“I love making that connection”: How student-athletes and non-student-athletes experience stressors

(Photo provided by Emma Toole)

“Although not large, non-student-athletes experience stressors more frequently and more severely than student-athletes.” ~ Emma Toole

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*In the following article, TS refers to The Synapse and ET refers to Emma Toole;

TS: Could you briefly introduce yourself (name and degree), your supervisor, the topic of your thesis, and the field it contributes to?

ET: My name is Emma Toole and I completed my Bachelor of Science in Psychology at UNB in 2022.

My honours project was titled “The difference in stressors between student athletes and non-student-athletes”. I was co-supervised by Dr. Janine Olthuis and Dr. Brooke Linden. My research project contributes to the field of mental health in student athletes.

TS: What was the inspiration for your study, your research question, and the main results?

ET: I completed a basic research course at UNB under the supervision of Dr. Ryan Hamilton. During this experience, I aided Dr. Hamilton with some sports research, and I truly enjoyed it. When I was thinking about applying to the honours program, I met with potential supervisors to discuss some projects. Dr. Olthuis presented me with the idea of doing a research project that extended Dr. Linden’s research regarding student mental health. I loved the idea and came up with the following research question: “Do student-athletes and non-student-athletes experience stressors differently?”

My main research findings were that, although not large, non-student-athletes experience stressors more frequently and more severely than student-athletes.

TS: Could you provide a brief summary of the methods/ experimental procedure used in this study?

ET: My data was collected from a larger study completed by Dr. Linden. The larger study measured university stressors across 15 universities in Canada. Student-athletes (n=122) were extracted from the larger study and matched on sex and age to a non-student-athlete sample (n=122). Students completed a self-report survey via the survey tool Qualtrics that involved demographic questions and the Post-Secondary Student Stressors Index (PSSI). The PSSI is a 46-item scale used to evaluate the frequency and severity of stressors across the following domains: 1) academic; 2) learning environment; 3) campus culture; 4) interpersonal; and 5) personal.

TS: Are there any future studies that will be conducted based on your method or results?

ET: I am not 100% sure if there will be future studies based on my research, I. However, I would love to see if devising more athlete-specific questions for the study instead of treating the athletes as a homogenous group would provide a different result to my research question.

TS: What would you consider the most intriguing part of your research?

ET: The most intriguing part of my research was interpreting the results and linking them to the real-world context. I love making that connection and seeing how my research may benefit students’ mental health in the future.

TS: Is there anything else you wish to share about the research experience/ study?

ET: If you can complete a research project, do it. Also, make sure you seek out a variety of research opportunities as each supervisor and topic is different. It is a good idea to get a wide range of experiences before deciding whether research is something you enjoy or not. Ψ

Created for The Synapse by Incé Husain.