Frontiers in Education Technology Vol. 6, No.2, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet ISSN 2576-1846 (Print) ISSN 2576-1854 (Online) 159 Original Paper Problem-oriented Method Selection: Approaches to Dealing with Ideological Problems among College Students Xiaojun Su1 1 Sichuan Minzu College, Kangding, Sichuan, China Received: May 9, 2023 Accepted: June 1, 2023 Online Published: June 14, 2023 doi:10.22158/fet.v6n2p159 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v6n2p159 Abstract As ideological and political education workers in universities, we have the historical mission of cultivating college students’ socialist ideology and moral character with Chinese characteristics, shaping college students’ ideal personality with Chinese characteristics in the new era, and guiding them to practice socialist behavior in the new era. This requires ideological and political education workers in universities to have ideals, a correct view of life, and patience. We need to do our work carefully and solidly, and ensure that our daily work is in place. We should also be good at collaborating with ideological and political workers from all walks of life and working together. Universities should strictly enforce discipline, use necessary disciplinary measures in college students’ ideological and political education work (the bottom line of discipline), and cultivate college students’ compliance with laws and regulations. We can improve the education skills of ideological and political education workers through training in ideological and political work skills, etc. Keywords problem-oriented, method selection, approaches, ideological problems, college students Socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a new era, which is a time of youthful passion, a time for young people to shine, and a time for young people to pursue their dreams. The ideological and political education of college students in this new era bears the historic mission of cultivating the ideological and moral qualities of college students with Chinese characteristics, shaping their ideal personalities, and guiding their behavior and practices in accordance with the principles of socialism with Chinese characteristics. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet Frontiers in Education Technology Vol. 6, No. 2, 2023 160 Published by SCHOLINK INC. 1. The Origin of the Problem In recent years, research on ideological and political education for college students has mainly focused on analyzing the ideological and political education of Chinese college students from theoretical and practical perspectives, based on the research results of previous studies on the mechanism of ideological and political education. Therefore, in terms of research methods, systematic research, literature reading and data analysis, comparative research, in-depth understanding, and embedded research methods are mainly used. This study mainly adopts the case study method, collects cases from counselors, party and league secretaries, Yiban workstation personnel, and other relevant ideological and political education workers for college students, and conducts in-depth analysis of the cases to obtain a regular understanding of solving the ideological and political work of college students in the new era. People often say that “a good start is half the battle”. Indeed, college is a very important turning point in life. When high school students become college students, they face different environments and psychological pressures. College students often experience psychological conditions such as laziness, slackness, and rebellion. How to make reasonable use of college time is crucial for every college student. Therefore, when facing the ideological problems of college students, general methods can be adopted, including emergency handling, peripheral research, listening, targeted guidance, and persuasion.2. General Problem Handling Methods. 2. General Approach to Dealing with Common Issues 2.1 Emergency Handling When the ideological problems of college students may directly endanger the life and property safety of themselves and others, or may trigger public opinion reactions that may cause unpredictable consequences, emergency handling will be triggered. The countermeasures for each ideological problem will be different, but there are some common principles and requirements, including timely intervention, decisive prevention, suspension of external influences, and removal of deteriorating consequences. In the ideological and political work of college students, the psychological problems of college students are becoming increasingly prominent. In order to prevent and respond to emergencies caused by college students’ psychological crises, counselors should establish an emergency mechanism for college students’ anxiety psychology and strengthen humanistic care. Counselors can handle problems related to emotional relationships between male and female students in a timely manner, understand the relevant situations, and considerate and effective methods in dealing with problematic students. Their sense of responsibility and love for students is commendable. At the same time, this also tells us that as a college counselor, through new student orientation education, special class meetings, dormitory discussions, individual conversations, etc., we should educate and guide today’s college students to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet Frontiers in Education Technology Vol. 6, No. 2, 2023 161 Published by SCHOLINK INC. establish a healthy view of friendship, marriage and love, and pay attention to the mental health of college students. Due to the fact that college students are in the stage of establishing correct values, when facing various problems, it is inevitable to have a “narrow-minded” feeling. The timely handling of this incident by counselors has avoided serious consequences. This also tells us that when dealing with online public opinion, we should fully play the role of class, group, and student cadres, discover online public opinion and report it to the functional departments in a timely manner. The functional departments should contact the secondary colleges in time and communicate with the students and their parents, while verifying the source of public opinion to reduce negative impact. 