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Completed

NCT Number: NCT05294913

Enhancing Emotional and Motivational Development to Support Well-being and Retention in Diverse University Students

Higher education is crucial for young adults in their intake of knowledge and skills to further their careers and reach their potentials. However, going through college is not necessarily an easy path. The purpose of this study is to enhance university students' well-being and educational experience by examining factors associated with stress and well-being.

The investigator plans to recruit eighty participants from a large public university in the US to provide survey data and saliva samples at two waves during the data collection semester (beginning and end of the semester). Survey data will include demographic information and help gauge psychosocial factors related to stress and well-being. Saliva will be tested for two biomarkers each wave of data collection, cortisol (sampling three times a day for diurnal patterns for two consecutive days) and c-reactive protein, which indicate physiological stress/immune responses. Additionally, participants be randomly assigned to an intervention (n = 40) or control group (n = 40), where the intervention group will undertake a brief intervention focused on motivation and emotion regulation circa mid-semester and the control group will receive a placebo goal-setting short training. The investigator aims to examine whether intervention efforts can enhance end-of-semester psychological and physiological well-being, and particularly, whether students from diverse backgrounds (e.g., first-generation, low-income, and/or BIPOC) can benefit from the intervention.

The investigator will use advanced quantitative data analysis (using Mplus v.8, in a structural equation modeling framework) to examine intervention efficacy and group differences. The investigator hypothesizes that those receiving the intervention will display a healthier profile at the end of the semester compared to their control group counterparts; and the investigator hypothesize students from diverse backgrounds will have significantly improved results from the intervention.

The study will allow a better understanding to crucial steps towards exploring how to improve the well-being, higher-education pipeline, and retention of students with diverse backgrounds, providing insight on how each student's university experience can be improved.

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Key information

Conditions

Healthy Behavior Emotional Regulation Self-Control Social Behavior

Age range

18 year and older

Sex eligibility

All sexes

Study type

Interventional

Phase

Not applicable

Primary location

University of Arizona

Tucson, Arizona, 85721, United States

Who can participate

Healthy volunteers accepted: Yes

Only the study team can determine whether someone qualifies for participation.

Inclusion criteria

  • participants who are currently enrolled students at a large public university in the Southwest of US.

Exclusion criteria

  • individuals below the age of 18 or those who are not currently enrolled students at said university.

Treatment and study plan

Contextualized Wish-Outcome-Obstacle-Plan (WOOP) intervention

Behavioral

This intervention will ask students to identify socio-culturally integrated academic or personal goals, so that students may be able to better strategize obstacle-overcoming to attain their future academic aspirations and modulate negative emotions or environments and associated physiological responses.

Placebo

Behavioral

The placebo control group will receive a 5- to 10-minute online goal-setting video tutorial and confirm that they have completed it by filling out an online check-list.

Primary outcomes

  1. Salivary diurnal cortisol pattern change (from baseline to end-of-semester)

    Time frame: Salivary cortisol samples will be collected for two consecutive days per wave, three times per day (upon-awakening, 30-min after wake, and before bedtime), at Wave 1 (baseline, Week 3 of semester) and Wave 2 (end-of-semester, Week 16) of data collection

    Salivary cortisol (µg/dL) samples will be used to examine Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal-axis regulation and diurnal patterns of cortisol levels as a primary outcome.

  2. Salivary C-reactive protein change (from baseline to end-of-semester)

    Time frame: Saliva samples will be collected for two consecutive days per wave, one time per day and averaged for reliability, at Wave 1 (baseline, Week 3 of semester) and Wave 2 (end-of-semester, circa Week 16) of data collection

    Salivary C-reactive protein (pg/mL) samples will be used to gauge participant well-being (as an inflammatory marker and risk factor for poor health)

  3. Acculturative stress change (from baseline to end-of-semester)

    Time frame: Assessed once per wave at Wave 1 (baseline, circa Week 3 of semester) and Wave 2 (circa Week 16, end-of-semester) of data collection

    Acculturative stress will be assessed using the Societal, Attitudinal, Environment, and Familial Acculturation Stress scale (Mena et al., 1987), 24 items, 6-point Likert scale (0 = does not apply to 5 = extremely stressful), higher scores indicate more stress (worse outcome).

  4. Quality of life (visual analogue) change (from baseline to end-of-semester)

    Time frame: Assessed once per wave at Wave 1 (baseline, circa Week 3 of semester) and Wave 2 (circa Week 16, end-of-semester) of data collection

    Quality of life will be assessed using a visual analogue (sliding scale from 0-100)

Sponsors and collaborators

Lead sponsor

University of Arizona

Other

Registry information

Official study title

Enhancing Emotional and Motivational Development in the University to Support Well-being and Retention in Diverse University Students

Important dates

Study start
2022
Primary completion
2024
Study completion
2025
First posted
Mar 24, 2022
Registry last updated
Apr 10, 2025

OpenTrials presents study information sourced from ClinicalTrials.gov. The official registry record should be consulted for the latest information.

View the official ClinicalTrials.gov record (opens in a new tab)

This listing is for discovery and informational purposes only. It is not medical advice, does not guarantee that a study is recruiting, and does not determine eligibility. Contact the study team and a qualified healthcare professional when considering participation.

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