#GGNation: A Case Study Exploring Student-Athlete Mental Health at a Canadian University Using Design Thinking

Abstract

Canadian university sports are gaining momentum as a high-performance sports culture, leading to greater demands and potential mental health (MH) risks for student-athletes. Despite the abundance of research and resources pertaining to MH, student-athletes continue to experience significant MH challenges. This thesis aimed to reimagine student-athlete MH support at a Canadian university using a Design Thinking (DT) approach. This was achieved through a case study about the University of Ottawa (uOttawa) Gee-Gees. DT is a creative and collaborative approach to understanding your end-users, challenging assumptions, and redefining problems to create innovative solutions you can prototype and test (Brown, 2008). The methodological framework was inspired by Hasso Plattner Institute’s (2018) six-step model: 1) understand, 2) observe, 3) point of view, 4) ideate, 5) prototype, and 6) test. This study explicitly engages in the first three steps of the HPI process, otherwise known as the “Compassion space” (Chambers, 2021). Findings from each step are presented through two journal articles and used to inform future research dedicated to the remaining three steps (“Solution space”; HPI, 2018). Article one focuses on the “Understand” phase, aimed to generate ecological insights from multiple stakeholders into how the varsity sports department at uOttawa supports student-athlete MH. Three activities were conducted incrementally, including stakeholder mapping (to identify relevant stakeholders), stakeholder analysis (to prioritize stakeholder engagement), and enabler interviews (to understand diverse perspectives on the explored topic). Nine enabler interviews were conducted and analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis. The findings are presented through three themes: Enhancing the accessibility of MH services, providing proactive and holistic care, and building a sustainable integrated support team model. This case helps illustrate the varsity environment as one interconnected system and demonstrates the shared responsibility of all enablers to promote and protect positive MH. Article Two encompasses two HPI phases. First, the “Observe” phase is to observe the daily realities of uOttawa student-athletes in their localized varsity sports environment. To facilitate this, six digital stories were produced by student-athletes and analyzed using empathy mapping (i.e., interpreting what a person says, thinks, feels, and does). Individual empathy maps informed the subsequent “Point of View” phase, designed to establish a point of view from a student athlete's perspective and present the findings creatively and in an easily digestible manner. Six empathy maps were condensed into three fictional personas that help illustrate student-athlete experiences at uOttawa. Presenting these personable stories to relevant stakeholders will be beneficial to garnering deeper empathy and compassion for student-athletes experiencing MH challenges. The results of each phase yield a comprehensive understanding of student-athletes’ needs, experiences, and the environment in which they compete and study. Thereby contributing to the design of a (future) desirable, viable, and feasible solution the varsity sports department can implement. Moreover, supplementary methods and results are outlined to showcase the interdisciplinary collaborative approach used to understand further the uOttawa Gee-Gees high-performance integrated support team (IST), a crucial component for understanding the uOttawa’s varsity sports landscape. This thesis addresses new ways to explore student-athlete MH, contributes a Canadian perspective to student-athlete research, and paves the way for DT in the sports psychology field.