2.2 Peripheral Research When faced with some imminent problems, counselors use the method of peripheral research to prevent the occurrence of problems. For example, when counselors learn about the existence of “campus loans” among students, they immediately report to the college, communicate with students in a timely manner, and conduct peripheral research to discover similar situations and prevent another campus loan incident. Peripheral research must carefully avoid the minefield that may hurt the students’ self-esteem and the criticism of interested parties. Without this, it is impossible to understand the real situation, which is exactly where the ideological and political work requires “skills”. Many cases provide useful explorations. 2.3 Listening The essence of listening is to listen, and the difficulty lies in making the object speak and guiding them to say what you want to hear. The purpose is to understand the situation through listening, form measures to solve the problem, achieve emotional communication, resolve conflicts, and solve problems. Listening does not mean not speaking, but it must start with letting the other person speak and stop when they stop. Being good at listening is one of the professional qualities of counselors. In the process of listening, they can discover clues and clarify their thoughts. At the same time, counselors should avoid the phenomenon of "one-way communication" and grasp the priorities and distinguish the important and unimportant matters so that they can better solve the problems faced by students. 2.4 Targeted Guidance and Persuasion When facing the need to solve problems, counselors can adopt targeted guidance and persuasion strategies. In the process of chatting, they can timely grasp the person’s thoughts and understanding of the situation, understand their daily needs, and further strengthen communication. 2.5 Special Arrangements in Work When facing special arrangements for dealing with problems, teachers should carefully analyze the problem students, mainly due to family education issues and student development problems. Therefore, teachers should contact the students’ parents and do a good job in communicating with them. Teachers should not give up on “problem students” and should stick to their persistence. While caring for their emotions, they should also strengthen disciplinary education and “give the student a disciplinary www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet Frontiers in Education Technology Vol. 6, No. 2, 2023 162 Published by SCHOLINK INC. punishment” to let them understand the importance of rules. This undoubtedly plays an important role in the students’ future development in society. At the same time, teachers should carefully grasp the characteristics of student work under the new situation of the Internet+, make full use of modern media to do a good job in student ideological work, and use warmth to provide psychological guidance. In this case, “the parents and students expressed their gratitude to me, and the father even offered me a large sum of money as a reward, which I firmly refused.” This fully reflects the importance of professional ethics in student education work and demonstrates the moral style of “being a model of virtue” for college teachers in the new era. 2.6 Response and Aftermath of Work Feedback With the hard work of every counselor, all the problem students left the school with gratitude. Some of them became teachers, some became civil servants, and so on. Their growth cannot be separated from the care, concern, and help of the counselors. At the same time, we should also see that the work of counselors is not just about telling students what to do and which path to take, but also teaching them how to analyze the pros and cons, how to establish a correct worldview, life view, and values, how to distinguish between truth and falsehood, and how to guide them to establish firm ideals and beliefs, and live the life they want. 3. Dealing with Typical Issues 3.1 Dormitory Issues After entering college, students in the dormitory have great differences in their ideology, values, lifestyle, and habits, which can easily lead to dormitory problems when faced with practical issues. Dormitory problems fundamentally relate to how members of the dormitory community get along with each other and are essentially a question of how to be a good person. It is normal for individuals with different growth experiences, habits, and value orientations to have differences of opinion when living in a shared space, and the dormitory has become the main field where students’ interpersonal relationships are tense and conflicts arise. How to manage differences and prevent them from becoming conflicts? This requires the construction of dormitory community culture as well as the self-growth of community members. One important reason for poor relationships among dormitory classmates is the lack of communication and exchange among members. Students do not like to express their emotions, do not know how to put themselves in others’ shoes, and have a strong sense of self-awareness. Because of differences in interests, hobbies, behavior habits, and economic conditions among classmates, it is natural for students in the dormitory to form groups with those who have similar situations. This can easily lead to the formation of small circles and make relationships between dormitory classmates awkward. In dormitory life, bad habits can easily cause conflicts among dormitory members. These habits include: not paying attention to personal hygiene, throwing rubbish and items around, and being prone to taking petty advantages. