The document summarizes a study that used Q-methodology to examine college males' perceptions of their mental health. Nine college students, including five males, sorted statements about mental health into categories of agreement. Results showed the strongest opinions were about self-harm. Both genders viewed resources and culture/family as important influences. Limitations included a small sample size drawn only from one university department. Future research could focus statements specifically on self-harm and resources to better understand students' needs.

1. Running head: RESEARCH PAPER 1
Subjective Analysis of College Males’ Perception on Their Mental Health
Amanda Stangel
St. Cloud State University

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Abstract
This study will help determine how important self-care mental health is to college males.
By using Q-Methodology the study will be able to categorize the opinions of the participants'
mental health importance. The participants will place their statements into three separate
categories (agree, disagree, and neutral/no opinion). From those piles of statements that will
show a pattern of what the participants think of their mental health and the importance of
awareness and resources available to them on campus. After the study is completed I hope to be
able to start looking into more effective ways to advertise for counseling options and raise
mental health awareness to enhance a healthier and more comfortable counseling environment
for students on college campuses.

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Introduction
Mental health awareness and advertisement is highly important. This study will help
determine what factors may affect the level of self-care or help that people seek and receive.
Those factors include views on masculinity, feminism, self-harm, finances, cultural/family
influences, resources available, stigma of mental illness and counseling, and treatment options.
From there we will be able to create and find new creative ways to advertise and implement the
correct counseling services that people are seeking within a local area. This is crucial to help
reduce the amount of suicides among people, but with males specifically.
Blanco et al. (2008) conducted a study to see if there was a difference or correlation with
alcohol use or related conditions between college-attending students and their non-college
attending peers. They found that there was not an increase in psychiatric disorders between the
two groups, but there was an increase in alcohol use with college-attending students. There was
a problem with oversampling with African Americans, Latinos, and adults between the ages of
18 to 24. Since the majority of their sample size was ages 18 to 24 and that most college
students are within that range, they only analyzed that data, and threw out any other participants’
data that did not follow under that age range.
Courtenay (1998) talks about many different variables that need more attention in the
realm of college men’s mental health. The contributors to the health concerns and risks of
college males were masculinity, risky behaviors, failing to adopt healthy behaviors, attitudes
about their own vulnerability, and their lack of knowledge about their own health. In each
section Courtenay (1998) points out research that has been done that proves each of these
subjects are factors in college males not taking care of their mental health the ways that they
should be. They express that college health service providers need to address all of these issues

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in their advertising, services, advocating, and awareness strategies, along with including gender-
specific interventions that address gender stereotypes.
What all the studies are missing that were found are the actual opinions of college males
about their own mental health and their views on their specific college’s resources and awareness
strategies. The other studies show that there is a lack of the correct advocating, advertising, and
sense of welcoming to the entire population of a college campus and their counseling services.
That is where this study is to help with finding out the views on those subjects from college
males.
The purpose of the current study is to help make males be more aware of the importance
of their mental health and for males to feel more comfortable and accepted when they want to
seek professional help to better their mental health and themselves when they deem appropriate.
Having advertisements for male self-help groups or counseling services could help eliminate
some of the stigma that is connected with males and their vulnerability. The advertisements and
services that would be created and implemented would put a positive aspect to males who would
like to seek help but feel that they can’t or shouldn’t due to feeling ashamed and embarrassed
due to society’s current viewpoints on male mental health. It’s just as important for males to be
able to have a support system and the option to seek help if they want to as it is for women.
Method
Participants
The study required at least 8 male participants. There was 9 total participants in this
study. However, due to shortages of male participants willing to be a part of the study, four
females and five males were included in the study in order to have the very least of 8
participants. These participants were recruited from the Community Psychology department of

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St. Cloud State University. The participants were given extra credit upon participating in the
study from selected professors within the department that had agreed to such conditions.
Materials
The materials that were needed to successfully conduct this study were a poster board
with the Q-Sort Graphic on it with Velcro patches in each of the 36 boxes, a table, a chair, 35 Q-
Statements with Velcro on the back of them, three cards placed on the table indicating where to
pre-sort the Q-Statements (Disagree, Neutral/No Opinion, and Agree), informed consent,
demographic survey, exit survey, and a secure file folder that participants could put their finished
surveys in after they completed them.
Setting
The data collecting sessions for this study was taken place in a research study room in the
Education Building on the St. Cloud State University campus. Each participant is only needed
one time for the study, and the sessions took approximately 30 minutes per participant.
Dependent Variable, Measurement
The opinions and viewpoints of college males on their mental health is operationally
defined by where on the Likert scale of -5 to +5, in terms of agreement, that they place each of
the 36 statements. The Likert scale was on a poster board that had a Q-Sort Graphic on it. -5
was where the participants would place the statement that they most agreed with, 0 indicated that
they did not have an opinion on those statements or they were neutral about them, and +5 was
where they placed the statement that they most agreed with. These numbers were recorded
afterwards to the corresponding statement and then brought to the Statistics Department for
analysis based on the means of both gender and overall with respects to each category.

