TITLE:
Students in Graduate Program Share Coping Strategies Utilized during the COVID-19 Pandemic
AUTHORS:
Cheryl Holden, Tesa Brown
KEYWORDS:
COVID-19, Graduate Students, Coping Strategies, Well-Being, Mental Health
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.9 No.7,
July
9,
2021
ABSTRACT: While there is ample research on how the COVID-19
pandemic impacted students, data does not sufficiently address how COVID-19
affected graduate-level students enrolled in an online platform. The study
completed in December 2020 aimed to answer what coping strategies students in a
full online graduate program utilized during the COVID-19 pandemic. The data
collection tool consisted of a questionnaire distributed via anonymous survey
using university email. It is common knowledge that graduate-level students are
held to higher rigor and standards. The overall perception was that graduate
students should not be impacted by the pandemic’s academic changes since the
graduate program was entirely online pre-COVID-19. This perception proved to be
untrue. The data analysis reflected mental health as the second largest area of
impact for online graduate-level students due to the pandemic. In this study,
graduate-level students shared coping strategies that worked well for them
throughout the pandemic. This data will help fill a gap in research and
hopefully spark the interest of graduate programs to offer coping strategies to
promote mental health among their graduate-level students regardless of whether
they are participating in traditional or online learning platforms.