Objective: This study assessed the prevalence of psychological disorders and their correlation with health-promoting lifestyles among Chinese college students. Method: We used the Chinese version of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales-21 (DASS-21) and the Health Promoting Lifestyle Profile II (HPLP-II) questionnaires. Gender and major differences were analyzed with the chi-square test, and multiple logistic regression explored the relationship between HPLP and psychological disorders. Results: Among 17,636 students, low prevalence rates were observed for stress (4.0%), depression (7.2%), and anxiety (15.4%). Females and students in humanities and social sciences reported higher rates of multiple psychological disorders. Higher HPLP scores were inversely correlated with depression (OR = 0.479, 95% CI: 0.376–0.609), anxiety (OR = 0.480, 95% CI: 0.408–0.565), and stress (OR = 0.821, 95% CI: 0.636–1.060) after adjusting for confounders. Conclusions: The study found low overall prevalence of psychological disorders, with higher rates among females and humanities/social sciences majors. Higher HPLP scores, particularly in interpersonal relationships and nutrition, are associated with a lower risk of mental disorders.

Background: The prevalence of anxiety among college students is a growing global concern, with a median prevalence of 32%. This study addresses the need for effective interventions within an educational policy framework to alleviate anxiety and promote mental health among college students. Objective: The study aims to evaluate the impact of breathing relaxation exercises and tactile art therapy on college students’ self-understanding and psychological well-being, providing reference information for policies and practices in mental health education. Methods: We enrolled 10 college students from X University in South Korea, dividing them into an experimental group and a control group. The experimental group underwent 10 sessions of breathing exercises and tactile art therapy, while the control group received standard psychological counseling. Pre- and post-tests assessed breathing function, self-understanding, and psychological well-being. Results: The experimental group demonstrated significant improvements in breathing function, particularly in forced vital capacity (FVC), and in psychological well-being, as measured by the Psychological Well-Being Scale (PWBS). Sub-factors such as safety, goal orientation, and self-acceptance within self-understanding, self-acceptance, positive relationships, purpose in life, and environmental mastery within psychological well-being, showed notable enhancements. In contrast, the control group did not show significant effects in terms of FVC and FEV1（p > 0.05）, and there were no statistically significant differences in the various sub-factors of self-understanding and psychological well-being. Conclusion: The study demonstrates that integrating breathing relaxation exercises and tactile art therapy into educational policy can significantly reduce anxiety and enhance the psychological well-being of college students. These findings suggest that such interventions can be effective components of a comprehensive educational policy aimed at improving student mental health.

STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics) education has recently been encouraged and attracted much national attention. This qualitative study aimed to conduct a thematic analysis of college student STEAM open responses to provide an examination of college students’ perceptions of their STEAM experiences into the STEAM field. Based on transformative learning theory, a thematic analysis of 756 written responses to seven prompts by 108 college student participants revealed three primary themes: (1) exciting and challenging difficulties, and transdisciplinary learning in STEAM; (2) STEAM learning of gradual process, problem-oriented instruction, and creative problem solving; and (3) metacognition development in STEAM. The findings revealed that undergraduates’ STEAM perceptions provide strong support for STEAM implementation to enhance teaching effectiveness in higher education.

In the current context of multicultural collision, online information is impacting traditional gender values. To analyze the changes in gender role attitudes and gender awareness among Chinese Generation Z college students under the influence of various social factors, the study focuses on Generation Z college students and explores the impact of cultural, media, educational, and family factors on gender role attitudes and gender awareness among Chinese Generation Z college students through questionnaire surveys and quantitative analysis methods. The research results show that Generation Z college students exhibit extremely favorable gender perspectives, with the proportion of bisexual gender roles approaching 38%, surpassing the number of students with traditional understanding of single sex gender roles. At the same time, in school gender awareness education, research has found that the proportion of bisexual gender roles is the highest among students who accept open mindedness, at 46.6%. In family gender awareness education, students who receive parental gender awareness sharing education have the highest proportion of bisexual gender roles, accounting for 48.5%. Therefore, the current gender education for the new Generation of students in China needs to abandon traditional avoidance-based teaching methods and adopt an open and supportive attitude to guide students’ gender values.

Sports competition is one of the important contents and forms of sports activities and physical education. It plays a full range of valuable functions in promoting the all-round development of college students. Specifically, it can better help college students enjoy fun, enhance their physique, and improve their physical fitness during physical exercise. Personality and tempering the will. Countries around the world attach great importance to youth sports competitions, and use national strategies as the top-level design and sports events as activity carriers to create a series of youth sports competitions such as graded competitions, championships, and campus events, providing more opportunities for young people to watch and participate in sports. Opportunities and platforms for competition. College student sports competitions are an important part of youth sports competitions and shoulder multiple missions such as physical health promotion, competitive talent training, and sports industry development. In recent years, the development of college sports competitions around the world has achieved remarkable results, and the scale and quality of Chinese college sports competitions have also been significantly improved. However, compared with developed countries, overall, there is still a weak awareness of participation, poor competition experience, and competitive competition. Prominent problems such as low levels and high activity withdrawal rates have, to a certain extent, restricted the high-quality development of college student sports competitions. In fact, it is not as easy as imagined for college students to participate in sports competitions regularly for a long time. In addition to requiring college students to possess certain basic conditions such as time, energy, and skills, it also requires support and promotion from all walks of life, especially It is inseparable from the material, spiritual and technical support provided by family, friends, coaches and other important groups. Just as the social ecological model believes that individual physical activity behavior is closely related to social support at the interpersonal level, especially social support from important groups such as family and friends has a positive impact on individual physical activity behavior. At the same time, although social support is very important, not all social support received can promote college students to form good sports competition behaviors. Self-determination theory emphasizes that only effective social support can regulate and optimize individual sports motivation by meeting the individual’s basic psychological needs, and ultimately promote the formation of positive, long-term sports behavior. However, most of the current sports academic circles continue the research context of traditional college student sports management, focusing on the contemporary value, practical issues, system construction, etc. of college student sports competitions. They are more subjective qualitative theoretical research and relatively lack the influence of social support. Empirical research on the sports competition behavior of college students, so that the internal mechanism of social support affecting the sports competition behavior of college students is not clear enough and understood. Therefore, from the perspective of social ecology, this study explores the internal mechanism of social support affecting college students’ sports competition behavior, in order to provide certain theoretical reference for improving the level of college students’ sports competition behavior.