Social Indicators of Mental Status of University Students’ at theonset of Unrest.

Abstract

Many factors which are either biological or environmental, influence variation in the mental status of an individual if a person is exposed to them. Negative factors are the root cause of mental status at the onset of unrest and this can have specific manifestations. During social unrest, people’s entire way of life is torn apart. These problems may exhibit themselves in distinct observable social interactive manners and this can give reliable signs of internal state of affairs. Several research findings show that University students’ unrest is a common phenomenon all over the world and that most Universities are focused on the aftermath of students’ unrest. However, studies have not been done on detecting the onset of students’ unrest and then implementing appropriate preventive measures to forestall University students’ unrest. The objective of the study was to identify the main social indicators of mental status of University students’ at onset of unrest. It was a survey research design which used mixed research method approaches. Data was collected using structured questionnaires and open format interview schedules. The research population included Security officers and Secretaries of selected public Universities in Kenya. Simple random sampling was used which gave a total sample size of 145 which was obtained from a target population of 177. The quantitative data collected was analyzed using SPSS programme into frequency counts, percentages and means. From the findings, the main social indicators of mental status of University students’ at the onset of unrest were identified as: stressful conditions, arrogance conducts, WhatsApp postings, cummulated grievances triggering unrest, anonymous messages being posted everywhere and ‘sheng’ language being common among the students, in that order.