immersing ourselves in the data and gaining familiarity with the content of the articles about the research question. In the subsequent two steps, we initially assigned codes to the articles based on general themes, using an inductive approach that allowed themes to emerge from specific observations in the empirical studies. This involved focusing on key aspects of the articles, such as the author, year of publication, the country, the purpose of the study, study design, and study conclusions, and extracting recurring subject terms, such as AHS, types of AHS behavior, and online AHS behavior. In the fourth step, we reviewed all established themes and sorted out any overlaps or strongly interrelated themes. In the fifth step, we merged and defined all the shortlisted themes, continuously revising them until all sub-themes were grouped under the main theme. In the final step, we refined and defined the themes further, with the first two authors reaching a consensus on each theme through discussion and consideration of its connection to the research question. If there were any disagreements, a third author was consulted. After reviewing and validating the initial codes, we proceeded to identify and refine the themes. The resulting set of themes and their analysis are presented in the following section. Through an interactive process, we categorized the initial codes into broader subjects and had discussions among the authors, which led to the identification of five themes: (1) Defining student help-seeking, (2) Academic help-seeking and academic performance, (3) Resources for academic help-seeking, (4) Factors influencing academic help-seeking, and (5) Online academic help-seeking.

Two categories of results are presented: quantitative and qualitative. The quantitative portion of the study will address question 1, whereas the qualitative portion will address question 2. Despite an expanding body of research on students’ AHS behaviors, there are currently no review papers that provide a comprehensive study of students’ AHS behaviors as well as a framework for future research.

The word cloud was created in ATLAS.ti 22 software, after adding the keywords “help”, “seeking”, “academic”, and some numbers and special characters to the stop word list. “The results of the word cloud revealed that the most prominent concepts were learning, study, online, support, social, class, and information. (See Figure 2 ). As the number of journal articles on academic research has increased in recent years, from three articles in 2012 to seven articles in 2014 to thirteen articles in 2021 (See Figure 3 ). Importantly, this analysis does not currently exclude any limitations, and the literature being analyzed is the literature chosen for the research question.

Word cloud map generated in 55 documents.

Several papers about college students’ academic help-seeking.

4.1. Quantitative Results

According to the findings, college students’ AHS behaviors were primarily published in these journals. According to the list shown in Table 2 : The top three journals for AHS behavior among college students are Frontiers in Education, Internet and Higher Education, and Journal of Academic Librarianship. The journals International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher education, Journal of College Student Development, and TechTrends published two articles in the last 10 years. The remaining 39 journals published one article on a related topic in the last 10 years. In the process of searching the literature, we found that some of the articles are about academic help-seeking behavior, but the keywords of the articles are self-regulated, learning strategy, asking questions, etc., which are also related to academic help-seeking. Therefore, in the process of searching the literature, we found that if we expand the search terms, we will find that the literature on academic help-seeking behavior has shown a gradual increase in recent years.

The number of articles published in the journal.

The United States, China, Germany, and Australia are the leading regions for academic research on university counts, with the United States publishing the most articles on the AHS behavior of college students over the past decade. One of the papers investigates how the emergence of higher education’s cultural mismatch influences the academic assistance-seeking behavior of first-generation college students [ 49 ]. Payakachat et al. [ 50 ] and Finney et al. [ 51 ] are more focused on College students’ behavior in seeking academic assistance. In Germany, to better understand self-reported help-seeking strategies, Zander and Hoehne [ 52 ] analyzed autonomy-oriented, dependency-oriented, and help-seeking avoidance in undergraduate computing and pedagogy programs. Schlusche et al. [ 53 ] used a survey to investigate the impact of social resources on the relationship between AHS behavior and the academic performance of college students in the lower division. Consideration was given to the regional distribution of the Institute ( Figure 4 ). AHS behavior among college students has long been studied in several countries. There has been a lot of recent research on college students in Asian nations, including Taiwan and mainland China, who seek academic assistance. Nonetheless, the AHS behavior of Asian college students demands additional analysis.

Study countries.

In conclusion, this section responds to RQ1: What are the specific characteristics and trends of the articles published between 2012 and 2022? The reviewed articles discussed AHS behaviors and processes of college students, the most recent of which is more specific about demographics (gender age, and attitudes) that affect students’ behaviors of AHS, but some related research is still less when compared to the K12 study. Meanwhile, almost half of the research is about American students, and other countries are just coming into focus on this top. Especially in China, there are few studies about the AHS behaviors of college students. But it is worth noting that more and more countries are joining and researching college students’ AHS behavior, and the research is increasingly focused and refined.

4.2. Qualitative Results

To respond to the second research query, the literature was further analyzed in the qualitative analysis section. We carefully read and coded 55 articles on the behavior of college students at AHS. Coding was not completed in one sitting. The initial codes must be merged and classified to form the themes. Some codes that are rarely used or cannot be incorporated into the current theme will be eliminated, primarily because we are concentrating on universal elements. Firstly, the definition and categorization of AHS behavior as a concept and behavior of college students. Secondly, various viewpoints are used to analyze the facilitating and impeding factors of AHS behavior, as well as its influencing factors. Thirdly, the use of on-campus and off-campus resources, conventional AHS, and online AHS behavior about AHS behavior. After that, it is discussed how AHS behavior fosters academic progress, and then AHS behavior in the Internet era is examined (See Figure 5 ). Future research directions can be deduced from the existing research and conceptual framework; this section will be developed specifically in the discussion section.

Key themes and subthemes in the literature on academic help-seeking.

4.2.1. Theme 1: Defining Student Help-Seeking

Topic 1 focuses on the definition and theories related to students’ AHS behavior, as well as the reasons why students seek help and the circumstances under which they refuse to seek help. It also describes the classification of student help-seeking behavior and concludes with recent advances in student help-seeking behavior. Ames and Lau [ 54 ] defined AHS as a method of locating and utilizing additional resources for one’s success.”. When an individual recognizes that they cannot overcome their problems on their own, help-seeking behavior develops. In general, the help-seeking process entails acknowledging the need for assistance, locating potential people who can assist, articulating the problem that needs to be solved, and evaluating the outcome of the help-seeking process. Likewise, Almaghaslah and Alsayari [ 9 ] hold the view that the behavioral strategy of actively seeking academic assistance is through social interaction. Beisler and Medaille [ 55 ] explained the students’ perceptions of academic help as an effective problem-solving strategy. According to these studies, asking for AHS is a good learning strategy. Students use AHS behaviors to address their academic challenges and difficulties through their efforts and ultimately to achieve academic success because they are the main subjects of learning in the university setting.

Some authors view AHS as a self-regulation strategy employed by students [ 20 , 26 ]. Unlike other cognitive strategies, this AHS combines cognitive and social integration skills. The first step in a student’s process of seeking help is becoming aware of the need for it. Therefore, when a student seeks assistance, a series of choices are made. These choices could be but are not restricted to becoming aware of the issue and challenge; choosing to seek assistance; choosing from whom to seek assistance; choosing when to seek assistance; selecting the form of assistance to seek [ 51 ]. Recently, Payne utilized Yosso’s community cultural wealth framework, understanding how the academic help-seeking behavior of first-generation college students can lead to success in the field of post-secondary education through the accumulation of their cultural capital. Meanwhile, they conducted a systematic study of first-generation college students’ academic help-seeking behavior and concluded that academic help-seeking provides students with a source of power over their family’s cultural capital as well as the school’s cultural capital collision [ 56 ].

Reeves and Sperling [ 57 ] claimed that a student’s AHS behaviors are significant for predicting performance and assisting students in overcoming academic obstacles by accepting associate instruction from a school. Similarly, Almaghaslah and Alsayari [ 9 ] asserted additional motivation to complete academic courses and improve academic performance improves students’ help-seeking behavior in learning. Academic help-seeking behavior can be extremely beneficial to a student’s academic success, but many students do not use it successfully; for example, Schworm and Gruber [ 58 ] used a survey to find that college students are reluctant to seek academic assistance in traditional classroom settings. This view is explained by Mahasneh et al. [ 59 ], who wrote that this effect may be influenced by the absence of necessary background information and the perception of danger associated with seeking assistance.

A broader perspective has been adopted by Almaghaslah and Alsayari [ 9 ] who argued that in the definition of academics, formal academic help-seeking is generally considered to be seeking help from teachers in the classroom and formal academic institutions in school, whereas informal AHS is primarily seeking help from classmates, friends, peers, or family members. Help-seeking comes in two forms [ 14 , 60 ]: The first type of help-seeking behavior is rapid help-seeking, also known as executive help-seeking, which is primarily characterized by seeking the best solution directly from teachers or peers, without thinking. The second type, referred to as slow help-seeking behavior or instrumental help-seeking, is primarily characterized by the assistance of others who can eventually complete the task on their own [ 52 ]. Beisler and Medaille [ 55 ] described when a student requests quick or executive help, they are searching for an immediate fix and are not concerned with significantly contributing to the help-seeking process. However, students want to be able to develop their learning and problem-solving abilities during the AHS process when the type of help sought is instrumental. There is also a classification by Reeves and Sperling [ 57 ], who identified two orientations of student help-seeking behavior, adaptive, and avoidant. Pupils who are adaptive help-seekers are more capable of engaging in positive academic help-seeking behaviors, whereas those with avoidant orientations are more likely to rely on their strengths to solve problems. The study of students’ academic help-seeking behaviors can now be viewed in a new light thanks to decision-inspired methods. In addition, several research techniques should be used to investigate the types of resources students use to seek academic assistance in their actual behavior [ 61 ].

Current research on students’ help-seeking behavior has concentrated primarily on academic perspectives instead of investigating how students recognize and perceive their help-seeking behavior. Theories of learned help-seeking behavior are more diverse, ranging from a psychological perspective that views it as a learning strategy and dissects the process of help-seeking behaviors to a cultural capital perspective that views it as a type of cultural capital that students can use. Different classifications of help-seeking behavior are made from various perspectives, providing us with a more thorough comprehension of help-seeking behavior.

4.2.2. Theme 2: Academic Help-Seeking and Academic Performance

Active help-seeking in academics is a prosocial, structured, and interactive behavior that promotes students’ academic growth. And in the fields of education and psychology, help-seeking has been one of the key research themes [ 33 ]. The link between academic assistance and academic achievement has been studied for many years, with most studies concluding that academic help-seeking behavior has a positive effect on academic success. Karabenick and Knapp [ 14 ] asserted that a student’s academic performance can be improved by seeking academic assistance from peers and teachers. Schworm and Berndt [ 62 ] found that one of the most crucial study skills for college students to have to succeed in their studies is the ability to ask for AHS which is supported by Payakachat, Gubbins, Ragland, Norman, Flowers, Stowe, DeHart, Pace, and Hastings [ 50 ]. And, Umarani [ 30 ] reminds us AHS is a learning strategy that can effectively facilitate student learning and ultimately benefit students’ academic performance. Micari and Calkins [ 32 ] showed that teachers who are receptive to students’ requests for assistance will receive increasingly higher grades. In other words, students will have a higher GPA and eventually succeed in college if they ask their teachers for assistance more frequently.

One study by Umarani [ 30 ] examined that seeking academic assistance is an academic process learning strategy for students. And, students with academic difficulties who actively seek academic assistance can improve their academic performance. In general, students who refuse academic support perform worse in school than those who regularly interact with their teachers. Another study by Algharaibeh [ 33 ] offers an analysis of the various sources of academic assistance, including the fact that formal sources are typically school teachers and academic service centers provided by the school, whereas informal sources are typically parents, peers, classmates, etc. Help-seeking, whether formal or informal, can improve academic performance, encourage positive learning, and increase students’ sense of self-efficacy. Additionally, there are studies in which researchers have looked at how academic achievement and help-seeking fare across disciplines. In a cross-sectional study conducted by Rini and Wijanarko [ 63 ], it was shown that the Nursing Science Research Project at the Muhammad Foundation in Bali found a positive correlation between seeking academic assistance and student achievement. Sun et al. [ 64 ] also found that there was a significant positive correlation between students’ self-efficacy in learning math, their utilization of help-seeking strategies, and academic achievement in both pre-and in-class learning settings. Zheng and Zhang [ 65 ] contended the use of peer learning and help-seeking positively affected the performance of first- and second-year students in the flipped classroom.