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Procedures
First, the informed consent was talked about and explained to the volunteering
participant. The participants were given a file folder to put all of their completed documents as
they completed them to maintain confidentiality and to secure any sensitive information. After
the participant acknowledged and understood the informed consent and agreed to be a participant
they signed and dated it. The participants then completed a demographic survey. Third, the
participants were given directions as to how to complete the tasks. The first task the participants
completed was pre-sorting the Q-Statements that were given to them. They sorted these
statements on the table with the corresponding category they felt most strongly about. The three
categories that the statements were placed in were statements that they most agreed with, least
agreed with, and statements that they were neutral or had no opinion about. From their pre-
sorted piles the participants took those statements and applied them to a poster-board that has the
Q-Sort Graphic on it. The participants then sorted the statements further and placed the
statements they mostly agreed with and mostly disagreed with on the outer ends of the graphic.
After the participants were satisfied with the placements of the Q-Statements they were given an
exit survey that they also put into their file folder once the survey was completed, and then the
students placed their file folder into a separate filing system to help keep confidentiality. After
they completed this step the participants were all finished with their portion of the study and
could leave the room.
Control. The control of the study was the 36 Q-Set Concourse Statements. Those
statements never changed. If they had changed every time or were rotated through between
participants it would cause a lot more variance and less structured results.

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Mental Health Opinions. The opinions of the participants will always be different
between each participant, but can also show an overall general concern for a specific category in
the scope of college male mental health.
Experimental Design
Single-subject design was used in this study. This means that each participant was
separately assessed and their data was also separately analyzed. After all data was collected and
analyzed it was then analyzed further to determine if there are any patterns present within all of
the participants data and pin-point if any of the variables have more of an influence on mental
health than any of the others. This is controlled with 8 variables pertaining to views on male
mental health. Those 8 variables are masculinity, women, self-harm, finances, culture/family,
resources, stigma, and treatment. Having multiple variables helps find variety and gives the
research many possible different paths to take in the future.
Results
The results data showed that both males and females had the strongest opinions on self-
harm. In the self-harm category mean for female was the highest it could be; which was 5.0, and
the mean for males was 3.6. The results also showed that males had more even views across all
categories but had the least opinions on masculinity and statements pertaining to feminism.
Whereas the females had the least opinions on masculinity, feminism, and financial stipulations,
but very strong opinions about self-harm, culture/family influences, and resources (refer to
Figure 1.) Figure 1 also shows that women viewed culture/family and resources as equally
important with means on 4.25.
The overall results of both male and female opinions landed with self-harm being the
category that the participants had the strongest opinions on with a mean of 4.3. The category

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with the second strongest opinions was resources with a mean of 3.93. Closely following that
was culture/family at 3.53. Then financial which was significantly lower at 1.38. Even lower in
negative means was both women and masculinity with the weakest opinions with means of -.4
and -.68 respectively (see Figure 2).
Discussion
The results show that college students have strong opinions about self-harm whether they
be negative or positive, along with strong opinions about their campuses ways of advertising for
their own counseling services and resources to outside help. The results also found that males
aren’t too worried about their masculinity or feeling too feminine by seeking or receiving mental
help if they feel they need it. However, these results may be misleading due to the participant
population being strictly from the Community Psychology Department on St. Cloud State
University’s campus. This study can help university campuses and other counseling services
find out how effective their advertising is for their counseling services and resources on campus,
along with awareness campaigns for self-harm. Based on these results future studies should be
geared more towards self-harm and resource advocating and awareness on campuses. More
research can be done using the same method, Q-Methodology, just with statements solely for
each of those categories and possibly less variables that go along with those categories. That
will help pinpoint better what it is about self-harm and the campus resources that needs to take
place in order for students to feel more in-tune with themselves and their campus counseling
services. From there those strategies can be researched to see if they are effective or not, and
revamped so they can be effective on a local and possibly national level in later dates.
One limitation that I ran into while conducting this study was finding enough male
participants to fully obtain a good sense of their opinions on mental health. Along with this

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limitation was that all participants were all taken from the Community Psychology department.
More likely than not, the participants had some general awareness of the importance of their
mental health if they were currently enrolled in at least one CPSY course.
Another limitation that could have arisen was an answer bias. All participants were
aware that the study was pertaining to college male’s perception on mental health, so they might
have sorted the concourse statements according to how they thought the researcher wanted them
to be. This poses a problem because they are not being truthful and honest and can cause a
significant variance in results.
To eliminate or lessen these limitation issues in future related research I would suggest to
find more males from all over campus in a variety of different courses within different majors.
To lessen the bias aspect of the study; either changing the concourse statements so that it isn’t
extremely clear as to what the research is trying to find or use slight deception by telling the
participants are being timed or something to that effect. I think these suggestions can help obtain
stronger and more reliable results for future studies.

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References
Addis, M., & Mahalik, J. (2003). Men, masculinity, and the contexts of help
seeking. American Psychologist, 58(1), 5-14.
Blanco, C., Okuda, M., Wright, C., Hasin, D., Grant, B., Liu, S., & Olfson, M. (2008). Mental
health of college students and their non-college-attending peers: Results from the
National Epidemiologic Study on alcohol and related conditions. Archives of General
Psychiatry, 65(12), 1429-1437.
Courtenay, W. (1998). College men's health: An overview and a call to action. Journal of
American College Health, 46, 279-290.
Exel, J., & Graaf, G. (2005). Q methodology: A sneak preview (Version 05.05. ed.). Job van
Exel.
Hyun, J., Quinn, B., Madon, T., & Lustig, S. (2006). Graduate student mental health: Needs
assessment and utilization of counseling services. Journal of College Student
Development, 47(3), 247-266.
Kisch, J., Leino, E., & Silverman, M. (2005). Aspects of suicidal behavior, depression, and
treatment in college students: Results from the Spring 2000 National College Health
Assessment Survey. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 35(1), 3-13.
Simon, R. (1997). The meanings individuals attach to role identities and their implications for
mental health. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 38, 256-274.
Watts, S. (2011). Subjectivity as operant: A conceptual exploration and discussion. The
International Journal of Q Methodology, 35(1), 37-47.

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Figure 1: Overall responses to constructs based on Gender

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Figure 2: Overall responses by Construct