3.2 Statement of Authorship
3.3.4 Method
3.3.4.1 Definitions of factors and outcomes
54 first-year university students occupy. Therefore, this study will aim to ascertain the strength of evidence for the effect of social support on first-year students’ academic success and mental health, and whether social support is associated with type of residence.
The current study tested the following two hypotheses. 1) There will be strong evidence that social support is associated with the academic success and mental health of typical relocated first-year university students; and 2) there will be no evidence that types of term-time residence are associated with varying amounts of readily available social support.
55 Table 1
Definitions, Representative Measures, and Items of Social Support, and Residence Construct Definition, representative measures and items
Social support Definition. Perceived social support from interpersonal ties e.g. family, friends, significant others (Cohen & Wills, 1985; Zimet et al., 1988).
Representative measure(s). Perception that a strongly supportive person is available (Cohen & Hoberman, 1983).
Representative item(s). “I know someone who I see or talk to often with whom I would feel perfectly comfortable talking about any problems I might have …” (Cohen & Hoberman, 1983).
Residence Definition. Accommodation, housing, living arrangement, on- or off- campus.
Representative measure(s). Type of residence.
Representative item(s). Rented flat/apartment, residential college.
Table 2
Definitions of Outcomes Grouped into Distinct Research Domains: Academic Success and Mental Health
First-year students’ academic success First-year students’ mental health Grade-point average [GPA] Adaptation
Subject pass rate [SPR] Adjustment
Intention to persist Anxiety Goal commitment (to finish a bachelor’s degree) Coping
Depression Loneliness
Psychological distress
56 3.3.4.2 Search strategy.
The search for eligible studies was conducted in four stages, as follows:
Stage 1. Search of databases for primary articles, theses, or dissertations.
Stage 2. Screening titles and abstracts for relevance and an inter-screener reliability test.
Stage 3. Examination of full texts against criteria.
Stage 4. Web of Science notification and subsequent (2020) full search of databases.
Stage 1. The first author developed and implemented the search strategy with
assistance from a senior research librarian, and with reference to Petticrew & Roberts (2006).
The range of dates for the search was fixed from 1993 with a final search in February 2020.
The author sought published peer-reviewed studies and unpublished theses or dissertations in English. Including unpublished, “grey”, literature in systematic reviews reduces the risk of publication bias. Studies with statistically non-significant findings may not be accepted by editors of peer-reviewed journals, or even submitted (Petticrew & Roberts, 2006,
pp. 231 - 232).
Quantitative studies only were considered eligible, since the purpose of the review was to ascertain the strength of empirical evidence. However, the author read qualitative studies and literature reviews to assist in deciding search terms and informing final criteria for inclusion.
Search terms were developed from the specific demographics of the university student population of interest, social support, residence, academic success, and mental health. No theory guided or influenced the search, indeed, five different theories were later identified as underlying the final eligible studies. Terms were formed by adjectives or derivatives of the inclusion criteria and accepted definitions, and combined with Boolean operators and asterisk wildcards. Table 3 presents the search terms. Brackets enclosing terms indicate separate columns in the logic grids used.
57 Table 3
Search Terms, Boolean Operators, and Asterisk Wildcards
“university student”
(“tertiary student*” OR “university student*” OR “college student*”) (“first year” OR commencing OR new OR fresh*)
(international OR foreign) OR (rural or regional)
“social support”
(“social support” OR “tangible support” OR “practical support” OR “material support”
OR “apprais* support” OR “emotional support” OR “perceived support”)
“residence”
(residence OR accommodation OR housing OR dwelling OR lodging OR “student village” OR “communal residence” OR “communal dwelling” OR “residential college”
OR “residential hall” OR “share-house*” OR flat* OR unit* OR apartment)
“academic success”
(“academic success” OR “academic performance” OR “academic achievement”)
“mental health”
(“mental health” OR “well-being” OR anxiety OR depression OR “psychological resilience” OR adjustment)
The academic search engines and bibliographic databases (ASEBDs) explored were:
Cochrane Library of Systematic Reviews, Education Research Complete, EMBASE, ERIC Educational, Google Scholar, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global, Psychology and
58 Behavioral Sciences, PsycINFO/PsycLIT, SCOPUS, and Web of Science. EBSCO provided ongoing alert notifications of any new articles in Education Research Complete until
October 2018, and Web of Science until February 2020.
All references were exported online to a reference citation-manager (“Endnote”) for categorisation. Categorised references were counted in preparation for completing the
“Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) 2009 Flow-Chart” (Moher et al., 2009). The search yielded 613 references. The reference citation- manager identified 143 duplicates, which were discarded.
Stage 2. The author screened the remaining 470 titles and abstracts for some
relevance and compiled two lists of studies. List 1 comprised a sample of 48 studies randomly selected (Belur et al., 2018) from the 470 for a test of the author’s screening reliability. List 2 comprised 40 studies selected from the remaining 422 (470 less 48).
The researcher gave a peer List 1 and the inclusion and exclusion criteria for relevant studies (see Table 4).
59 Table 4
Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria for Studies of University Students
Included English language publication Dated: 1993-2020 Domains Academic success and/or mental health, and social
support
Population demographics First-year international or relocated national university students, aged 17 - 20 years, living in apartments, houses, halls, or colleges
Excluded Non-English language publication Dated: prior to 1993 Domains Social support unrelated to academic success and/or
mental health
Population demographics Second or subsequent year university students, aged under 17 years or over 20 years, living at home or in a private residence with older adult(s), e.g. “home-stay”
Peer and author independently screened titles and abstracts of the 48 sampled studies in List 1, using the same inclusion and exclusion criteria. Inter-screener reliability, in
selecting studies, was 83.33%. Screeners discussed differences and agreed on the inclusion and exclusion of each study. Screeners agreed that five of the 48 studies on List 1 were sufficiently relevant to the research questions to be examined further.
The five studies, resulting from the inter-screener reliability test, were added to the 40 in List 2, selected by the author. The author read the full texts of 45 studies to investigate eligibility for inclusion in the current review.
The 45 studies comprised 29 articles published in peer-reviewed journals and 16 doctoral theses published on-line. The researcher created two separate “libraries” in the reference-citation manager. One ”library” contained the 29 journal articles and the other, the 16 theses.
60 Stage 3. The author examined the reference lists of the articles and theses for any potentially eligible studies not found by the searches. The main texts were read and relevant data extracted. Data were quantified for each study and entered in an Excel spreadsheet. The author scored the number of criteria each study met in relation to the two outcomes together, and to academic success and mental health separately. Scores were converted to percentages of the desired total. The cut-off for potential eligibility was set at 70%. Sixteen studies scored 71 - 83% and were further examined.
The 16 studies were rated on spreadsheets according to the number of criteria each met to reject or retain Hypothesis One (excluding residence) and/or Hypothesis Two
(including residence). Nine studies, including two which sampled international students, did not include one of the following essential criteria for answering one or both research
questions:
1. population age-range (17 - 20 years), 2. social support as a predictor, and
3. indicator(s) of academic success, and/or mental health as outcome(s) The researcher excluded the nine studies, retaining seven.
Stage 4. There was no positive result from an alert notification requested of the Web of Science Core Collection for studies with rural, first-year university students. A final search, conducted on 18th February 2020, of the databases listed (see Stage 1 above) also yielded no additional relevant studies.