In the realm of educational research, help-seeking behaviors among students have long been acknowledged as crucial determinants of academic development. Nevertheless, not all help-seeking behaviors are created equal. In earlier research, the terms expedient help-seeking and adaptive help-seeking were distinguished [ 20 , 66 ]. Expedient help-seeking typically involves students looking for shortcuts, often expecting others to complete tasks for them or directly asking for solutions without seeking genuine understanding. Such behaviors can be counterproductive, sometimes resulting in poorer academic outcomes and heightened levels of student anxiety. In contrast, adaptive help-seeking behavior, also known as instrumental help-seeking behavior, occurs when students seek assistance by considering other people or resources and eventually solve the problem on their own [ 21 , 67 ].

4.2.3. Theme 3: Resources of Academic Help-Seeking

Early studies on college students’ AHS behavior concentrated on patterns of AHS behavior and the variables affecting that behavior. The use of specific academic resources, such as academic service centers in libraries and schools and online help-seeking within the scope of distance education, has emerged in more recent studies of the academic literature [ 9 ]. The following section discusses the different types of academic assistance resources, such as peers, classmates, friends, teachers, libraries, academic service centers, and the Internet. With varying regularity and efficacy, students use various kinds of academic support tools. Effectiveness, timeliness, cost, accessibility, and for students, user-friendliness is the most important factor to consider when selecting academic support resources [ 9 ].

A mixed study by Beisler and Medaille [ 55 ] described eighty students who used drawings to describe their AHS behavior; the results revealed that 59% of the students sought assistance from a peer or family member, followed by their tutor and the school’s writing center. This view is supported by other scholars who concur that when students encounter academic difficulties, they typically seek assistance from their peers. Mahasneh, Sowan, and Nassar [ 59 ] found that peers are students’ first choice when looking for academic assistance. Moreover, more than forty percent of students who encounter academic difficulties attempt to find solutions on their own. Likewise, Almaghaslah and Alsayari [ 9 ] hold the view that peers, online course portals, and online educational resources are the three most popular types of resources used by students following an academic call for assistance. In the context of higher education, university instructors do need to understand that one of the components of their student’s academic success is their support of them [ 68 ]. The behavior of the instructor in the classroom has a direct impact on the effectiveness of the student’s lessons, their attitudes toward learning methods, and ultimately the quality of their learning [ 32 ]. In a similar vein, Thomas et al. [ 69 ] in their article noted that to succeed academically, students first ask for assistance from their teachers and peers.

When the help-seeking scenario arrived in the school setting, scholars conducted the following research. Giblin, Stefaniak, Eckhoff, and Luo [ 61 ] conducted a similar experiment at a university, and the results revealed distinct manifestations of students’ AHS behavior in and out of the classroom. In the classroom, 43% of students chose their classmates for academic assistance, while 17% chose their notes; however, outside the classroom, 39% chose online resources, and 28% chose classmates or friends. Less frequently did students utilize textbooks, class notes, and their teachers’ instruction. Moreover, the study revealed that students formed study groups and utilized multiple websites to achieve their AHS behavior. Another study showed that email was the most popular resource for academic assistance before and after class, whereas discussion and office hours were the least popular [ 57 ].

Typically, students select their advisor rather than the school’s academic services as the official source of assistance [ 14 ]. Academic services are faced with a new challenge because the majority of undergraduate students do not know how to ask for assistance. Elias et al. [ 70 ] describe the three main aims that most of these services have in common: (1) educating students about online academic support resources; (2) encouragement of students to seek academic assistance; (3) helping learners to use self-directed learning strategies. The library is also underutilized by students. But, most students are unaware of the library’s resources and the assistance offered by the library staff. A study conducted by Beisler and Medaille [ 55 ] indicated that in-class library instruction sessions do seem to have a positive impact on students; however, students do not connect their different research needs with possible library assistance. Wirtz et al. [ 71 ] concluded four new patterns in students’ behavior when looking for assistance: Students AHS will have access to a variety of resources, but the frequency of their use is undesirable; (2) The utility of resources is not the only factor motivating student use of them; (3) The ranking of academic assistance resources by students is primarily based on the availability of resources; (4) The time and location of access to resources explain why students seek help, the more convenient a resource is perceived to be, the more likely a student is to use it.

We can draw the following conclusion from the research: when it comes to academic support, students use resources in various ways. The main consideration for students is how convenient the resource is. In other words, students are more likely to select the most convenient resource for them than the most useful one. Therefore, future research should delve deeper into the determinants of student resource selection. In the field of higher education, academic support resources should be made more accessible so that students can more easily seek assistance.

4.2.4. Theme 4: Factors of Academic Help-Seeking

An extensive and expanding body of literature has investigated what factors influence students’ AHS behaviors. Some of these factors can help or hinder students’ help-seeking behavior, while others may be found to not affect students’ AHS after the study. The elements that affect students’ AHS are specifically described below.

Many students believe that seeking academic assistance from others reveals their academic deficiencies, which can negatively impact their self-esteem. The desire of students to seek assistance will decrease if they believe that doing so will bring down their self-esteem [ 32 ]. Zander and Hoehne [ 52 ] have been able to show that it can lessen students’ behavior toward seeking assistance if they experience exclusion by fellow students. AHS behavior can be reduced by ambivalence and the perception of academic help-seeking threats [ 50 ].

According to one study, students were more likely to see the threatening aspect of asking for academic help in person [ 57 ]. The main cause of students’ perceived help-seeking threats is low self-esteem, which is brought on by reluctance to admit their failings. Additionally, the learning environment and types of resources available for help-seeking influence students’ perceptions of help-seeking threats [ 28 ]. A student may choose not to ask for help for numerous explanations, including the nature of the difficulty they are facing, their study habits and tendencies, their relationship with their preferred potential helper, and the particular circumstances surrounding the request for help at the time [ 55 ]. Similarly, Schworm and Gruber [ 58 ] also mentioned that students may refuse assistance due to a lack of information or the perceived threat of asking for assistance. Thomas and Tagler [ 72 ] in their study used the Reasoned Action Model (RAM) to investigate the determinants of students’ intentions to utilize university-based sources of academic support. They found that perceived normative pressure and attitudes accounted for a considerable amount of variability in intentions to seek help.

Additionally, gender has distinct influences on students’ help-seeking behaviors [ 73 ]. Dunn et al. [ 74 ] found that as individuals grew older, their tendency to seek help decreased. Furthermore, in Calarco’s [ 75 ] study, socio-economic status also influences students’ academic help-seeking behavior; in general, students from lower socio-economic backgrounds believe teachers will respond negatively if they ask for assistance, whereas students from middle-class families do not hold this viewpoint. Commenting on avoiding seeking help, Mahasneh, Sowan and Nassar [ 59 ] argued: to begin with, asking for assistance is a dependent learning strategy, so students may avoid doing so when putting the idea of independent and autonomous learning into practice. The second is that students might interpret asking for assistance as an indication of incompetence. Third, asking for academic help is a socially interactive behavior, so how the student perceives the academic environment around him, or she may have an impact on how the student asks for assistance. There is also a claim that if a student feels uncomfortable in the classroom when interacting with peers or the teacher, this may deter them from asking for assistance.

Significant amounts of the literature have been published on students seeking academic assistance. Several encouraging influences on students’ willingness to ask for help were uncovered by these studies. For example, Beisler and Medaille [ 55 ] uncovered that direct academic instruction in the classroom encourages students to seek out academic help-seeking. Micari and Calkins [ 32 ] showed that positive attitudes toward students’ help-seeking behaviors will result in more academic help-seeking behaviors at the course’s conclusion.

Additionally, if students are given more incentives for helping, their behavior of asking for assistance will support their academic success, and they will be more attentive to the subject matter and engaged in class discussions [ 58 ]. Students’ instrumental help-seeking behavior is influenced, as expected, by a collaborative approach to course learning [ 62 ]. Thus far, Dunn, Rakes, and Rakes [ 74 ] demonstrated that academic self-discipline and thinking critically positively influence academic help-seeking behaviors, and as academic self-discipline and critical thinking increase, so do academic help-seeking behaviors.

And, in a study carried out by Payakachat, Gubbins, Ragland, Norman, Flowers, Stowe, DeHart, Pace, and Hastings [ 50 ], it was shown that how students act when they need help in school can be affected by how smart they think they are and how helpful their teachers are. Brouwer and Engels [ 76 ] greater emphasis was placed on examining the impact of peers on students’ tendencies to seek help, revealing that they were more inclined to seek assistance from a friend. Opdecam et al. [ 77 ] indicate that students who favored team learning had lower ability levels but higher intrinsic motivation, less control over their learning beliefs, increased help-seeking behavior, and a greater willingness to share knowledge with peers. In addition, the similarity of academic achievement among friends contributed to the occurrence of help-seeking behaviors and ultimately led to the formation of the student’s academic help-seeking network. As noted by Won et al. [ 78 ], even when considering the student’s motivation to seek help, the student’s perceived sense of belonging predisposes the student to adaptive academic help-seeking behavior. In the meantime, self-efficacy for self-regulated learning positively predicted adaptive help-seeking strategies as well. When faced with challenges or difficulties in their academic work, college students are more likely to seek assistance if they have greater confidence in their ability to self-regulate their studies. Long and Neff [ 79 ] noted that self-compassion indirectly promotes help-seeking by reducing the fear of positive evaluation. Additionally, self-compassion directly encourages help-seeking due to the focus on personal well-being.

The impact of gender on academic help-seeking is currently viewed in different ways. As noted by Zander and Hoehne [ 52 ], women are typically more proactive than men in seeking academic assistance. While in another two studies, researchers found gender is not a variable that impacts help-seeking [ 80 ]. In another experimental research, Miranda Lery Santos et al. [ 81 ] compare the economic, time, and social costs of help-seeking to the expected benefits, and found participants were more likely to seek help when there was no economic cost to help, but were not as sensitive to the time cost and social cost parameters.

Overall, there seems to be some evidence to indicate numerous factors affect how students behave when they need academic assistance. For instance, while some pursuits of academic excellence and self-affirmation can encourage constructive help-seeking behaviors, others, such as low self-esteem, uncertainty about issues, and failure-related fear, can have an impact on students’ efforts to get assistance. The school environment and the social environment in which students live can also affect students’ help-seeking behaviors, along with gender and age.

4.2.5. Theme 5: Academic Help Seeking Online

Obtaining AHS via the Internet is a novel method. The following section compares the effectiveness of face-to-face help-seeking, hybrid help-seeking, and online help-seeking. In addition, the role of Facebook and live chat in academic help-seeking behavior is described.

To date, several studies have defined what it means to obtain AHS online. Seeking academic assistance through online platforms or tools, such as search engines, email, instant messengers, and social media, is referred to as seeking academic help online [ 82 ]. Students seeking online academic help can receive both formal and informal academic assistance, and doing so is a strategy for succeeding academically [ 83 ]. Broadbent and Lodge [ 84 ] thought that students primarily turn to the Internet for academic help from peers, friends, and teachers to overcome academic obstacles. In addition, email, forums, social media, and classroom questioning interactions were the most common online resources used to seek academic help.

According to a quantitative study of college students in Taiwan, getting academic assistance online is the new way to learn, and these students are more inclined to use online resources to look up solutions to their academic problems [ 85 ]. Students who frequently used Facebook formally and informally for academic support perceived the web as socially interactive, were able to foster a sense of community through online interactions, and were more likely to seek academic assistance online [ 15 ]. Another important study by Broadbent and Lodge [ 84 ] explained why students like to seek help online. Two reasons cited significantly more frequently by online students as justifications for their preference for live chat are highlighted by thematic analysis. Live chat may be the most popular method for online students to seek assistance. This is primarily because they have greater access to the instructor and can communicate in this manner to facilitate face-to-face interaction and because live chat enables the staff to respond quickly.

