Doctoral dissertation: Student Compass builds lasting mental wellbeing for university students (Räsänen)

Mental ill health has become a defining public health challenge of our time. According to the Global Burden of Disease study published in The Lancet this May, nearly 1.2 billion people worldwide live with a mental disorder, and mental disorders are now the leading cause of years lived with disability globally. The burden falls most heavily on adolescents and young adults, and most mental health problems first emerge by the mid-twenties, precisely the years when higher education takes place. In Finland, one in three university students reports symptoms of anxiety or depression, and services have not kept pace with the growing need. Räsänen's dissertation examines one answer to this challenge: the Student Compass (Opiskelijan Kompassi), a programme developed at the University of Jyväskylä that combines online exercises for building mental wellbeing skills with personal support from a trained wellbeing coach. The programme is based on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). Across three studies, Räsänen asked whether the programme works, why it works, and how the support is best delivered.

– Many students struggle alone even when help could be within reach. What matters most is that support is available early, with a low threshold, and as part of students' everyday lives, says Räsänen, who leads the Student Compass service and its research.

Wellbeing improved through learnable skills

In two randomised controlled trials, participants' mental wellbeing, mindfulness skills, and life satisfaction improved while stress and depressive symptoms decreased. The gains were largely maintained at a one-year follow-up, even though the coaches were master's-level psychology students trained and supervised for the role.

Dropout is the well-known weakness of digital interventions, as people who start an online programme often don't complete it. The Student Compass told a different story: about 85 percent of participants stayed to the end of the programme, and 97 percent would recommend it to fellow students. The research suggests that the human support, face-to-face meetings and personal written feedback, contributed to keeping students engaged.

The studies also shed light on what partly drove the improvements. Some of the change in wellbeing was explained by students learning two concrete skills: observing their own thoughts and emotions without being carried away by them, and taking steps toward the things that matter to them. Alongside these skills, students' sense of meaning in life grew stronger.

– Mental wellbeing is a skill that can be practised like any other. The key is learning to make room for difficult thoughts and emotions while directing one's actions toward what is important and meaningful, Räsänen says.

What matters in a wellbeing coach's guidance

For support programmes to be developed further, it is important to know which components of an intervention actually make a difference, and in internet-based programmes this is still poorly understood. Räsänen examined one central component: the structure of the coach's written feedback. Written feedback is what turns a self-paced online programme into something personal, as the student knows that someone is following their progress and responding to it.

Her research compared fully free-form feedback with semi-structured feedback, built on an expert-designed template that the coach completed based on each student's responses. Both groups benefited equally from the programme and found the feedback useful, but the semi-structured format nearly halved the coaches' response time. The clear structure helped novice coaches in particular to focus their support on what matters, while the feedback remained personal for the student. The finding makes coach training smoother and more focused, and helps keep the quality of support consistent when the programme runs as part of a university's established services.

The World Health Organization and leading voices in global mental health have called for evidence-based psychological support delivered by a wider range of trained providers, working alongside specialist professionals. The Student Compass is a working example of such a model: trained wellbeing coaches deliver effective support using methods designed by experts and under their guidance, thus making it possible to reach a wider range of students. The programme has been developed and studied since 2011 and is now a permanent part of the University of Jyväskylä's Student Life wellbeing services. Today it is offered flexibly according to each student's needs: as a self-guided programme, with the support of a wellbeing coach, or with the support of a psychologist. Service monitoring data from 2020 to 2026, reported after dissertation, show that the positive outcomes have held as part of the regular service: students' mental wellbeing has improved, stress and depressive symptoms have decreased, and satisfaction has remained high. The programme is also in use at Tampere University.

Background

Panajiota Räsänen works as a University Teacher at the Department of Psychology, University of Jyväskylä, and as a specialist in student wellbeing in the university's Student Life services. A psychologist by training (MA in Psychology), she is the lead and principal researcher of the Student Compass and has researched and developed the programme since 2011.

The public examination of the doctoral dissertation "Navigating what matters with the Student Compass: Outcomes, mechanisms, and delivery of blended digital ACT interventions for enhancing university students' mental wellbeing and reducing psychological distress" by Panajiota Räsänen, MA (Psych), will be held on Saturday 15 August 2026 at 12:00 in the Old Assembly Hall (Room S212, Seminarium, Seminaarinkatu 15) of the University of Jyväskylä. The Opponent is Professor Michael Levin (Utah State University) and the Custos is Senior Lecturer Katariina Keinonen (University of Jyväskylä). The language of the defence is English.

The defence can be followed online at https://r.jyu.fi/dissertation-rasanen-150826

The dissertation is available to read online: https://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-86-1634-4
All information about the defence: https://rasanen-public-phd-defence.netlify.app/