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet Frontiers in Education Technology Vol. 6, No. 2, 2023 163 Published by SCHOLINK INC. For students, in addition to learning and living skills, they must also learn to be tolerant, patient, and helpful to others in school. Especially for those who are not good at socializing, have introverted personalities, and are not good at fitting in with others in the dormitory, they need to learn to respect and tolerate each other in order to create a good dormitory environment and promote learning and healthy growth. For teachers, firstly, students should establish a dormitory covenant to manage and regulate dormitory members. Secondly, some collective activities should be organized for the dormitory as a unit to strengthen dormitory cohesion in the class. Finally, regular visits to the dormitory should be conducted to communicate with students and strengthen emotional connections with them. 3.2 Emotional Issues Currently, emotional issues among college students are becoming more common and prominent on campus. If college students who are deeply involved in emotional problems do not handle them properly, negative effects may arise, even leading to serious consequences. During this period, if emotional distress cannot be handled properly, it may trigger other psychological problems such as anxiety, tension, and compulsions, which, if accumulated without timely relief, will further cause personality obstacles or defects. At the same time, if psychological problems are not solved for a long time, they can also cause physical problems. For example, long-term anxiety and depression can lead to neurasthenia, insomnia, and even physiological changes, forcing students to drop out of school halfway. Such phenomena are not uncommon on college campuses. For teachers, the first step is to create a space and environment for students to establish interpersonal relationships. This allows students to build emotional bonds between classmates and between students and teachers, thus avoiding emotional loneliness. By offering elective courses or holding lectures on psychological counseling, students can be taught interpersonal communication skills from a psychological perspective, enabling them to build their own network of good interpersonal relationships. Secondly, by monitoring attendance and academic performance in class, teachers can reflect on the students’ mental state, observe changes in their thinking, and identify the reasons for these changes. If emotional problems are found to be the cause of these changes, timely help and guidance should be provided. Finally, teachers should provide positive guidance for college students in love, encourage them to help each other in their studies, and achieve academic and romantic success together. In daily class meetings, students should be taught to establish a correct view of love, so that they can take responsibility in their relationships. 3.3 Family Issues The family is the main source of social capital for college students. The family’s economic status, parents’ education level, and educational background may all have a significant impact on students’ academic performance and interpersonal communication. Students from remote rural areas in universities may strongly feel the differences in economic status, personal abilities, and vision. At the same time, the pressure of family finances can cause significant psychological burdens, leading to sensitivity, inferiority, and other psychological problems. Single-parent families or disharmonious www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet Frontiers in Education Technology Vol. 6, No. 2, 2023 164 Published by SCHOLINK INC. family atmospheres can easily lead to negative, inferior, and isolated personalities, making them very sensitive to interpersonal relationships, unwilling to open up, and creating obstacles for their families, studies, and interpersonal relationships. For teachers, the first step is to establish a basic file for impoverished students, increase their care and assistance, make them feel the warmth from the collective, school, and society, and increase their opportunities for part-time work to help them become self-reliant and accept, improve themselves, overcome their inferiority, and move toward self-improvement. Secondly, for students with disharmonious family relationships or low levels of psychological health caused by family upbringing, basic files should be established to grasp their basic situation, strengthen communication with their families, and help them accept themselves, cultivate positive and optimistic personalities. 