When compared to face-to-face contact, Mahasneh, Sowan, and Nassar [ 59 ] noted that online learning environments encourage students to use help-seeking techniques more frequently than traditional classroom settings do. However, in a recent quantitative study, Reeves and Sperling [ 57 ] investigated that students still plan to rely more on interpersonal rather than technological channels of support, despite the threat. In one well-known web-based survey, Tang [ 68 ] reported that Students with greater self-efficacy frequently visit the library and seek academic assistance from afar. In-person rather than online academic assistance is preferred by students who live close to their school. Email remains the most common source of academic assistance for students who live far from school.

As Hayman et al. [ 86 ] stated that students use their Facebook confessions in four different ways to support their academic experiences and guide their undergraduate careers: they ask for help on Facebook, give study advice, look for useful information, and control their study habits. Broadbent and Lodge [ 84 ] compared opinions of live chat technology used for online academic help in higher education between online and blended learners. Because they feel more cared for by the teaching team through timely chat, online students are more satisfied with live chat and are more likely than blended students to suggest others use this form of assistance. Furthermore, Hao, Wright, Barnes, and Branch [ 82 ] investigated computer science majors’ online help-seeking behavior was predicted. For each of the three online help-seeking categories, the biggest predictor was the degree of difficulty of the problem. Learners’ ability level, academic performance, and epistemological beliefs were significant predictors of online search and faculty help-seeking. Barnard et al. [ 87 ] conceptualize Self-regulated Learning (SRL) as a complex construct consisting of six dimensions: environment structuring, goal setting, time management, help-seeking, task strategies, and self-evaluation. Vilkova and Shcheglova [ 88 ] survey to evaluate the function of SRL dimensions and found that low communication between MOOC students and instructors during the learning process implies that the dimension ‘help-seeking’ is not effective in the MOOC environment.

Taken together, these studies prove the proposition that academic help-seeking online is accepted by most students. Additionally, requesting assistance online provides better and quicker access to elementary teachers, protecting students’ privacy while also facilitating better access. The resources available for students seeking academic assistance have been further increased by the advancement of Internet technology.

5. Discussion

5.1. purpose and the main findings of the study.

The primary purpose of this review was to provide a comprehensive analysis of the behavior of college students seeking academic assistance. Using the PRISMA method, we reviewed the literature and pulled 55 articles from two databases. Two different approaches were used in this paper based on the analysis of these articles. The first section is quantitative, highlighting numerical data taken from ATLAS.ti 22, and it concentrates on the 55 articles’ study year, their country and region of publication, and the journal. The second section is qualitative and investigates the process of AHS behavior, including whom to ask for help, how to ask for help, the outcomes of help-seeking, and the available resources for help-seeking. The study also looks at the increasingly varied ways that students are using the Internet to get academic assistance since the dawn of the Internet era. The anonymity, timeliness, and convenience of the Internet make it a good option for students looking for assistance. The study also revealed that some students require academic assistance but reject it, which necessitates additional study.

5.2. Research Implications

Both theoretical and applied implications can be drawn from this study. There are two practical implications of this study. The universities can employ to increase the uptake of academic help systems, such as enhancing outreach and communication efforts, reducing barriers to access, and fostering a supportive and inclusive environment. Second, the students themselves, actively seek academic assistance from peers, teachers, and the university’s academic help resource center when they encounter academic challenges on the university campus, realizing that academic assistance is not a failure and is beneficial for promoting their academic progress.

Theoretically speaking, this study offers a systematic overview of students’ AHS behaviors. For instance, in terms of theoretical implications, we discovered that students’ academic help-seeking behaviors can enhance students’ academic performance. Positive factors like a sense of belonging perceived academic ability and perceived faculty benevolence can encourage students’ behavior of asking for help; negative factors primarily include lower socioeconomic status backgrounds, having a sense of exclusion from classmates, a sense of threat, ambivalence, and the perception that doing so poses a threat can hinder students’ help-seeking behavior. The theoretical contribution primarily aims to increase the body of knowledge about academic help-seeking, spot research holes, and suggest future research directions.

5.3. Research Limitations

Like many studies, we acknowledge some limitations to our research. Concerning the limitations of this research, the methodological limitations of the thematic review can be mentioned, such as publication bias [ 89 ]. This is because there may be many studies that were not published. After all, they did not reach statistical significance because there was no way to publish them in the databases that were investigated. The retrospective nature of thematic reviews is also a problem in this case. This means that readings of the results of the studies analyzed could be skewed by interpretations that do not make sense in the context of which the studies were conducted.

Moreover, the combination of our keywords may have restricted our search results. In addition, we omitted other research databases, gray literature, book chapters, and reports. These publications may contain additional vital information regarding the AHS behaviors of college students. Moreover, the review process for this study only considered English-language peer-reviewed articles. Therefore, the findings of this study may not be sufficiently exhaustive. College students’ AHS behaviors are still in a concerning stage. Thus, additional journal articles containing empirical findings will continue to emerge. In future studies, more recently published academic help-seeking research should be considered.

5.4. Research Contributions

Despite some limitations, this review contributes to the research on college students’ academic help-seeking in several ways. First, this study presents the fundamental characteristics of the studies included, such as sample characteristics, research context, and research countries and published journals. Second, this study summarizes students’ AHS behavior, the relationship between academic help-seeking and academic performance, different sources of AHS, AHS facilitating and hindering factors, and how students seek academic help in the Internet era. Third, the findings of this review provide an empirical landscape of research on students at AHS. Further, this paper suggested four future research directions, which may help researchers identify related topics in this subject area.

5.5. Future Studies

Future research could go in new directions, according to the thematic review. Figure 6 provides 19 research directions to better assist students in utilizing the resources at their disposal to further their academic success by better understanding their behavior when seeking academic assistance. The following categories may be used to classify future research based on the current research scenario and the proposed structure:

Future research on the existing discussion for college students’ academic help-seeking.

Academic help-seeking behaviors: The definition of AHS should be broadened, and students should be considered a significant source of AHS. Future studies ought to investigate the types of assistance offered by faculty and their effects on students’ help-seeking behavior. Concurrently, it is necessary to investigate new models of learning behavior and AHS behavior.

Resources for academic help-seeking: How do they choose between formal and informal resources? How do they decide between face-to-face and online help-seeking methods? Future studies should create a networked system of student help-seeking behaviors and offer a more thorough understanding of the help-seeking environment. To help students use a variety of AHS methods to achieve better academic performance, future research should also combine online and face-to-face help-seeking.

Factors of academic help-seeking: Future research should also consider the impact of individual characteristics such as age and experience on the decision to seek academic assistance. Additionally, it would be advantageous to conduct additional research on the influence of cultural and socio-economic background on the assistance-seeking behavior of college students. The influence of academic self-efficacy, other people and environments, and different instructor characteristics on students’ help-seeking behavior is an additional avenue worthy of investigation. The influence of comments and interactions on AHS behavior should be considered when engaging in academic help-seeking behavior on social media.

Methodology: Future research should utilize larger samples from a variety of institutions to obtain a comprehensive and unified view of students’ perceptions of academic support services. Researchers should also employ multiple methodologies to investigate the mechanisms of academic help-seeking behavior in greater detail. In future research, meta-analyses could be conducted, such as examining the association between academic help-seeking behavior and academic achievement or investigating the impact of gender and peer assistance on help-seeking behavior. Meta-analysis allows for the synthesis and summarization of findings from literature reviews or reviews, enabling the aggregation and combination of data from multiple independent studies to provide more persuasive and consistent conclusions.

6. Conclusions

The main conclusion of this review is that student help-seeking behaviors have been mainly studied from the academic perspective and rarely seen from the perspective of students themselves; When examining help-seeking behaviors, more research that directly incorporates students’ perspectives is needed. This will involve considering the experiences, motivations, and challenges students face when seeking academic support, which may provide valuable insights and a more comprehensive understanding of the topic. In addition, the classification of student help-seeking behaviors has been studied in more detail so far. Most research on academic help-seeking behavior and academic performance is favorable, but different types of academic help-seeking behavior have different effects on academic performance. In addition, current research on the factors influencing students’ help-seeking behaviors has been conducted independently, examining the effects of a single component on academic help-seeking behaviors without considering the effects of multiple factors on academic help-seeking behaviors collectively. Moreover, in the Internet era, students have greater access to online help-seeking resources; however, there is a need for continued research on traditional academic help-seeking behaviors and Internet help-seeking behaviors to facilitate students’ academic progress. And, to develop a strong theoretical body on students’ academic help-seeking behaviors, additional research is required to better understand students’ academic help-seeking behaviors, whether there are differences in help-seeking behaviors across disciplines, ages, and school levels, and which types of academic help-seeking behaviors are more conducive to students’ academic progress.

Supplementary Materials

The following supporting information can be downloaded at: https://www.mdpi.com/article/10.3390/bs13080637/s1 .

Crowe Critical Appraisal Tool (CCAT) form.

Note: Scoring for each category is based on the guiding principles recommended in the Crowe Critical. Crowe Critical Appraisal Tool (CCAT): Version 1.4 (19 November 2013): Michael Crowe ( [email protected] ).

The characteristics and CCAT scores of the 55 studies.

Funding Statement

This research received no external funding.

Author Contributions

R.L. and N.C.H. were responsible for the conceptualization of the study. R.L. conducted the literature review, database searches, data extraction, quality assessment, synthesis of results, and writing of the original manuscript. N.C.H. and N.S. assisted with quality assessment and reviewing and editing the manuscript drafts. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Institutional Review Board Statement

Informed consent statement, data availability statement, conflicts of interest.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Disclaimer/Publisher’s Note: The statements, opinions and data contained in all publications are solely those of the individual author(s) and contributor(s) and not of MDPI and/or the editor(s). MDPI and/or the editor(s) disclaim responsibility for any injury to people or property resulting from any ideas, methods, instructions or products referred to in the content.

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Understanding Academia.edu and ResearchGate

← go back to the impact challenge table of contents.

We’ll be honest – we thought long and hard about including this chapter and its activities in the OU Impact Challenge. Academia.edu and ResearchGate both seem attractive to scholars, but they also have their share of disadvantages and downsides.    Ultimately, we decided to include this information, because so many of you at OU have accounts on these two sites. A quick search turns up 3,849 OU-affiliated users on Academia.edu and 4,731 on ResearchGate! But instead of diving right into the “how tos,” we think it’s especially important to place these two sites into context and preface them with important considerations.

Consideration #1: You Are Not the Customer

Consideration #2: You Might Be Breaking the Law

Another consideration with these particular services is the legality of uploading your work there. Most publishers require authors to sign a publication agreement/copyright transfer prior to a manuscript being published which outlines what you can/cannot do with your own work in the future (we will cover this in Chapter 11 of the OU Impact Challenge). Uploading your work – especially a publisher’s pdf – to a site such as Academia.edu or ResearchGate may be a violation of the terms of the publishing agreement, whereas uploading it to an institutional repository may not be (or can be negotiated not to be). Several years ago, a major academic publisher actively went after Academia.edu, requiring them to take down all of the publisher’s content that had been illegally uploaded, much to the surprise and dismay of these authors. And Academia.edu is not the only target . Earlier this year ResearchGate was set to take down nearly 7 million articles or about 40% of their content.

Consideration #3: Understand the Privacy Implications

Finally, some of these sites’ tactics are troubling from the standpoint of privacy and intellectual freedom. Personally and professionally, many find it distressing that a private company, which doesn’t adhere to the same professional ethics as librarians and other scholars do, collects information about who is reading what. Academia.edu, in particular, then offers to share that information with you if you subscribe to their “premium service.” And while their analytics dashboard doesn’t reveal readers’ names, it may provide enough information for you to know exactly who read your work.    You may decide not to pay for Academia.edu’s premium service, but even so – what you view and download will still be tracked. This may not be troubling to you (the “I’m not doing anything wrong, so I don’t care” argument), but we think it sets a bad precedent. What about tracking researchers who study terrorism? Or whistleblowing? Or even climate change? How might people at these academic social media companies create profiles and make judgments about you based on what you are reading? And what will they do with the information they collect, especially if asked for it by government entities?    We’ve posted some additional reading and resources below. And we will continue to cover some of these topics in the future, since they are highly relevant to sharing scholarly work. If you’re still interested in Academia.edu and/or ResearchGate after reading these articles, we’ve gone ahead and included those activities further down below. We’ve purposefully kept these activities brief, at least for now.     

