Mind, Body, Heart, & Spirit: Destigmatizing Conversations of Wellness for Native American StudentS

Through both conceptual investigation and stakeholder analysis, the following values were identified as being of critical importance to this project:

Stakeholder analysis

The following stakeholders were identified:

The Problem

Higher education institutions, such as the University of Washington, struggle to retain Native American and Indigenous students. Universities are often spaces where life transitions occur. Native American youth face a number of challenges in transitioning into adulthood, such as higher morbidity from mental health concerns and substance use, difficulties maintaining networks of support, and barriers to adequate healthcare. Finding sustainable ways to address these issues will aid in fostering an environment where Native American students flourish.

Project overview

During the Winter 2022 quarter of my MS in Information Management program, I collaborated with two other graduate students to conduct generative research and ideate an intervention that would aid in destigmatizing conversations of wellness among Native American students using the tripartite Value Sensitive Design methodology .

ROLE: UX Researcher

DURATION: 10 Weeks

TOOLS: Miro, Zoom, & Google Suite

MY CONTRIBUTION: Value Sensitive Design, conceptual research, empirical research, stakeholder analysis, semi-structured interviews, subject matter expert interviews, surveys, & stakeholder tokens

participant demographics

All direct stakeholder participants who engaged in the empirical leg of this study were UW students. More details regarding participant demographics are provided below:

Age: 21-45 years old, average of 32 years old

Gender: 4 identified as female and 2 identified as male
Tribal affiliations:
- Cherokee Nation
- Haida (2)
- Spokane Tribe of Indians
- St. Regis Mohawk Tribe
- Unangax

Survey + Responses

Each participant was asked to fill out a survey prior to their stakeholder token activity and semi-structured interview. Participants provided responses to the following questions using a Likert scale from 0 (no, not at all) to 10 (yes, all the time):

Do you feel that the UW campus fosters an environment for Native American students to make meaningful connections with other Native students or faculty?
- Average = 6.16
Do you believe that most Native students feel like they have a sense of belonging in academic settings such as on University campuses?
- Average = 3.66
Do you feel that you personally are welcomed or are part of the University of Washington campus community equally as Non-Native students?
- Average = 5
Do you feel that the University of Washington offers culturally relevant mental health and wellness resources for Native American students?
- Average = 2.5

Participants also provided a short answer response to the following:

Please describe your comfort level with discussing personal problems or issues one-on-one with....
- a close friend?
- family members?
- a licensed mental health professional?
- a group talking circle with other Native students?
  - Though responses varied, most participants felt fairly comfortable discussing personal problems with the parties identified above.

STakeholder token activity

We conducted stakeholder token activities in-person and online to gain a better understanding of the participants’ relationships with other figures in their lives. We gave them the option to choose Zoom or a culturally relevant place on campus.

3 stakeholder token activities were conducted on Zoom using Miro
2 stakeholder token activities were conducted at the Intellectual House, a multi-service learning and gathering space for American Indian and Alaska Native students, faculty and staff, using wooden peg dolls
1 stakeholder token activity was conducted at the Off the Rez Cafe at the Burke Museum using wooden peg dolls

Digital stakeholder token activity using Miro

In-person stakeholder token activity using wooden peg dolls

FINDINGS: STakeholder token activity

The chart above provides an overview of the stakeholder token activity findings.

The stakeholders represented in both the in-person and online activities are highlighted. Stakeholders represented in just one of the activity modalities remain unhighlighted. On the right side, you can see the online stakeholder names are a little longer or more descriptive. This is in part due to the nature of typing in a name vs writing it on a piece of tape, which provides less space for description.

Semi-structured participant interviews

We conducted the semi-structured interviews in-person and online. We gave them the option to choose Zoom or a culturally relevant place on campus. All interviews were recorded and transcribed using Zoom.

