{"id":133369,"date":"2021-11-24T13:53:24","date_gmt":"2021-11-24T12:53:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=133369"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:26:00","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:26:00","slug":"criticism-of-research-into-student-welfare-the-study-that-people-are-so-shocked-by-is-not-valid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2021\/11\/24\/criticism-of-research-into-student-welfare-the-study-that-people-are-so-shocked-by-is-not-valid\/","title":{"rendered":"Criticism of research into student welfare: ‘The study that people are so shocked by is not valid’"},"content":{"rendered":"

According to an alarming survey many students are experiencing mental problems and stress. But is that right, given that relatively few students completed the questionnaire? Two experts believe not.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\n\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>\n\tImage by:<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tElzeline Kooy<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>

The long-awaited survey<\/a> by the RIVM, the Trimbos Institute and the GGD recently painted a worrying picture of the wellbeing of students. It emerges from the \u2018Monitor of mental health and substance use among higher education students\u2019 that at the time of the lockdown in the third wave of COVID-19 two out of three students felt emotionally drained. A quarter were sometimes tired of life and then wanted to go to sleep and not wake up. They also drank and smoked cannabis a lot.<\/p>\n

The results shocked<\/a> student organisations and higher education institutions. Education Minister Ingrid van Engelshoven used<\/a> the report to stress that a new lockdown of higher education would pose huge risks for the mental health of students.<\/p>\n

But are students really so depressed? Han van der Maas, Professor and Head of Psychological Methods at UvA, thinks not. \u201cThe survey that is scaring people so much is not valid\u201d, he wrote in De Volkskrant<\/a>. \u201cOnly 11.7 percent of the 250 thousand students approached completed the questionnaires. Students with mental issues are probably much more likely to respond.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\t

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