Thrive Findings

More than 1000 students took part in each timepoint. One third of which indicated that they were international students. We want to share with you some of our important findings.

Each survey covered a range of areas that might have been impacted by COVID-19 and restrictions including;

Psychological and physical wellbeing

Financial concerns

Academic stress and resources

Living arrangements and social isolation

Emotional support

help seeking

We were very interested in understanding how perceived stress levels were changing throughout 2020. There is no doubt that 2020 was stressful for everyone but how did lockdown measures and academic stress impact our findings.
- We found that throughout the year most students were experiencing a moderate amount of stress.
- The percentage in the high stress group fluctuated over the year but reached its highest in May (28.4%, late in semester 1), and October (25.4%, late in semester 2).
Throughout the year we also measured feelings of wellbeing. Wellbeing in this case is characterised by feeling cheerful, calm, active, rested, and that life is filled with things that interest you.
- An average of 65% of students were scoring below average wellbeing scores throughout the year.
- Wellbeing was at its lowest in May with 71.7% of students scoring below average on wellbeing. In December this improved to only 53% scoring below average wellbeing scores.
In response to these results, our team is developing resources to help students cope with stress. We are also alerting groups around the University to the trend in student stress and when students will need the most support. See our Promoting Wellbeing, What is Mental Health, and Healthy minds and bodies pages for more details. Our ongoing surveys will help us better understand how students are coping as we continue to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.
It is widely accepted by the scientific community that University students get limited or low quality sleep and that this lack of good sleep can impact psychological wellbeing, energy levels, and even study. We measured fatigue (characterised by a lack of energy that impacts daily functioning) throughout the year.
FINDINGS:
- Most students reported no issue with fatigue throughout 2020, likely due to working from home and the flexibility of online study. However the average score throughout the year was considered above average.
- The highest levels of fatigue were reported in October, with 12.9% scoring within the ‘severe’ category.
We are working with experts in the field of sleep to help us ensure students are properly informed about what they can do to get the best quality sleep possible. See our Healthy minds and bodies page for more details.
2020 was the year of lockdowns and constant monitoring of the new COVID-19 cases in your area. As we were all forced to stay home, limit our time outside, and wear a mask if we did go outside. These drastic changes in behaviour understandably caused a great deal of stress for our students and we wanted to better understand how it was impacting their lives.
In December, when restrictions in Victoria had eased, we asked a range of questions that related directly to COVID-19 and lockdown stress.
- Overall, students were more worried about family and friends catching COVID-19, rather than themselves.
- Students were overwhelmingly more worried about COVID-19 impacting their mental health compared to concern that COVID-19 will impact their physical health.
- Many students reported feeling concerned about how Australia and the world will look after COVID-19.
We are continuing to stay in contact with students through focus groups and surveys to understand how they are experiencing COVID-19 concerns. Keep an eye out for Monash COVID-19 updates and if you feel like you need support with your feelings of anxiety or are distressed you can contact Monash Counselling who provide confidential online and in-person services free for Monash students.
The sudden shift to learning remotely and 100% online in 2020 was a big and stressful change for everyone. Students had to deal with changes to learning styles and for some, struggling to get the resources they needed to work and study 100% from home.
We asked students in December what were the greatest challenges, and greatest benefits of working and learning from home.
- 90% of students had either everything or most of what they needed to study from home.
- The biggest concern for students was distractions in their home and study area, and the biggest benefit was saving money and time on travelling to and from campus.
- In December, 64% of students reported that coming back to campus was very important to them.
Our results throughout the year were shared with Monash leadership and we advocated for a return to on-campus learning and the on-campus experience as soon as it was safe to do so.
Early help-seeking can be the crucial difference between getting support and feeling better or continued feelings of poor wellbeing that might impact other areas of your life. We want our students to always feel like they are supported and that they have someone to talk to if they are struggling. It was important for us to understand when students might seek help and who they may seek help from.
- If our students were experiencing emotional difficulties, they were much more likely to seek help from a friend, a family member, or a significant other (partner).
- In December, 73% of students reported that they felt like they had someone they could talk to if they needed help, and 62% were confident they would seek help if they needed it. Although these numbers may seem high, we are aiming for 100% of students to feel like they have support and are confident that they would seek help if they needed it.
We have shared our results with the mental health service providers around the University and are continuing to integrate their expertise into our resources and survey questions. We are working with them to make sure students feel like they can reach out to professional support, and know what to expect if they do.
As most students would be more likely to seek help from a friend, we are also developing resources to help our students learn how to support a friend or family member who might be struggling, and to learn about what they can do if someone asks them for help.

Getting involved in our surveys

We are continuing our surveys for 2021 as the Thrive@Monash surveys. These are completely anonymous and should only take about 20 minutes to complete. If you are a Monash student, we would strongly encourage you to take part as it helps us understand how you are coping and what you are worried about., We can then share this with Monash leadership and student associations, helping us advocate for our students.

You can expect to see these surveys in May, July, October, and November 2021.

Monash Thrive

Monash Thrive

Thrive Findings

Psychological and physical wellbeing

Financial concerns

Academic stress and resources

Living arrangements and social isolation

Emotional support

help seeking

Thrive Findings

Thrive@Home

Psychological and physical wellbeing

Financial concerns

Academic stress and resources

Living arrangements and social isolation

Emotional support

help seeking