• A Social Networking Site is Not an Open Access Repository , by Katie Fortney and Justin Gonder
• I Have a Lot of Questions: RG, ELS, SN, STM, and CRS , by Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe
• Dear Scholars, Delete Your Account At Academia.Edu , by Sarah Bond
• Academia, Not Edu , by Kathleen Fitzpatrick
• Reading, Privacy, and Scholarly Networks , by Kathleen Fitzpatrick
• Upon Leaving Academia.edu , by G. Geltner
• Should You #DeleteAcademiaEdu , by Paolo Mangiafico
• Should This Be the Last Thing You Read on Academia.edu? , by Gary Hall (downloads as a .pdf)

Make Profiles on Academia.edu and ResearchGate

You know all those things you wish your CV was smart enough to do – embed your papers, automatically give you readership statistics, and so on? Academia.edu and ResearchGate are two academic social networks that allow you to do these things and then some.    They’re also places where your some of your colleagues are spending their time. Actively participating on one or both networks may give you an opportunity to have greater reach with other researchers. And getting your publications and presentations onto these sites legally will make it easier for others to encounter your work. They do this not only through the social network they help you build, but also by improving the search engine optimization (SEO) of your research, making you much more “Googleable.”    Both platforms allow you to do the following:     

• Create a profile that summarizes your research
• Upload your publications, so others can find them
• Find and follow other researchers, so you can receive automatic updates on their new publications
• Find and read others’ publications
• See platform-specific metrics that indicate the readership and reach you have on those sites

Let’s dig into the basics of setting up profiles and uploading your work on these sites.

Getting Started on Academia.edu

Fill Out Your Profile

Now it’s time to add your OU affiliation and interests to your profile. Adding an OU affiliation will add you to a subdomain of Academia.edu which will allow you to more easily find your colleagues. The site will try to guess your affiliation based on your email address or IP address; make any corrections needed and add your department information and title.    Then, add your research interests. These are also important; they’ll help others find you and your work.

Connect With Others

Now let’s connect with your colleagues who are already on Academia.edu. You can either connect your Facebook account or an email account to Academia.edu, which will search your contacts and suggest connections.    You now have an Academia.edu profile! You can continue to spruce it up by adding more publications, as well as adding a photo of yourself, other research interests and publications, and connecting your Academia profile to the other services we’ve covered like ORCiD , GoogleScholar , Twitter , and LinkedIn . See how this might be coming together?!?

Academia.edu Homework

Now that you have a profile, set aside half an hour to explore two uses of Academia.edu:     

• Exploring “research interests” in order to discover other researchers and publications; and
• Getting more of your most important publications online; and

Make a Profile on ResearchGate

Next, we’ll help you with the other major player in the scholarly social network space, ResearchGate. ResearchGate claims 15 million users, and it will help you connect with many researchers who aren’t on Academia.edu. It can also help you understand your readers through platform-specific metrics, and confirm your status as a helpful expert in your field with their “Q&A” feature.    Given ResearchGate’s similarity to Academia.edu, we won’t rehash the basics of setting up a profile and getting your publications online. Go ahead and sign up, set up your account (remember to add detailed affiliation information and a photo), and add a publication or two.    Got your basic profile up and running? Great! Let’s drill down into those three unique features of ResearchGate.

Find other researchers & publications

• Top co-authors

ResearchGate Score & Stats

Limitations

We’ve covered many of the limitations of Academia.edu and ResearchGate in the first section of this chapter. But there is yet another one. It has been pointed out that Academia.edu and ResearchGate are information silos – you put information and effort into the site, but you can’t easily extract and reuse it later. This is absolutely correct. That’s a big downside of these services and a great reason to make sure you’ve claimed your ORCiD in Chapter 1 .    One solution to this drawback (and the ones mentioned above) is to limit the amount of time you spend adding new content to your profiles on these sites, and instead use them as a kind of “landing page” that can simply help others find you and three or four of your most important publications. Even if you don’t have all your publications on either site, their social networking features may still be useful to make connections and increase readership for your most important work.

ResearchGate Homework

Content for the OU Impact Challenge has been derived from “ The 30-Day Impact Challenge ” by Stacy Konkiel © ImpactStory and used here under a CC BY 4.0 International License.

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• Published: 07 August 2024

Well-being among university students in the post-COVID-19 era: a cross-country survey

• M. Bersia 1 ,
• L. Charrier 1 ,
• G. Zanaga 1 , 2 ,
• T. Gaspar 3 ,
• C. Moreno-Maldonado 4 ,
• P. Grimaldi 1 , 2 ,
• E. Koumantakis 1 , 2 ,
• P. Dalmasso 1 &
• R. I. Comoretto 1  

Scientific Reports volume  14 , Article number:  18296 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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• Health care
• Human behaviour

University students have to handle crucial challenges for their future lives, such as succeeding in academic studies and finding attachment figures. These processes could potentially involve their well-being and mental health, with possible sociocultural differences based on the country of study. In order to explore such potential differences, a cross-sectional, multi-center survey was performed involving students from the University of Torino (Italy), Sevilla (Spain), and Lusòfona (Portugal). The survey, conducted from May to November 2023, investigated students’ demographic and educational details, socioeconomic status, social support, mental health, academic environment, perceived COVID-19 pandemic impact, and future plans. Demographic profiles showed a predominance of female participants and straight sexual orientation, followed by bisexuality. Italian students showed the lowest levels of mental well-being and the highest rates of mental problems (anxiety and depression) and suicidal risk across the three countries despite the relatively similar profiles of social support. The prevalence of the students’ confidence in their professional future is higher in Spain than in Italy and Portugal. This study provides a comprehensive examination of university students’ mental health and well-being in three Southern European countries, addressing the major mental health challenges among university students and offering valuable insights for public health purposes.

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Introduction.

The university years represent an intriguing life period with plenty of challenges, including academic issues, emotional delusions, and problems related to the transition between the end of adolescence and the beginning of adulthood 1 . The interplay of academic pressures, social dynamics, and developmental transitions provides a delicate balance in which mental vulnerabilities can easily thrive 2 , 3 , 4 . Furthermore, university experience can move the needle: indeed, college students are at higher risk of developing a mental condition compared to their non-college peers 5 , 6 . In particular, Beiter pinpointed three college-related individual concerns that may heighten mental risk: struggles with academic performance, intense pressure to succeed, and uncertainty about post-graduation life 7 . Furthermore, academic environments themselves, demanding high effort and commitment, could play a role in impairing the university experience 8 , 9 , 10 . All these elements could synergically stimulate the onset of both burnout and several mental conditions, such as anxiety, depression, and suicidality 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 . In this regard, a prevalence of about 30% % of depressive and anxiety symptoms among university students has been estimated 12 . In particular, the female gender, the pre-existing mental health conditions, and the lower socioeconomic status seem to be additional risk factors across multiple studies 13 , 14 , 15 . On the other hand, good social support can mitigate the above-mentioned risk factors for mental health, playing a crucial protective role as a source of motivation and promoting healthier lifestyles 16 . Further, the perceived social support could also represent a relevant individual background, capable of encouraging students’ resilience and having beneficial effects on academic performance 16 .

Beyond the well-known influential factors, the COVID-19 pandemic profoundly impacted students’ mental health worldwide in both the short- and long term. In the immediate phase after the COVID-19 pandemic eruption, the impairment was observed mainly in terms of difficulties concentrating, disruptions of sleep patterns, concerns about academic performance, and increased anxiety and depression 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 . Furthermore, several researchers assessed the impact of prolonged exposure to the pandemic on cognitive and affective processing among students, observing an increase in the prevalence and severity of conditions such as anxiety, depression, suicidality, chronic sleeping difficulties, appetite changes, and health-related anxiety 21 , 22 , 23 . More specifically, the pandemic could have contributed to impaired mental health also among college students through the implementation of distancing measures leading to distance learning modalities, social isolation, lack of access to traditional support services, and family financial difficulties 24 , 25 . Additionally, research suggests that female students and those residing in lower-quality housing during lockdowns displayed exacerbated declines in mental health 25 , 26 .

In May 2022, the WHO Director-General declared the global emergence related to the COVID-19 pandemic concluded 27 . However, the pandemic long-term consequences on youths’ mental health are still a relevant public concern, and they still deserve careful surveillance over time to address targeted mitigation policies. The still scarce literature on the topic mainly relies on data from national-level surveys, hampering the adoption of a transcultural approach 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 .

To our knowledge, literature still lacks studies assessing and comparing college students’ mental health and well-being across different environments in the delicate post-pandemic phase. In order to address these research gaps, the present study describes the main findings of an international project that explored university students' mental health and well-being in three universities in Italy, Spain, and Portugal. These Mediterranean countries share cultural and environmental similarities (e.g. dietary habits, natural environment, social bounds) 33 , 34 , 35 , despite the societal peculiarities (e.g. financial situation, physical activity habits) and the adoption of different pandemic-related measures potentially influencing mental health and well-being outcomes 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 . More specifically, the aim was to discern commonalities and differences in students’ characteristics and experiences across these countries through a comparative approach, trying to offer a more detailed understanding of well-being patterns among college students in the post-COVID-19 era.

Survey design

A cross-sectional and multi-center survey was conducted between May and November 2023 in three European universities, the University of Torino (Italy), Sevilla (Spain), and Lusòfona (Portugal).

Participants

Students were eligible for enrollment in the study if they were (1) between 18 and 35 years old and (2) attending a bachelor's or master’s degree program. Those who declined to provide informed consent were excluded from the study. All the eligible students (about 79,000 students in Italy, 60,000 in Spain, and 15,000 in Portugal) received an institutional email with a link to an anonymous online questionnaire. Students could agree to participate in the study by checking the box at the bottom of the personal data treatment information sheet on the first page of the online questionnaire. There was also a section explaining the study’s goals, clarifying that there was no obligation to complete the questionnaire and assuring confidentiality and anonymity of the collected data. Finally, the research team did not offer any incentives to increase recruitment nor played an active role in selecting and/or targeting specific subpopulations of students. Participation was entirely voluntary, with students having the option to opt-out at any stage. Informed consent was obtained from all subjects.

Ethical considerations

Data was collected anonymously, no personal identifiers were collected, and the IP address was not registered. Approval for this study has been obtained from the institutional ethics boards of the participating universities (Prot. no. 0059546 of 30 January 2023, for the University of Torino; approval no. 20/23 of 16 May 2023 obtained by the Comité de Ética en la Investigación de Sevilla; approval no. 9 of 8 March 2023 received by the Ethics and Deontology Commission For Scientific Research (CEDIC) for the Lusofona University). The study was conducted in accordance with the international guidelines and regulations and the Declaration of Helsinki.

Questionnaire

A multi-language online survey (i.e., in English, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese) was implemented on the REDCap platform of the University of Torino 40 , 41 . Overall, we adopted standardized scales validated in English. When available, we used the validated versions of the scales in Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese; otherwise, the English scales underwent the forward–backward translation process. The specific process for each scale, with the relevant validation work, can be found in the Supplementary file, Table S1 . Respondents could choose the language in which they would fill out the questionnaire. The survey encompassed the following key components: demographic details (e.g., age, sex, sexual orientation), educational profile (course area, year of study, progress), socioeconomic status, social support, mental health and well-being, perceived COVID-19 impact, academic stress, and future perspectives information.

In particular, information related to sex at birth and sexual orientation was assessed following the GeniuSS Group guidelines 42 . Sexual orientation was asked as follows: ‘How do you identify yourself?’, adopting as possible answers: ‘straight’, ‘lesbian’, ‘gay’, ‘bisexual’, ‘queer’, ‘pansexual’, ‘asexual’, ‘unlabelled’, ‘questioning’, ‘other’.

