Data analytics predict student wellbeing and support intervention
Pilot project at Northumbria University used data to predict student wellbeing and identified opportunities to offer help to vulnerable students.
This World Mental Health day, Jisc has published the evaluation of the three-year mental health analytics pilot project at Northumbria University.
Funded by the Office for Students, through their Mental health Challenge Competition: Achieving a step change in mental health outcomes for all students the pilot mental health analytics project ran from 2019 to 2022. The Office for Students (OfS) mental health analytics project report published by Jisc sets out the results of the project and guidance for universities and colleges.
The project produced a model of student wellbeing based on a combination of self-reported scores and over 800 data variables. The report highlights the value of collating high quality data from across university departments and offices into a centralised dashboard. Evaluation of the data model found that it could predict issues with student wellbeing that could be acted upon by the Counselling and Mental Health team at Northumbria.
Actions included tailored messages to students signposting the help and guidance available from the university. This process was not fully automated, with staff in the Counselling and Mental Health Team continuing to make professionally informed decisions. The team found that these ‘nudges’ resulted in a 50% increase in their caseload indicating a population of students that may not previously have known that help was available.
The project and the report stressed the importance of student consent to process personal data for mental health analytics. Student representatives were consulted about the project and over 70% of students gave their explicit and informed consent to take part. The pilot followed Jisc’s Code of practice for wellbeing and mental health analytics which outlines the legal and ethical considerations for this use of data.
Jim Keane, senior analytics consultant and author of the report said:
“Commitment to digital transformation and the ability to bring together data from multiple services was critical to Northumbria University’s success. We hope the benefits of Jisc’s learning analytics evidenced through this pilot project motivates other organisations to progress their wellbeing analytics journey, making the most of their data to support the most vulnerable students.”
Professor Edward Peck, Nottingham Trent University vice chancellor and higher education student support champion, commented:
“The Mental Health Analytics pilot project shows just how valuable data are in supporting students at every step of their higher education journey. Collaboration is key to building that data capability and designing systems that help students to thrive at university and college.”
Jim Keane and James Hodgkin, head of analytics at Jisc, will be joined by James Newham, the academic lead for the project at Northumbria, to present findings from the report at the Data Matters conference on 23 January 2025. Professor Edward Peck will give the conference’s morning keynote speech on data-informed approaches to student support.