Two members of Florida State University’s School of Communication, Elizabeth Ray and Laura Arpan, were recently published, alongside co-authors Karen Oehme (Director of the Institue for Family Violence at FSU), Ann Perko (Director of Special Projects at the Institute for Family Violence Studies at FSU), and James Clark (Dean of the College of Social Work at FSU), in Innovative Higher Education. Their paper, Testing Restorative Narratives in a College Student Resilience Project, explored how sharing videos about overcoming adversity (restorative narratives) may help universities circulate health and resilience resources to students.
The study reports the results of a pilot version of the Student Resilience Program which aims to “encourage students’ wellness by helping them to learn to manage stress in healthy ways and increase their sense of belonging,” according to the website. The website delivers content through interactive audio, video, and animated resilience and coping content designed to “strengthen student emotional and academic coping skills.”
Ray (’16 M.S. Integrated Marketing Communication) is a doctoral candidate in FSU’s College of Communication and Information. She is passionate about student welfare and is excited that this research can be used by other universities to positively impact students and their experiences in college.
“We are proud to be part of an interdisciplinary team that’s investigating how to help students adjust to campus life, manage stress and build resilience. In our most recent publication, we found that video-based restorative narratives can affect students’ likelihood to seek campus resources and share what they’ve learned about adversity with other students. These videos, featuring stories about overcoming campus hardships, sparked meaningful feelings and influenced students’ beliefs that the advice presented would help themselves and others. This is clear evidence that The Student Resilience Project includes a key component that may help students proactively engage in their own well-being — something that’s certainly important to us,” she says.
Arpan (Professor and Director of Doctoral Studies)) has been a professor at FSU for almost 20 years. Her teaching and research focus on public communication campaigns, environmental and health-related behaviors, and persuasion.
For more information about the Student Resilience Project click here and here.