Socioeconomic status (SES)

The students’ socioeconomic status was investigated using the MacArthur Scale of Subjective Social Status 43 . The scale visually represented a ladder in which steps were associated with numbers ranging from 1 (low perceived SES) to 10 (high perceived SES). Respondents were then asked to place themselves on the ladder compared to their peers. The personal financial situation was evaluated through one further question with four possible answers: ‘dependent on family’, ‘work’, ‘scholarship’, or ‘other’.

Social support

Social support was assessed using a well-known validated psychometric tool, the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS) 44 . The scale consists of 12 items exploring an individual's perceived social support distributed across three subscales: Family, Friends, and Significant Other Support. Individuals rated their agreement with each item on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from ’strongly disagree’ to ’strongly agree’. The scores for each subscale are added up and then divided by 4, while for the overall support, the sum score is divided by 12. Both the overall and subscales scores (ranging from 1 to 7) provide a measure of the individual’s perceived social support. Low, medium, and high social support are defined based on the overall score (i.e. 1–2.9, 3–5, and 5.1–7, respectively). An excellent internal consistency was found for the overall scale (α > 0.92), and the three subscales, consistently in the three countries.

Mental health

Mental health was evaluated using different validated tools based on the specific characteristics under investigation. Depression and anxiety were assessed through the Patient Health Questionnaire-2 (PHQ-2) 45 and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-2 (GAD-2) 46 , respectively. These two brief self-report instruments derived from the longer Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) 47 and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7) 48 questionnaire, both commonly used tools in mental health assessments. Participants were asked to indicate the frequency of presentation of each symptom using a 4-point scale ranging from 0, ’not at all’, to 3, ‘nearly every day’. A total score ≥ 3 on the PHQ-2 assessment suggests the presence of anxiety symptoms, while a score ≥ 3 on the GAD-2 evaluation indicates the occurrence of depressive traits. The PHQ-2 and the GAD-2 scales showed good internal consistency (α = 0.80 and α = 0.85, respectively), consistently in the three countries.

Suicidal behaviors and ideation were evaluated with the Suicide Behaviors Questionnaire-Revised (SBQ-R) 49 . This self-report validated questionnaire includes four items inquiring about different aspects related to suicidal risk (suicidal ideation, past suicide attempts, and the likelihood of engaging in future suicidal behavior). SBQ-R can help identify individuals who may be at risk for suicidal behavior or who have a history of suicidal thoughts or attempts. Total scores (ranging from 3 to 18) have been categorized identifying groups with low (total score less than 7) and high risk (total score equal to or higher than 7) of suicidal behavior 49 . A good internal consistency was found in our sample (α = 0.82), independently by country. Before the SBQ-R questionnaire, participants were warned of questions about a particularly sensitive topic, and the section was optional.

Well-being was investigated through the Mental Health Continuum-Short Form (MHC-SF) 50 . The self-report validated scale consists of 14 items measuring the degree of several aspects of well-being: (a) Overall well-being (items 1–14); (b) Emotional well-being (items 1–3), defined in terms of positive affect and satisfaction with life; (c) Social well-being (items 4–8), as described in Keyes’ model of social well-being 51 ; and (d) Psychological well-being (items 9–14). The MHC–SF asks individuals how frequently they felt in a specific aptitude, from 0 (none of the time) to 5 (all of the time): the higher the overall score, the higher the level of well-being. In our sample, an excellent internal consistency (α > 0.90) was found referring to Overall and Emotional well-being, while a good internal consistency was shown for both Social, and Psychological well-being (α = 0.82, and α = 0.87, respectively), consistently in the three countries.

Perceived COVID-19 impact

A 10 items scale from the 2021/2022 Health Behavior in School-Aged Children was used to evaluate the subjective impact of COVID-19-related measures on various aspects of individuals’ lives: life in general, overall and mental health, relationships with family and friends, school performance, physical activity, eating behaviors, future expectations, financial situation 52 . Respondents were asked to assess the extent of the impact by selecting one of the following options on a five-point Likert scale: 1 = ‘’very negative’, 2 = ’somewhat negative’, 3 = ’neither positive nor negative’, 4 = somewhat positive’, or 5 = ’very positive’. Collapsing some response options, a three-level variable was obtained for each item, identifying negative (options 1 and 2), neutral (option 3), and positive (options 4 and 5) COVID-19 impact groups 53 .

• Academic stress

The Academic stress was evaluated using the Effort-Reward Imbalance—Student Questionnaire (ERI-SQ) 54 , a self-reported validated questionnaire based on the Effort-Reward Imbalance (ERI) theoretical framework 55 . The tool includes three subscales: the Effort (from items 1 to 3), the Reward (from items 4 to 9), and the Overcommitment dimensions (from items 10 to 14). The Effort score identifies the intensity and amount of effort an individual perceives in academic activities. It is calculated based on participants' responses to items regarding the study load, time pressure, and interruptions in doing the academic tasks. The Reward score reflects the perceived level of rewards gained in exchange for the efforts made. Rewards encompass social recognition, career advancement, job security, or other positive outcomes associated with academic accomplishments. In addition, the ERI-SQ incorporates a measure of Overcommitment, which denotes a personality trait characterized by an excessive dedication to work or academic tasks, regardless of the balance between effort and reward. From the previous measures, the Effort-Reward Imbalance (ERI) ratio is computed by dividing the Effort score by the Reward score multiplied by a correction factor 54 , 56 . The ERI ratio suggests a possible imbalance between the effort and the reward. For ERI ratio equal to 1, the student reports equal levels of effort and reward, an ERI ratio < 1 indicates less effort than rewards, while an ERI ratio > 1 indicates that the perceived effort is greater than the rewards, suggesting a greater likelihood of negative health outcomes due to stressors in the academic environment. Similarly, a high overcommitment score implies a propensity to invest excessive effort, even when the corresponding rewards are perceived as inadequate. The 14-item scale showed good internal consistency (overall α = 0.83), in contrast, independently by country, lower internal consistency levels were registered for Effort, Reward, and Overcommitment scales (α = 0.66, α = 0.69, and α = 0.80, respectively).

Future perspectives

Some further questions were asked about students’ future professional perspectives: (1) Plans for the future after completing higher education (the possible answers were pursuing further studies (post-graduate, master's, or Ph.D.), getting a job, working in another country, starting a business, or not having a specific plan); (2) Professional future: two questions with response options ranging from 1 (‘strongly disagree’) to 5 (‘strongly agree’) were provided to explore the readiness to manage and build the professional future after completing higher education and confidence in professional future. Dichotomized variables were then created based on high (options 4 or 5) or medium/low (equal or lower than 3) agreement. Furthermore, one further question exploring overall future expectations was provided. In this regard, subjects were asked to rate their expectations for the future on a scale from 0 to 10, where 0 represents poor expectations and 10 excellent ones. This assessment reflects general optimism or pessimism about prospects.

Data analysis

Demographic information and psychometric measures were described with absolute frequencies and percentages for categorical variables and medians and interquartile ranges (IQRs) for continuous ones. Data was stratified by country, and the rate of missing values for each aforementioned variable was reported. Afterward, further stratification by sex was performed within each country, and d fferences by sex were tested with a chi-square test for categorical variables and a Wilcoxon test for continuous ones. All statistical tests were two-sided, and the level of statistical significance was set at 0.05. Data were analyzed using the R software version 4.3.0 57 . Radar plots were generated to visually represent specific results by country, using Flourish 58 , a data visualization platform, and InkScape 59 , a vector graphics editor, to enhance their quality and clarity.

Demographic and Educational profile of participants

Our sample comprised 8773 students in Italy, 612 in Spain, and 396 in Portugal. The response rates in the three universities were 11.1% (Italy), 2.6% (Portugal), and 1.0% (Spain). We then excluded all participants who waived informed consent (n = 90), those older than 35 (n = 1308) or younger than 18 (n = 3), and those with missing information about sex (n = 72) obtaining a final overall sample of 8380 students (7559 students in Italy, 469 in Spain, and 352 in Portugal).

Table 1 shows the demographic and educational characteristics of the sample. The median age of respondents was homogeneous in the three countries. The majority of the sample was composed of females (more than 65% in the three countries) and declared a straight sexual orientation (> 70%). The main reported non-straight sexual orientation was bisexual, declared by 8–20% of the participants across countries (Most respondents attended a program concerning “Humanities and Philosophy” and “Social and Economic Sciences” areas, although over 12% of participants did not provide such information. Most students were in the first three years of college in the three countries (71% in Italy, 62% in Spain, and 88% in Portugal). Less than 50% of students in Italy and Spain declared themselves on track (44% and 46%, respectively), compared to 73% of Portuguese students.

Socioeconomic status and social support

The MacArthur Scale registered slightly higher levels of Subjective Social Status in Italy (median score: 7.0; IQR: 5.0–7.0) than in Spain and Portugal (median score: 6.0; IQR: 5.0–7.0 in both countries). Participants declared that they mainly depend on their families for financial support (> 75%), with variations in rates of work and scholarships across the countries. Notably, fewer respondents in Italy and Portugal (11% and 16%, respectively) relied on scholarships compared to the Spanish sample (29%), while an inverse trend was found regarding rates of work (i.e., lower in Spain than in Italy and Portugal) (Fig.  1 , Table 2 , and Table S2 , Supplementary file).

Financial situation among university students in Italy, Spain, and Portugal. Radar plots with percentages of financial situation are presented across the three countries.

The social support profiles emerging from the MSPSS showed similar perceived support levels on the three subscales among the three countries. Significant other subscales represented the primary source of support (median scores of at least 6.0 across the three countries). Overall, most respondents reported high social support (> 60%), mainly from Significant other and Friends, without relevant cross-country differences. Some sex differences were found within countries concerning social support (Table S3 , Supplementary file). More specifically, females declared higher Friends and Significant others support scores in Italy and Spain than their male peers (p < 0.001). In Portugal, males declared higher scores of Family support than females (p = 0.007). Patterns are globally confirmed adopting the categorized variables.

Mental health and well-being

In Italy and Spain, about two out of three respondents showed a high GAD-2 score (67% and 64%, respectively), while in Portugal, this anxious trait was presented by 50% of the sample (Table 3 , Fig.  2 ). However, the percentages of high depressive scores on the PHQ-2 were below 50% in all countries (44% in Italy, 44% in Spain, and 34% in Portugal). While students in Italy and Spain exhibited a higher frequency of both anxious and depressive symptoms compared to the Portuguese sample, a quite homogeneous picture emerged exploring SBQ-R scores. More specifically, 30%, 26%, and 29% of respondents were classified in the high suicidal risk group in Italy, Spain, and Portugal, respectively. Concerning the MHC-SF questionnaire, Italian respondents exhibited lower overall scores (median score: 30.0; IQR: 21.0–40.0) than Spanish and Portuguese ones (median scores: 41.0 (IQR: 29.0–51.0) and 39.0 (IQR: 29.0–48.0), respectively) indicating lower mental well-being among Italian participants compared to the others. This pattern is consistent across the three domains of the MHC-SF questionnaire.

Radar plots showing rates of mental problems and confidence levels in the professional future among university students in Italy, Spain, and Portugal. Radar plots with percentages of anxiety symptoms (GAD-2), depressive symptoms (PHQ-2), suicidal risk (SBQ-R), and confidence in professional future are presented across the three countries.

In terms of sex differences across the mental domains, Italian and Portuguese females presented higher scores in both the GAD-2 (p < 0.001 in both countries) and the PHQ-2 scales (p = 0.011 and p = 0.023, respectively), while no substantial patterns were found regarding SBQ-R. In the three countries, lower levels of well–being could be observed in girls than in boys in all domains of the MHC-SF questionnaire, with significant differences between the two sexes in Italy and Portugal for the overall score and social and psychological domains (Table S3 , Supplementary file).

