1. Causes of anxiety: Yr 7 vs Yr 12
This is a relatively simple IRP - you need to find out the different causes of anxiety and discover how much they impact on the two age groups.
Literature survey:
Define anxiety
- Beyond blue [https://www.youthbeyondblue.com/understand-what's-going-on/anxiety] has a fact sheet for teens
- Understanding Anxiety [https://www.headspace.org.au/health-professionals/understanding-anxiety-for-health-professionals/] gives definitions of different forms of anxiety disorders and links to some of the texts psychologists use to help diagnose anxiety disorders (they are just one tool - just because you fit the test, does not mean you have an anxiety disorder)
- Anxiety house [http://www.anxietyhouse.com.au/anxiety/teen-anxiety] has slightly more detailed fact sheet.
Establish how common anxiety is in different age groups
- The Mental Health of children and Adolescents, 2015 [https://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/9DA8CA21306FE6EDCA257E2700016945/$File/child2.pdf] outlines different sorts of mental health issues affecting teens and has an entire chapter about anxiety. It also correlates the disorders with various family and socio-economic contexts.
- Young Minds Matter [https://aifs.gov.au/cfca/2015/11/04/young-minds-matter-prevalence-mental-disorders-australian-children-and-adolescents] outlines similar statistics and has more detailed analysis.
- Level of risk in anxiety and depression [http://www98.griffith.edu.au/dspace/bitstream/handle/10072/50019/83618_1.pdf?sequence=1] has interesting results about the amount of depression and anxiety in low and high SES schools.
- identify causes of anxiety in these age groups
causes/triggers of anxiety
- Beyond blue [https://www.beyondblue.org.au/the-facts/anxiety/what-causes-anxiety] gives a quick overview of correlations and triggers which cause anxiety. These would be good subheading for your report and useful keywords for your survey.
- More than half of aussie teens suffer from social media anxiety[http://www.ibtimes.com.au/more-half-aussie-teens-suffer-social-media-anxiety-fomo-1481684] tyhis news item contains links to av 2013 Australian Psychological Society study about FOMO (fear of missing out)
- treatment of anxiety
- Anxiety disorders in children and adolescents [http://eprints.qut.edu.au/4334/1/4334.pdf] outlines things schools can do to identify and support students with anxiety disorders.
- Anxiety House [http://www.anxietyhouse.com.au/anxiety/anxiety-about-the-workplace] lists common workplace triggers that may be extrapolated to adolescents at school.
- Are there social causes for school anxiety? [https://www.verywell.com/social-causes-of-school-anxiety-3145171] is not an especially reliable site but it has some good suggestions for inclusion in your questionaire.
- Indiana Resource Centre for Autism [https://www.iidc.indiana.edu/pages/What-Triggers-Anxiety-for-an-Individual-with-ASD] outlines causes of anxiety for people on the autism spectrum. this is different to most people but looking through the list may give you ideas for yours urvey.
Primary research:
You'll need to use a survey to find out how much these different sources of anxiety affect students at RGHS.
2. Ways of dealing with social anxiety
This is a more complex question as you will have a much wider range of answers which you will need to correlate with different anxiety-causing situations. As long as you plan well, this is not a difficult question to complete.
Literature review:
Most of your literature review will include atrticles from above. However you will also need to look at coping strategies.
Primary research
The key to effective questionaires with this kind of question is to give respondants scenorios and ask them to rate the degree of stress these scenarios might cause. This allows you to group the responses into piles of high low and medium stress and compare the strategies used by different groups.
scenarios could include:
You could then list a series of strategies (both positive such as excerise, medication, being creative, positive self-talk etc and negative strategies such as avoidance, compulsive eating, alcohol/drug use etc.) on a Likert scale [https://www.surveygizmo.com/survey-blog/likert-scale-what-is-it-how-to-analyze-it-and-when-to-use-it/] to discover which strategies yr 12 students find most effective. You could repeat the same scale for each scenario to obtain very specific results or just once to get a general overview of strategies.
Literature review:
Most of your literature review will include atrticles from above. However you will also need to look at coping strategies.
- One of the best sources here is the Anxiety workbook for Teens [http://www.ycentral.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Anxiety_Wkbk_for_Teens_1.pdf] which looks at a range of strategies for changing an anxious person's thought processes.
- Psychology Today [https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-race-good-health/201501/teens-and-stress-practical-coping-skills] and Teenmentalhealth.org [http://teenmentalhealth.org/learn/mental-disorders/social-anxiety-disorder/] outlines some coping strategies for teens
- Anxiety and Depression Association of America [https://www.adaa.org/living-with-anxiety/children/treatment-public-ed-handouts] and Anxiety BC [https://www.anxietybc.com/parenting/social-anxiety-disorder] have several handout aimed at parents of teens.
Primary research
The key to effective questionaires with this kind of question is to give respondants scenorios and ask them to rate the degree of stress these scenarios might cause. This allows you to group the responses into piles of high low and medium stress and compare the strategies used by different groups.
scenarios could include:
- going to a party where you don't know anyone
- preparing for an oral exam
- taking a class which has none of your friends in it
- going to the city alone to meet your friends ...etc.
You could then list a series of strategies (both positive such as excerise, medication, being creative, positive self-talk etc and negative strategies such as avoidance, compulsive eating, alcohol/drug use etc.) on a Likert scale [https://www.surveygizmo.com/survey-blog/likert-scale-what-is-it-how-to-analyze-it-and-when-to-use-it/] to discover which strategies yr 12 students find most effective. You could repeat the same scale for each scenario to obtain very specific results or just once to get a general overview of strategies.