Research Proposal:

“Red Frogs aim to help students by being a support network for them. How much effect do they have on students wellbeing?” – Boswell

Living on campus away from home, especially for the first time, has an impact on student’s wellbeing. Tymms and Peters examin this in their article Losing oneself (2020), focusing on students’ motivation and wellbeing at college. Living away from home can become a catalyst for students mental, physical, social, spiritual, or emotional health deteriorating. There are so many things going on and so many responsibilities that it can be difficult to look after oneself. Research like Wyatt, Oswalt and Ochoa’s Mental Health and Academic Performance of First-Year College Students (2017) evaluate the wellbeing of students and associate it with things like study and balance, but don’t offer a solution.

There are many university-initiated programs and protocols. There are also external programs to help students. One of which is Red Frogs. Red Frogs is a student chaplaincy network who aim to be “Supporting, serving, and safeguarding young people”. They do this in a variety of ways including visiting Uni residential colleges to check in with students.

I am initiating this research project to discover if Red Frogs impacts student’s health in a positive way. This project would look at the affect Red Frogs has made on BCM 212 students who live on UOW campuses. It would investigate their connections with Red Frogs and their opinion of having them on campus. It would separate the data of Student Leaders from Student Residents and compare opinions. It would hope to evaluate and suggest a difference in health over time in the lives of students.

As a Red Frog volunteer, I have seen firsthand the joy we bring to many students when we visit, spend time with, and invest in campus students. I have seen Red Frogs have an impact on student’s lives throughout ups and downs as they live away from home, often for the first time. I have seen students’ lives become healthier through our visits. Research shows that students can struggle whilst living away from home. I have seen Red Frogs make a difference.

According to Red Frogs Australia, in 2019 Red Frogs supported “Thousands of university students in over 140 residential colleges across 24 universities in Australia”.

My approach will contain 2 stages.

• Stage 1: Collecting as much data from within the data pool. This will include surveys, interviews, and polls. This will also include collecting external research.

• Stage 2: Compiling this data and analysing patterns throughout it. This will include comparing different sources with each other.

For this project my data pool is limited to the students within my BCM 212 subject at the University Of Wollongong. With success in this small pool I may extend this research to encompass the entirety of UOW students in the future. I aim to focus this mostly on the students living at a UOW residential college as this is where Red Frogs have the most exposure.

To initiate research collection, I wanted to observe if Red Frogs already had exposure within my data pool. To do this I sent a test poll out on our student twitter hashtag. Although this is not extensive, it gave me a glimpse into the exposure Red Frogs had.

With 54.5% of students knowing who Red Frogs where, there is a decent pool for me to follow through this research with.

With mental health numbers higher than ever before and 1000s of students living away from home for the first time, what better time to initiate this project then now. What an appropriate and relevant topic for today. How incredible it would be if this research could help Red Frogs in their mission to safeguard young people.

As useful, timely, and appropriate this research is, starting with a small research pool initially will dramatically increase the achievability of this project. To start with the entire university as my research pool would be exceptionally large for one student. Therefore, I am confident that this small bite sized beginning will pay dividends in the manageability of this project.

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Resources:

Red Frogs Australia (2019), <https://redfrogs.com.au/>.

Red Frogs Australia (2019), <https://redfrogs.com.au/programs/universities>.

Red Frogs Australia (2020), What Red Frogs do at Uni, online video, 15 January, Red Frogs Australia, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-vLwGBG3sE>.

Tymms, M. & Peters, J. (2020), ‘Losing oneself: tutorial innovations as potential drivers of extrinsic motivation and poor wellbeing in university students’, Pastoral Care in Education, Vol. 38, No. 1, pp. 42-63.

Watkins, D. C., Hunt, J. B. & Eisenberg, D. (2012) ‘Increased demand for mental health services on college campuses: Perspectives from administrators’, Qualitative Social Work, Vol. 11, No. 3, pp. 319–337.

Wyatt, T. J., Oswalt, S. B. & Ochoa, Y. (2017) ‘Mental Health and Academic Performance of First-Year College Students’ International Journal of Higher Education, Vol. 6, No. 3, pp. 178-187.

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