Perceived impact of the COVID-19 pandemic

Results about the perceived impact of the COVID-19 pandemic are shown in Fig.  3 and Table S4 (Supplementary file). University students were more likely to report a negative than a positive pandemic impact on several life domains (i.e., life as a whole, overall and mental health, physical activity, eating behaviors, family financial situation, and future expectations), especially in Italy. In particular, half of Italian students (50.2%) reported a negative impact of the pandemic on their mental health compared to 40.3% and 37.8% of Spanish and Portuguese ones. Conversely, the COVID-19 pandemic’s influence on relationships with family and friends and school performance seemed to have been perceived more positively than negatively. A missing rate of 16% was observed consistently throughout the items.

Prevalence of positive (in blue) and negative (in red) perceived COVID-19 impact on several life domains among university students in Italy, Spain, and Portugal. Radar plots with percentages of perceived COVID-19 pandemic impact on students’ overall health, life in general, family relationships, friends’ relationships, mental health, school performance, physical activity, eating behaviors, future perspectives, and financial situation are presented across the three countries.

Academic stress and future perspectives

The ERI-SQ scoring revealed a homogeneous pattern in perceived overcommitment levels and the ERI ratio across countries (Table 4 ). In all countries, the median ERI ratio was slightly greater than 1, indicating that 6–13% of the effort was not met by the received rewards. In all countries, females seemed to have a significantly higher ERI ratio than males (Table S3 , Supplementary file).

The expectations for the future were similar in the analyzed universities (median score: 7.0; IQR: 5.0–8.0), while perspectives after graduation showed a higher variability across countries (Table 4 ). More specifically, in Italy, most students declared their intention to find a job after graduation (35%), while in Spain and Portugal, most planned to continue their studies (46% and 40%, respectively). Overall, a decreasing prevalence of participant students declaring confidence in their own professional future was found in Spain, Italy, and Portugal (47%. 34%, and 20%, respectively). Furthermore, Italian and Spanish students felt more prepared for work than Portuguese ones (35% and 29% vs. 19%, respectively).

The present cross-country project primarily aimed to identify common and specific mental health and well-being traits among university students in Italy, Spain, and Portugal.

Respondents were primarily females with a median age of 21, currently attending the first three academic years. About three out of four students declared a straight sexual orientation, while bisexuality represented the second most common sexual orientation, ranging from 8% in Italy to 20% in Spain. The high levels of bisexuality compared to the previous studies (up to 10%) could be the result of undergoing changes in sexual norms and behaviors, leading to even more youths identifying as bisexual 60 , 61 . Italian students presented higher median socioeconomic status than Portuguese and Spanish ones, reflecting the different economic wealth situations observed by the World Bank in such countries 38 , 39 . Conversely, quite similar patterns in social support were registered across universities, confirming the expected cultural similarities in social bonds in these three Mediterranean countries 35 , 62 , 63 . Overall, students declared a relatively higher support from Friends and Significant other than Family, underlying their developmental transition from adolescent to young adult supportive networks 64 , 65 , 66 .

The PHQ-2 and GAD-2 assessments showed high levels of anxiety (> 50%) and depressive symptoms (> 30%) among students in the three countries, being exacerbated among females than males. Furthermore, these first insights suggest higher levels of such mental problems among Italian and Spanish students than Portuguese ones. The disparities in emotional, social, and psychological well-being captured by MHC-SF are also noteworthy, with Italian students reporting lower scores than their counterparts in Spain and Portugal.

These results suggested different cross-country trends based on the indicators explored, enforcing the validity of conceptualizing mental health as a multidimensional construct in which the various dimensions can have different correlated patterns 51 , 67 , 68 , 69 , 70 . More specifically, the present study found that Italian students showed the lowest levels of well-being and the highest rates of mental problems across the three countries. These findings align with those reported by recent works on nationally representative samples of adolescents in the same countries, suggesting shared underlying causes at a macro-level, even among contiguous age groups (adolescents and young adults) 36 , 71 . Several factors could be involved in the observed pattern, including pandemic-related measures duration and strictness, as confirmed by the higher levels of negative perceived impact of COVID-19 on mental health in Italy, observed in the present and other studies 36 , 71 . Moreover, cross-country differences in physical activity could have had a contributing role 37 . In particular, the high negative impact of pandemic-related measures on students’ physical activity in Italy could have exacerbated the pre-pandemic cross-cultural exercise differences 37 .

Furthermore, the observed cross-country pattern of mental problems in the university environment may also be attributed to the significant social and academic pressures that Italian university students experience 10 , 72 . Our analysis revealed a lower percentage of scholarship recipients and higher rates of working students in Italy than in the other explored countries. These elements suggest differences in university study support policies across countries, reflecting the different financial frameworks, which also have consequences for the well-being of university students 73 .

Among the mental health issues explored in this survey, results about suicidality deserve to be discussed separately, in light of the latest evidence on this sensitive topic.

Approximately one-third of students within the three countries exhibited characteristics placing them in the “high risk” category in the SBQ-R assessment, with substantially geographically homogeneous patterns across countries. Such prevalence is higher than that emerged from other surveys conducted before the COVID-19 pandemic 74 , 75 , 76 , in line with data collected during 2020 77 , and slightly lower than levels registered in 2021 77 . In particular, literature exploring long-term temporal trends of suicidality suggested an increase in the phenomenon since 2021, which was attributed to the impact of COVID-19 on students’ lives 21 , 78 , 79 , 80 . Furthermore, in our sample, high rates of negative perceived impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health were observed across the three countries, enforcing such possible association. From this perspective, the long-term consequences of COVID-19 pandemic-related measures on youths’ mental health could have left prolonged traces, still detectable in 2023, during the so-called post-COVID-19 era. In this regard, literature is still lacking, and further exploration of the topic is needed to increase the knowledge of the phenomenon and to guide the policy agenda promoting youths’ mental health 81 , 82 .

COVID-19 perceived impact assessment showed a relatively homogeneous picture among students across countries. Specifically, pandemic-related measures seemed to have negatively impacted several domains (i.e., mental health, physical activity, future perspectives, and financial situation). Still, a prevailing positive impact was perceived regarding relationships with family, friends, and school performance. Overall, our findings are consistent with other studies adopting the same measurement tool on nationally representative samples of adolescents in the three countries, enlightening shared environmental exposures across age groups 53 , 83 . More specifically, results referring to the pandemic impact on family relationships are consistent with the findings by other authors, who observed tighter family bonds after the lockdown establishment 17 , 25 , 84 , 85 , 86 , 87 , 88 .

The academic stress assessment pointed out similar trends among countries: the median ERI ratio was higher than one among students regardless of the country, indicating perceived rewards lower than expected, especially among girls. These findings align with results from previous works that showed unbalanced ERI ratios toward effort among university students 10 , 54 .

Finally, a quite heterogeneous geographical pattern was found regarding future professional perspectives: 20–30% of students in our sample felt prepared for work, and confidence in the professional future showed a decreasing pattern from Spain to Italy and Portugal. This presumably reflects the cross-country economic wealth differences and the widespread uncertainty about the future among youths 38 , 39 , 89 , 90 .

Limitations and strengths

The observed findings should be interpreted cautiously due to several limitations of the study. While our sample included over 8000 students, it only represented a small percentage of the target population (approximately 150,000 students in the academic year 2022–2023). This issue could potentially hinder the generalizability of our findings. Additionally, most students responded in Italy, resulting in an unbalanced sample and few participants in Spain and Portugal. These methodological issues could lead to analytical constraints regarding statistical comparisons between countries, making it possible to analyze differences only within each country. The unbalanced sample and the low sample size in 2 out of 3 countries also limited the exploration of the factors associated with well-being in a cross-country framework. Furthermore, the self-reported nature of the data and the cross-sectional design of the study also represented additional weaknesses.

Despite these limitations, the present work is one of the first cross-country surveys exploring academic stress, mental health, and well-being among university students in the post-COVID-19 era. This international research stands out for its rigorous methodology, using validated tools and a consistent protocol to assess the well-being of university students in Italy, Spain, and Portugal. The comparative approach adopted across countries allowed us to explore the complexities of three Southern European countries sharing cultural similarities and to study their influence on university students' well-being. In particular, we found cross-university patterns consistent with the existing studies on the topic despite a high level of heterogeneity recognized in the literature in psychometric instruments and target student populations. Finally, using validated tools like PHQ-2, GAD-2, SBQ-R, and MHC-SF allowed us to simultaneously capture different mental health and well-being dimensions among university students, providing a more comprehensive and holistic framework.

Conclusions

This cross-sectional survey explores the well-being levels and mental health patterns in three Southern European countries in the post-COVID-19 phase in light of their cultural similarities and peculiarities.

Overall, Italian students showed the lowest levels of mental well-being and the highest rates of mental problems (i.e., anxiety and depression) and suicidal risk across the three countries despite the relatively similar profiles of social support. The prevalence of the students’ confidence in their professional future is higher in Spain than in Italy and Portugal. The emerging picture offers valuable insights into this public health topic and paves the way for further exploration of the relationships between students' environmental factors (e.g., social support and academic stress) and various aspects of their well-being.

Data availability

Data is available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the students who participated in the study and the university staff who assisted us in sending the links for participation.

The present study was funded by the University of Torino (COMR_GFI_22_01_F, COMR_RILO_23_01_F, COMR_RILO_24_01).

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PD and RIC designed the research. MB, RIC, TG, CMM, EK conducted the research. MB, GZ and RIC analyzed data. MB, LC, TG, CMM, PG, EK, RIC interpreted the results. MB, GZ, PG mainly wrote the manuscript. PD and RIC supervised the research team. All of the authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Bersia, M., Charrier, L., Zanaga, G. et al. Well-being among university students in the post-COVID-19 era: a cross-country survey. Sci Rep 14 , 18296 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-69141-9

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Is the academic social networking site ResearchGate still relevant?

A recent deal with the publisher mdpi is leading some users to delete their accounts, by dalmeet singh chawla, special to c&en, january 19, 2024 | a version of this story appeared in volume 102, issue 2.

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Sorry, but I do not support @MDPIOpenAccess or its publishing model. I will no longer maintain an account on @ResearchGate . — Dan Sloan (@SloanEvoLab) November 20, 2023

Rubén Laplaza uses the academic social networking site ResearchGate to keep up with the scientific literature in his field. “For me, ResearchGate has, for years, been a useful tool,” says Laplaza, a computational chemist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne (EPFL). It helps him manage the deluge of published papers—including preprints, which are posted online before being peer-reviewed.

Founded in 2008, ResearchGate has millions of global users, most of them researchers. The site’s early funders included Bill Gates, Goldman Sachs, and the Wellcome Trust. It launched as a social platform where academics could discuss papers, but it ended up not being widely used for that purpose.

Instead, researchers use ResearchGate to follow one another, receive automatic alerts when colleagues publish papers, and share their papers legally with other academics with a single click.

Related: Malaysia won’t pay for researchers to publish in certain journals

Recently, however, ResearchGate has faced challenges. Those include backlash from the academic community for a deal it made with the Swiss publisher Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI). And ResearchGate has settled lawsuits in Germany and the US with the publishing giant Elsevier and the American Chemical Society, which publishes C&EN. Some scientists are questioning whether the site is still relevant to them.

Alerts from ResearchGate can be useful, according to Laplaza, as long as colleagues in the same field are using the platform and actively posting their papers on it. Other methods of tracking relevant literature include setting up alerts on Google Scholar profiles, following relevant publications and academics on social media, and attending conferences.

Did they make you that offer in a predatory scam email? — ⌬Nessa Carson (@SuperScienceGrl) November 19, 2023

At the same time, “we are also all spammed to death already with all sorts of invitations,” Laplaza says. “So it’s a matter of trying to balance sources of information that are valuable, especially if they can be curated through people, but at the same time trying to prevent the use of bandwidth for useless communications.”

Some researchers who have similar concerns say the agreement with MDPI has driven them to delete their ResearchGate accounts. As part of the deal, roughly 210,000 papers from 10 journals published by MDPI will have an enhanced presence on the platform.

“These journals benefit from increased brand visibility and prominence across the ResearchGate network,” Giulia Stefenelli, chair of MDPI’s scientific board, says in an email, noting that the participating 10 titles will have dedicated journal homepages on ResearchGate. “Furthermore, authors gain automatic addition of their articles to their ResearchGate publication records, offering insights into their work’s impact through readership and citation data,” she says.