3 of the interviews were conducted via Zoom
2 interviews were conducted at the Intellectual House, a multi-service learning and gathering space for American Indian and Alaska Native students, faculty and staff
1 interview was conducted at the Off the Rez Cafe at the Burke Museum

Participants were asked to revisit the questions they had previously answered on their submitted surveys:

Do you feel that the UW campus fosters an environment for Native American students to make meaningful connections with other Native students or faculty?

Do you believe that most Native students feel like they have a sense of belonging in academic settings such as on University campuses?
Do you feel that you personally are welcomed or are part of the University of Washington campus community equally as Non-Native students?
Do you feel that the University of Washington offers culturally relevant mental health and wellness resources for Native American students?

Participants were also asked additional questions to gain better context:

Where do you seek personal support and encouragement when you feel you need an extra boost whether the boost is emotionally, physically or mentally? Are there certain individuals (ex: parents, siblings, friends, mentors, etc.) or resources you seek out?
What does overall wellness personally mean to you?
When you have pressing issues or problems, do you typically discuss them with others or do you keep them to yourself?
When you think about getting your degree or pursuing an academic career, what is it that you value most?
What does academic success personally mean to you?
Last question, if the sky was the limit, what is one thing you wish the University of Washington campus offered or had available to all Native American students?

Subject Matter Expert (SME) Interviews

Educators from the Tulalip tribal community were interviewed. These SMEs were asked the following questions:

How long have you been working within education?
What is your position and role in your position?
Typically do you find that universities, community or trade colleges try to reach out to the Tulalip tribal community to make connections with future students and to recruit them into their programs? If so, how often?
- Are there established partnerships with these institutions?
Do you believe that the Tulalip tribal community youth or adults who enter academia for the first time, feel that they are personally welcomed or are part of the campus community equal to their non-Native peers?
Where do Tulalip tribal members seek or look for support and encouragement when they need an extra boost whether the boost is emotionally, physically or mentally?
Do you feel that academic settings offer culturally relevant mental health and wellness resources for Native American students?
When students have personal problems, do they come to you for help or advice?
When Native students have problems or issues do you think that they would feel most comfortable discussing their personal problems one-on-one with friends or family, with a mental health therapist or within a talking circle with other Native students?
Do you know what the retention rate is of the Tulalip tribal community for higher education institutions or trade programs?
- Do you know specific reasons why Native students don’t feel supported?
What do you believe is the most important value to Tulalip tribal college/trade students during their academic pursuits?
Last question, if the sky was the limit, what is one thing that you wished that western universities offered or had available to all Native American students?

FINDINGS: Semi-structured participant interviews + SME Interviews

Through capturing these responses, the research team was able to gain a better understanding of some of the struggles Native American students face while pursuing higher education. Native American student participants’ accounts fortified the importance of building community with those who hold similar cultural identities, having time and space to have conversations with those who were going through similar experiences within academia, and being able to connect to resources that would make connecting to the Native community more accessible.

Furthermore, through analyzing the discussions held during the semi-structured participant interviews and SME interviews, the research team was able to identify several emergent values that had not yet been considered, such as cultural identity, support (rather than just peer support), trust, communication, energy, healing, and rest.

recommendations

Community was the most prominent value that emerged throughout this study. Building relationships and being connected to people, places and events on campus were highly valued by all stakeholders interviewed. With this in mind, designing the following intervention is recommended:

A social network for Native American and Indigenous scholars, without a formal relationship to an academic institution
- This would support the retention of Indigenous students in academia through providing students with a space to…
  - compile resources
  - build collective knowledge
  - catalog culturally relevant mental health and wellness resources

FUTURE WORK

Thus far, the work in this investigation has only touched upon two of the three arms of the tripartite methodology, within the VSD framework. The future of this work will pivot into the technical phase of this project.Though the scope of this project currently centers the University of Washington, expanding this design intervention to include Native students who attend institution across North America would allow for the construction of more expansive community and the amalgamation of a broader set of resources and strategies that could contribute more sustainable experiences for Native students in higher education. This means that next steps for this project would also involve collecting survey responses from Native students at other institutions, additional student & SME interviews, as well as conducting more stakeholder token activities, and prototyping the design solution.