“Part of the joy of being involved with BrainWaves, is the confirmation that our collaboration with schools has really met a need for teachers and students.”
A few months ago, we reported on the start of a pilot study with our cohort of young people in our research schools. After nearly a year of preparation and planning, it was a very exciting moment for BrainWaves to launch this first study on the 15th of April 2024.
So now we can really celebrate a milestone. The trial has been completed successfully and the outcomes and learnings will shape our studies going forwards.
During this 3-week period, we saw 20 schools take part, representing over 7,200 students across the UK taking part in this study. Participants were required to complete an extensive online questionnaire spanning over 200 questions, collecting responses to questions on a very broad range of topics.
“We have learned so much”, Senior Project Manager Natalie Coles explains. “There is a lot that goes into pulling together all the elements of such a large study. Even though the pilot study went tremendously well, we will be applying our learnings and feedback from teachers and students, making a few adjustments and changes, to make the study experience even better for students in future.”
Wellbeing is impacted by many different variables, so students were asked to respond about their own mental health. They were asked about their lifestyle, their cognition (for example how they learn or process information), whether they had experienced adversity of any kind in their lives, how their social relationships with family and friends impacted them, as well as about their general health.
The answers are giving our researchers vital information to understand how personal wellbeing impacts on young people’s mental health and the mental health of those around them.
So, what is next for BrainWaves? “The pilot study has paved the way for our full launch of the BrainWaves Cohort study, which is launching in November 2024. ” Natalie Coles explained.
“BrainWaves has achieved great things already in a short period of time. Having now proven that we can successfully develop and manage a large scale study, we will increase our numbers significantly for our next data collection.”
The value of the data collected already is beginning to show where interventions are needed. For instance, as a result of our work already completed, plans are underway to run a study on teachers’ confidence in teaching and managing mental health in school.
Natalie believes the number of schools wanting to take part in BrainWaves can be considered to be a strong indicator of demand and best of all, she says there’s a discernible keenness amongst students to participate.
“Students recognize this is their generation helping future generations. The students who have taken part so far have demonstrated their willingness to help in shaping significant changes for succeeding generations. It is a huge positive to take from our work to date and it makes it even more exciting as we anticipate how much more science we can do with this amazing model of collaborating closely with schools.”