What a disastrous liaison. I always thought Researchgate was reputable... — Tim Jennerjahn (@JennerjahnTim) November 18, 2023

Stefenelli says MDPI is paying ResearchGate an undisclosed sum each year for the journal homepages. ResearchGate did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

MDPI has grown rapidly in the past few years to become one of the largest scholarly publishers in the world. But its journals have come under scrutiny by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Norwegian Scientific Publication Register; both institutions allege lack of rigor in published papers. In 2018, editors at one MDPI journal resigned en masse , claiming that they felt pressured to publish mediocre papers.

Most MDPI papers are parts of special issues, which are collections of papers on a certain topic that are typically handled by guest editors. Many papers published in such issues are invited. But bibliographic analyses show that special issues have lower rejection rates and shorter processing times for articles. That’s what prompted the Swiss National Science Foundation to stop funding papers published in special issues starting in February 2024.

After the deal with MDPI was announced, academics expressed worries on social media that the agreement will only add to the flood of mediocre papers and pointless alerts. “As a frequent user of ResearchGate, I’m disappointed by your choice to prioritize MDPI journals over many society journals,” Çağatay Tavşanoğlu, an ecologist at Hacettepe University, wrote last year on X, formerly Twitter. “I, like many others, may soon delete my account unless this unwise decision is reconsidered.”

“This is so so so disappointing and sad!” Fengxiu Zhang, who studies climate action, disaster resilience, and technology in government at George Mason University, exclaimed on X. “This is a terrible, terrible idea,” Martin E. Andresen, an economist at the University of Oslo, commented on the platform. “Deleted my account.”

Fredrik Jutfelt, an animal physiologist at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, is also considering deleting this account. He recalls joining ResearchGate in its early days to easily share his research and discover other academics’ work—in part by keeping an eye on who’s citing his work. “It still has value,” he says. “I don’t see a good alternative.”

Laplaza, noting that there haven’t been many changes yet, is keeping his profile for now. “I just don’t want to be spammed,” he says. “If the price to pay to get a marginally useful notification about a paper that you may or may not care about is having to see or deal with a number of spam notifications, then maybe it’s just not worth it.” He says he will continue to use the site until the downsides outweigh the benefits.

I enjoy research gate but I am not sure this is a great move. Will there be way to block this enhanced presence of MDPI...not a fan. — Dave Boucher (@dave_boucher) November 18, 2023

Not sure I understand in the first place how it is in any way a good move for science to feature some journals over others, for money. And then you made it MDPI. Bye-bye ResearchGate. — Nanna Bjarnholt (@NBjarnholt) November 19, 2023

Lucie Büchi, a crop ecologist at the University of Greenwich, is also unhappy with the MDPI deal but is keeping her account. “It is still a very useful tool when you don’t have access to some journals because of paywalls,” she says. Büchi thinks ResearchGate will continue to exist and serve an important purpose.

Mark Austin Hanson, a molecular biologist and geneticist at the University of Exeter, says he thinks the concerns about the MDPI deal are overblown. The furor comes from a vocal minority on social media, he adds, noting that ResearchGate has also recently partnered with other publishers, including Springer Nature, Taylor & Francis, the American Institute of Physics, and Wiley.

Those deals ensure that final versions of open-access studies published in certain journals are available immediately on ResearchGate, thus boosting their visibility and readership. “I don’t think there’s any issue with it whatsoever,” Hanson says.

Jutfelt is not convinced. “We’ve looked at ResearchGate as an objective distributor of science and a platform where everyone is equal,” he says. “The main concern is publishers paying for visibility and paying for citations.”

He says his institution has discouraged its staff from publishing in some MDPI journals after they were added to Norway’s so-called level X . Researchers receive no government acknowledgment for publishing in journals on the list, which the Norwegian Scientific Index created in 2021 to highlight potentially predatory publications. What’s more, most MDPI journals don’t meet the criteria to be included in approved journal lists in Finland and Denmark.

Related: One academic paper’s journey through the mill

In addition to negative responses to the MDPI agreement, ResearchGate has run into problems with other academic publishers. To settle copyright infringement lawsuits with Elsevier and ACS, ResearchGate adopted a technology that automatically checks if papers being uploaded to the site comply with publisher copyright.

“While you can see why [ResearchGate] is cozying up with publishers, this could work against them. They become less cool, social, innovative and a bit old-fashioned in an open world,” says David Nicholas, director of Ciber Research, a British firm that studies how people behave in digital environments. “Our research shows that [ResearchGate’s] success is waning among young researchers as they find other places to go,” like LinkedIn and WhatsApp, he adds.

Hanson plans to continue using ResearchGate, however. He argues that organizations like the Committee on Publication Ethics and databases like the Web of Science, Scopus, and the Directory of Open Access Journals should decide what constitutes legitimate science and whether or not that includes MDPI papers.

“ResearchGate is a social media site that hosts content others engage with,” Hanson says. “It’s not ResearchGate’s role to independently judge the value of the work itself, nor should it be.”

MDPI’s Stefenelli agrees. She points out that her firm advocates for evaluating journals through tools such as Think. Check. Submit. and databases including the Web of Science, Scopus, and the Directory of Open Access Journals. “As at December 2023, 26 Nobel laureates have contributed to more than 75 articles across 25 MDPI journals,” she says. “We encourage researchers to review our journals, editorial board, and published content to help further inform their opinions.”

Related: New tool detects papers originating from paper mills

Dalmeet Singh Chawla is a freelance science journalist based in London.

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There are 8 million teens eligible to vote. These high school students are trying to make sure more do.

Every year, Jessie Cai would shadow her mom on “take your kid to work day.” At the Maryland Social Security office, where her mom was a systems analyst, she was struck by the lack of Asian American faces in the room. “I walked around and got the distinct impression that not many people in public service looked like me or my mom,” said Cai, a 17-year-old rising senior. 

That experience set her on a mission to understand Asian American civic engagement. In 2023, she joined  New Voters , an organization that helps high schoolers host voter registration drives. A consequential Maryland primary election was on the horizon, and she wanted to make sure young people — including the Asian Americans in her community — made their voices heard. “In Maryland, you can pre-register to vote at age 16, so I knew we could cast a wider net to register younger students,” she said. 

New Voters paired Cai with a mentor, who gave her step-by-step guidance for hosting a registration drive. Cai set up meetings with school administrators, convinced her statistics teacher to sponsor her club and partnered with the National Social Studies Honor Society to set up the weeklong initiative in April. She and her friends tabled outside of the cafeteria, where they handed out doughnuts to students who dropped by to learn more about voting.

In the end, she managed to register 186 students. “We drove home the point that voting is the best way to hold people in power accountable,” she said. “We reminded them that we take our right to vote for granted. It’s a privilege that other teens around the world sometimes don’t get.” 

This is how New Voters, a nonpartisan nonprofit, operates — by connecting high school students passionate about civic engagement to the resources they need to galvanize their peers. Founder Jahnavi Rao, 24, registered 85% of eligible voters at her high school as a senior in 2017. Soon after, high schoolers across the country were reaching out to her to ask how they can do the same. 

Since 2018, the organization has registered over 80,000 high schoolers to vote across 400 high schools in 39 states. Each election, the organization builds on itself — New Voters has worked with over 2,000 high school student drive leaders and volunteers, who then go on to mentor new recruits. 

“We’re a youth-led, issues-first organization,” Rao said. “When we talk to students, we always lead with, ‘What do you care about?’ That’s the best practice for canvassing across the board, because young people care so much. It’s just a matter of tying that care to voting.” 

Amplifying high school voices in politics 

In the 2022 midterm elections,  12% of ballots  were cast by young adults ages 18-29, even though they make up approximately  18%  of the electorate. 

However, these numbers have been  trending upward  in recent years. According to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University, Gen Z voters  turned out at higher rates  than previous generations during their first midterm elections in 2022.  Fifty-one percent of voters ages  18-24 are expected to vote this November.

One way to engage the  8 million  youth who are newly eligible to vote this year is to appeal to the issues they are  more likely to care  about: the climate crisis, gun violence and racism, said Rao.

Another key factor in youth voter turnout is ease of access to the ballot box. States that  lowered barriers to voting  by allowing same-day voter registration and student IDs as documentation had much higher rates of voting in 2022.

Michael Hanmer, a professor of government and politics and the director of the Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement at the University of Maryland, noted that about  39% of high school graduates  don’t go on to attend college. He emphasized the benefits of registering students during high school as soon as they turn voting age. “After high school, disruptions in life can make it more difficult to register,” he said. “If you build habits of civic engagement earlier while students are in their home communities, voting is much more likely to stick.”

Hanmer believes that voting is culture-based, and that school administrations, teachers and students can all take part in building a voting-positive culture. “Schools as an institution can play a large role in encouraging civic engagement by working with organizations like New Voters that train students to build cultural roots and transfer their skills to incoming students,” he said.

Cai’s mentor, Collin Wang, hosted five drives to register more than 300 students at his high school in Wexford, Pennsylvania, before becoming a New Voters mentor. He says one of the greatest challenges his mentees have faced is convincing school administrators to get on board with the drives. Some principals weren’t keen on supplying lists of eligible voters; others were hesitant about being accused of partisanship. In these instances, Wang and New Voters provided message templates that explained the nonpartisan nature of their work and the state laws that  mandated  high schools host voter registration drives. In the end, administrators came around.

While Wang offers guidance to his mentees, he also lets students tailor their own approaches to registering their peers. “We want to give the students their independence because each school is different,” Wang said. “The students know what strategies will work best at their schools.” 

Building a coalition around high school civic engagement

Over the past year, the work of New Voters has expanded beyond school drives. In early 2022, the organization launched the New Voters Research Network, which matches high school students with university and nonprofit researchers and trains them to develop a study on civic engagement. “When students present their projects to professors, they’re blown away at the impact and quality of the research that high school students can produce,” said Sydney Fahn, the director of the initiative. Currently, the network is running around a dozen research projects. 

For his project, Wang reached out to all 600 Pennsylvania public high school principals to analyze which messages received the most engagement. While his team is still waiting on the results, Wang is confident the research network will fill an important knowledge gap. “There’s really no reported information on the potential of high school civic engagement,” he said. “I hope all these findings could lead to change-making policies in the future.”

After establishing the research network, Rao shifted her attention to the November election. In February 2023, she organized a virtual listening tour of 40 organizations in the high school space — from other voter-focused initiatives like My School Votes  to general youth nonprofits like the YMCA and Scouting America — to ask them about whether they were involved in voter registration efforts. She found two common sentiments among the groups: One, there wasn’t enough data available on how to increase voter registration, and two, there wasn’t enough collaboration among high school-serving organizations. “I had an idea — what if we could bring together everybody who’s working with high schoolers to the table, whether they’re state-based, county-based, national or issue-based, to share best practices and build trust?” Rao said.

This led to the group’s latest project, the  New Voters Collaborative,  which brings 30 high school-serving organizations together for monthly meetings to discuss issues like how to encourage voting in high school civics classes and write op-eds for local papers. “We’re building out a map of where each organization works, where the gaps are and supplementing the schools that need resources,” she said. “The ultimate goal of the collaborative is to support voter registration at every high school in the country.”

With the general election approaching, New Voters is targeting 400 drives and 40,000 new registrations across the swing states of Pennsylvania and Arizona. Katie Walters, a high school government teacher in Pennsylvania and a New Voters faculty adviser, said her students began strategizing as early as this spring, tabling during graduation rehearsals and planning homeroom class visits in the fall. “We have students go into every classroom and explain how to register,” Walters said. “A grassroots, student-to-student interaction is key.”

Iris (Yi Youn) Kim is a reporter for NBCU Academy's  Storytellers .

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20 Nigerian students abducted by gunmen in an ambush in the north

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ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — At least 20 Nigerian university students were abducted by gunmen who ambushed their vehicles in the country’s north central region, police said Friday.