3.4 Psychological Issues In the current stage of college students’ growth, there are many problems in adapting to the environment, interpersonal communication, academic growth, making friends and romantic relationships, and job selection. Although college students’ physiological age tends to be mature, their psychological age is relatively young, and they have relatively little experience, making them very susceptible to various factors. In addition, society and families have high expectations for college students, and the pressure they face in the development process is relatively high, making them very susceptible to emotional instability and weak resilience to setbacks. Under the heavy pressure of academic work and the confusion about the future and prospects, this sense of psychological defeat and depression will continue to increase. Under the influence of negative emotions, students’ emotions of doubt, anxiety, loneliness, pessimism, and depression will continue to increase, causing very adverse effects on students, leading to psychological disorders or mental illnesses, and even self-harm, suicide, and harm to others. For teachers, the first thing is to enable students to understand and master the basic knowledge of psychology, to have a clear understanding and mastery of their own psychological characteristics and individual variation patterns, to learn how to adjust their mentality and methods of psychological health care, and to learn to control their personal emotions. This will help contemporary college students to understand themselves correctly, enhance their psychological adjustment ability, and correctly deal with setbacks and contradictions in life and learning, comprehensively improving their individual psychological quality and mental health level. Secondly, it is important to attach importance to psychological counseling and guidance, and improve the self-quality and level of the personnel engaged in psychological counseling and guidance. When necessary, provide students with psychological counseling to effectively safeguard their mental health. Finally, establish a psychological committee in the class, timely pay attention to the trends of students in the major, understand and master the students’ psychological health status and trends. Special attention should be paid to several types of students, such as those with economic difficulties, poor learning ability, and introverted personalities, and any abnormalities should be reported immediately. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet Frontiers in Education Technology Vol. 6, No. 2, 2023 165 Published by SCHOLINK INC. 3.5 Learning Issues Learning in college is different from before. College students have more choices and autonomy. Many college students are uncertain about their future, have no clear expression of their life goals, and do not know why they are studying, resulting in unclear learning goals and lack of passion in learning. They also lack clear planning for the future and have weak learning planning skills, as well as a lack of relevant guidance. Due to the influence of the “indoctrination-style” learning in high school, teachers as the dominant knowledge conveyors, and students become passive learners, relying heavily on teachers to solve problems. Changes in the environment make it difficult for them to adapt to independent learning methods after entering college. In addition, due to the weak self-control ability of college students, they are easily influenced by external factors. For teachers, the first thing is to let students establish the concept of lifelong learning, improve their awareness of independent learning, overcome various difficulties, enhance self-control, and actively learn scientific and cultural knowledge. They should help students set life goals, formulate long-term and short-term plans, and persistently execute them, which can help them exercise their willpower. Secondly, teachers should strengthen interaction with students, understand their confusion in life and learning, teach them learning methods, and provide guidance on career and life planning. Finally, teachers should strive to create conditions to give students more opportunities to showcase themselves, stimulate their interest in learning, improve their learning initiatives, and continuously enhance their confidence, imagination, and creativity. 4. Conclusion As ideological and political education workers in universities, we have the historical mission of cultivating college students’ socialist ideology and moral character with Chinese characteristics, shaping college students’ ideal personality with Chinese characteristics in the new era, and guiding them to practice socialist behavior in the new era. This requires ideological and political education workers in universities to have ideals, a correct view of life, and patience. We need to do our work carefully and solidly, and ensure that our daily work is in place. We should also be good at collaborating with ideological and political workers from all walks of life and working together. Universities should strictly enforce discipline, use necessary disciplinary measures in college students’ ideological and political education work (the bottom line of discipline), and cultivate college students’ compliance with laws and regulations. We can improve the education skills of ideological and political education workers through training in ideological and political work skills, etc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet Frontiers in Education Technology Vol. 6, No. 2, 2023 166 Published by SCHOLINK INC. References Shi, H. Y. (2020). Research on the innovation of ideological and political education for college students. BASIC & CLINICAL PHARMACOLOGY & TOXICOLOGY. Liu, Y. S. (2015). 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