The students were traveling to the south for a conference of medical students when they were ambushed in Benue state on Thursday evening, according to Benue police spokesperson Catherine Anene. The attack happened along Benue’s Otukpo road, a notorious hotspot for kidnappings.

Such kidnappings have become common in parts of northern Nigeria, where dozens of armed groups take advantage of limited security presence to carry out attacks in villages and along major roads. Most victims are released only after the payment of ransoms that sometimes run into the thousands of dollars. The attacks have also forced many to abandon road trips.

The students kidnapped in Benue were from the University of Maiduguri and the University of Jos, both in northern Nigeria. Their respective student groups condemned the attacks and urged authorities to secure their release.

It was not immediately clear what group that carried out the attack or where the captives were taken. The police did not provide any update about rescue efforts.

“We are devastated by this senseless act,” Ijabani Bajam, a student leader from the University of Maiduguri, said in a statement that called for the safe return of the students.

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Austin authorities identify suspect in 1980 cold case killing of University of Texas nursing student

August 17, 2024 / 9:15 AM EDT / CBS News

A suspect in the 44-year-old cold case killing of University of Texas nursing student Susan Leigh Wolfe was identified as Deck Brewer — but authorities are still searching for one more person in connection with the crime, according to a news release from the City of Austin.

In 1980, Wolfe was enrolled at the UT Austin School of Nursing. Around 10 p.m. local time, authorities say she was kidnapped about one block from her home while walking to a friend's house after having her house sprayed for bugs. 

A witness to the kidnapping says they watched as a car stopped and the driver grabbed Wolfe in a "bear hug," placing a coat over her head and forcing her into the car. The witness also said the passenger door opened, but he did not see what the passenger did during the abduction. The witness described the car as a 1970 Dodge Polara.

Wolfe's body was found early the next morning in an Austin alley at 2000 E. 17th Street. The pathologist found "evidence of ligature strangulation," determined the cause of death was a gunshot wound to the head, and that the manner of death was homicide. 

During the autopsy, the pathologist found evidence of sexual assault left by one of the suspects. That evidence was retained by the Austin Police Department and the Texas Department of Public Safety Crime Laboratory throughout the investigation.

In April 2023, detectives from the APD Cold Case Unit submitted evidence related to the sexual assault to the Texas DPS Crime Laboratory. The Austin Forensic Science Department and DPS Crime Laboratory evaluated the evidence and decided it was suitable for testing.

APD received the test results in February and Texas DPS entered the profile from the results into CODIS or the Combined DNA Index System. CODIS operates local, state and national DNA profiles from convicted offenders, missing people and unsolved crime scene evidence.

In March, APD received notification from TX DPS that a possible match in CODIS was found in Massachusetts. Detectives examined the Massachusetts State Police Forensic Services Division report dated March 7, 2024. This report identified Brewer, 78, as the possible contributor to the profile developed by TX DPS.

Arrest records show Brewer is incarcerated at the Massachusetts Department of Corrections on unrelated charges.

In June, Travis County District Court found probable cause to issue a DNA search warrant to seize a DNA sample from Brewer for direct comparison to the evidence found during Wolfe's autopsy.

In July, APD detectives executed the DNA search warrant in Massachusetts by obtaining the DNA sample from Brewer and interviewing him. During that conversation, Brewer said he had been in San Antonio and Austin at the time of the killing and invoked his right to counsel after he was told his DNA was found at the scene of a homicide.

APD received the results of the direct comparison of Brewer's DNA to the DNA that was located inside the victim during the autopsy.

According to the DPS report: "Deck Brewer Jr. cannot be excluded as the contributor of the partial major component in this DNA profile. The probability of selecting an unrelated person at random who could be the contributor of the partial major component in this DNA profile is approximately 1 in 550.5 quintillion. One quintillion is followed by 18 zeros."

In August, Austin Municipal Court found probable cause to issue an arrest warrant charging Brewer with Wolfe's killing.

The investigation is ongoing, and APD is following leads to find the passenger in the car when Wolfe was abducted. 

According to CBS affiliate KEYE-TV in Austin, both of Wolfe's parents have since died, and her roommate at the time appears to have passed away last year.

Anyone with information related to this case is being encouraged to call APD's Cold Case Unit at 512-974-5250.

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A future physician steers UC student government

It’s time to advocate for, connect and elevate bearcats, says madison wesley.

Madison Wesley is navigating the rigorous pathway that leads to a career in medicine.

But the 21-year-old medical sciences major still finds time to be a leader at the University of Cincinnati. 

She is part of the Connections Dual Admissions Program , a BS/MD pipeline program that allows top-achieving high school seniors to apply and be accepted as undergraduates and then gain early admission to medical school.

Wesley, a fourth-year student, is also UC’s student body president and a passionate spokesperson for all things that boost students' well-being during their time as undergraduates. She joined Khalid Davis, a finance/management major and student vice president, to push for policies they say advocate for students at all UC campuses, connect them to resources and elevate existing campus services.

Khalid Davis and Madison Welsey | Photo/provided

“Madison and I are in 100% for each and every Bearcat,” says Davis, also in his fourth year at UC. “Our door is always wide open for any conversations or questions. We are all in, so don’t be afraid to reach out.”

The duo ran a winning campaign this past spring on the slogan ACE: Advocate, Connect and Elevate.

“I would not have been able to run for this position and dedicate the time and put together a campaign in my junior year, which is a hectic year for students planning to go to medical school, had I not had a little more flexibility with the BS/MD program,” says Wesley, who is from Greater Cincinnati.

“One of the things they push for is developing those skills outside of your science knowledge and your research skills. They really want you to develop those interpersonal skills, and that program has allowed me to do that in ways I would have never thought I would have the opportunity to do so in college.”

It allowed Welsey to balance time as a student researcher focusing on interneuron morphology and its potentially protective factors against epilepsy at Cincinnati Childrens’ Hospital with serving on the College of Medicine Tribunal and welcoming new students as a Medical Sciences Ambassador.

Student government has been a constant during my time at UC.

Madison Wesley UC student body president

She’s also been a volunteer for  Cincinnati Remote Medical Access , a member of medical fraternity Phi Delta Epsilon and a volunteer at Ohio Alleycat Resource, helping to care for cats in need of a home.  Wesley is part of the University Honors Program, a Cincinnatus Scholar and a National Technical Honor Society scholarship recipient.

Wesley found a community working with the College of Medicine Tribunal and the growing number of medical sciences undergraduates, who thrive in a college largely dominated by medical, graduate and doctoral students. She found time to get involved in a student government mentorship program as a first-year student and quickly found her niche.

“Student government has been a constant during my time at UC,” Wesley explains.

Listening to student concerns

Wesley and Davis say they want to make sure that as student leaders they are listening to concerns from students across all UC's campuses.

Photo/provided

“When having meetings with administration or campus partners, we keep that in the back of our minds in advocating for everyone,” says Wesley. “We also want to do that in different programs. One project we have been working on diligently this summer is trying to bring student legal services to campus.”

Wesley says some peer institutions in Ohio already offer legal services through a nonprofit known as Student Legal Services Inc.

Wesley and Davis are working with the UC Center for Community Engagement and the Chamber of Commerce to come up with ways to better connect students to the larger Cincinnati community. That could mean providing better transportation opportunities to ensure students can visit the city’s business district or arranging fun excursions to special events. They hope to arrange college nights, FC Cincinnati games and trips to Cincinnati museums like the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center.

Davis says now that UC is part of the Big 12 athletic conference, the university has upped its game in athletics, and the same should be done for other aspects of student life.  

“Let’s elevate the Bearcat experience throughout campus life,” says Davis. “We want each Bearcat to feel heard, seen and definitely welcomed here at the University of Cincinnati.”

My first day on campus, it felt like no other place I had ever been to.

Khalid Davis UC student body vice president

Connections can be lasting

Davis and Wesley met during their first week at UC. Previously called Welcome Week, it’s now Bearcats Welcome , a month of activities geared toward new UC students.

“There were all kinds of opportunities going on around campus, and I was trying to meet people,” says Wesley. “He was trying to do the same, and we ended up just constantly running into each other in the same places.

“The group I met my freshman year have been my best friends through my four years of college. Khalid is one of those people.”

Davis and Wesley had different interests and areas of study, but one thing in common was their desire to serve the UC community. Wesley’s interests were heavily tied to medicine, her field of study, while Davis was active in Lindner College of Business, serving in Delta Sigma Pi , a professional fraternity, and Business Fellows , a networking organization for students. He is minoring in Spanish and has enjoyed two co-op experiences with First Financial Bank in Cincinnati.

Khalid Davis | Photo/provided

“My first day on campus, it felt like no other place I had ever been to,” says Davis. “The sense of community at UC is amazing. Coming from a high school, I know what it is like to be unseen and unheard, but coming to UC, it was the opposite. Everyone is welcoming.”

Davis became active in  Cupcakes for the Cure , a UC organization offering support to those who have battled breast cancer;  Scholars of Finance ; and the UC Boxing Club.

Davis says UC is a place to step out of your comfort zone. He did it by training in boxing. He was extremely involved in high school, running track and being part of the drumline. At UC, boxing offered uncharted waters.

“Boxing training has pushed me to my limits, and it’s a great workout,” says Davis. “I definitely love it."

He says new students can do something similar.

“Feel the fear and do it anyway,” says Davis. “Growth lies in the midst of awkwardness. Get involved, talk to people, be out there, and enjoy the Bearcat experience.”

Wesley echoed her first lieutenant's thoughts.

“It can feel embarrassing to put yourself out there, and it's intimidating, but it’s all mental,” she adds. “If you don’t allow yourself to try those new things, you are the only one holding yourself back. Don’t let it keep you from meeting really great people.”

Featured image at top of Madison Wesley: Andrew Higley/UC Marketing + Brand

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Student News Quiz

Summer 2024 News Quiz for Students

Compiled by Jeremy Engle Aug. 14, 2024

This summer has produced dramatic headlines around the world, including the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, President Biden's withdrawal from the presidential race and the Summer Olympics in Paris.

How closely have you paid attention to current events? See what you remember by taking our special Summer 2024 News Quiz.

Our weekly News Quiz for Students will resume on Sept. 10.

The summer began with the crowning of a new N.B.A. champion, the end of an era for a popular game-show host and a consequential presidential debate.

On June 2, Claudia Sheinbaum made history as the first woman elected to lead which country?

Morrie Markoff, a supercentenarian blogger and scrap-metal sculptor who was believed to be the oldest man in the United States, died on June 3 at his home in downtown Los Angeles. He was 110.

Which of the following events did Mr. Markoff NOT live through?

The first airplane flight

Two pandemics

Two world wars

In a significant move to ease pressure on the immigration system and address a major concern among voters, President Biden issued an executive order on June 4 that will close the U.S. border to migrants when what occurs?

Daily illegal crossings hit 2,500.

Mexico requests its closure.

The temperature rises above 90 degrees.

After 41 seasons at the helm, Pat Sajak signed off as the host of which game show in June?

"Family Feud"

"Jeopardy!"

"Wheel of Fortune"

On June 17, the Boston Celtics easily defeated the Dallas Mavericks, 106-88, to capture the N.B.A. title in five games.

The win gave the franchise how many titles?

On June 17, the U.S. surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy, announced that he would push for a warning label on what?

Social media platforms

Which company, powered by the boom in generative artificial intelligence, briefly surpassed Microsoft in June as the world’s most valuable public company?

Novo Nordisk

On June 19, Louisiana’s governor signed a law requiring classrooms in the state to display what?

An American flag

The governor’s photo

The Ten Commandments

In June, more than 1,300 people died while attending what major event in Saudi Arabia as temperatures surpassed 100 degrees Fahrenheit?

A music festival

A soccer match

The hajj pilgrimage

What was the most significant outcome of the first and only debate between President Biden and former President Donald Trump this election cycle?

Low ratings prompted the major television networks to cancel the two subsequent debates scheduled for the fall.

President Biden’s performance prompted a wave of panic among Democrats and reopened discussion of whether he should be the nominee.

Live fact-checking by the moderators set a precedent for all future debates.