Does Alcohol Abuse in a Family Influence Attitudes Towards Education on the College-Aged Child?

Samuel D. BatesResearch Chair:

Dr. Amy Reckdenwald11 April 2014

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AbstractSeveral researchers have examined how drinking can impact a student’s grade point average (GPA). This will be covered in depth in the literature review section. In the American culture, college is associated with alcohol and other experimentation.  High school and college students drink and party. Social learning theory says that it is a learned behavior. People may either drink, or not drink based on the positive and negative sanctions they witnessed their older siblings and parents receive. This research will examine if the sanctions the child witnesses can impact their academic performance once they enter college. This is a quantitative study using a convenience sample of college students at a  university.Introduction

Individuals give various reasons for their consumption of alcohol. From a functionalist perspective, drinking is a way for humans to bond in a community. For a lot of college students, drinking becomes a distraction from their studies. Some students are socialized into drinking through their family. They are born into a family that drinks heavily, and in that case, drinking becomes part of their identity. Research shows that students who drink tend to have lower GPAs (Musgrave-Marquart, D., Bromley, S. P., & Dalley, M. B., 1997). This study attempts to examine how students are socialized into drinking. It will examine other social forces they may impact the students’ choices involving alcohol. It will ultimately examine the relationship between the family atmosphere involving alcohol consumption and the child’s view of academia.

Research shows that students who are born into a family that values education tend to excel more in academics than other students who had a different environment growing up. This is not the case in every student. In academics, and in drinking, there are other forces that play a role in the outcome of the student. Students who grew up in a family that drinks heavily may refrain from drinking heavily themselves. Students may grow up in a conservative household, and become heavy drinkers themselves. The reasons for this will be explored in the literature review.Literature Review

Researchers Trice & Beyer (1977) found that among college students alcohol and nicotine use are desirable. Students believed use of these substances is expected among peers. Higher nicotine use generally translated to higher acceptance among peers. The same went for alcohol. Alcohol had a peak; this means that the more a person drinks, the more socially acceptable they are. However, after a person reaches a threshold, that amount of use then becomes undesirable among their peers. Marijuana tends to work the same way as alcohol in the sense that some use is expected. After a student uses a certain amount, they then become undesirable to be part of that group. Trice & Beyer found that harder drugs (cocaine, pain killers, heroine, ect.) are entirely undesirable among most students. This creates smaller subgroups among college students. The minorities who tended not to partake in drugs and alcohol tended to receive large amounts of rejection from their peers who partake in some. This creates another group. Now there are three groups: a small group of students who refrain from drinking or using any drugs; another small group who drinks heavily, smokes more than the desirable amount, and uses harder drugs. The third group is the largest group. This group is the group that uses the amount that is most desirable among students.

Other research shows that people drink or use drugs for a couple different reasons. The most common are the approach-avoidance, coping, and acceptance among peers. In the avoidance-approach, Labouvie and Bates give the suppression and disinhibition reasons. This

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means that people drink to avoid problems, or to help them cope with different thoughts. The approach-avoidance, and the suppression/disinhibition groups are generally defined as abusers of alcohol. Another group of students said they drank for acceptance among their peers. These students believed that smoking marijuana and drinking alcohol was a way to gain status among their new college-aged friends. Another team of researchers reinforce Labouvie and Bates’s research. Students gave various reasons for drinking. These reasons include drinking to get drunk and feel less shy, drinking to be accepted by others, and drinking to get their mind off of things. The researchers Labrie, Rodrigues, Schiffman & Tawalbeh (2007) found that students who start drinking younger than then the mean age of fifteen tend to drink more for escape than most other students who start drinking once they enter college.

Other researchers found that students who drank more, or smoked more cigarettes tended to have low GPAs. For instance, a study done by Musgrave-Marquart, Bromley & Dalley (1997) did a research that greatly examined the correlation between drinking, nicotine use and GPA. It not only examined the person using, but the people who the person using had the most contact with. Students who abstained from nicotine and drinking had a higher GPA. They also found that dorm mates and floor mates impact the overall GPA of students. It affects the overall GPA more than the individual GPA. The lower end of the curve lowers greatly and the median lowers a little bit (Kremer & Levy, 2008). When a student drinks before he/she gets to college, Kremer and Levy found that to be a variable to ultimately lower their roommates GPA. This could be from making noise and being a distraction to the student trying to study. It could also become a peer acceptance issue. One of the reasons students give for drinking is peer pressure, or for the sake of this paper, social pressure. Research shows over and over again that students enter college with the expectation that college students drink heavily and having a roommate who drinks reinforces this expectation. Musgrave-Marquart, Bromley & Dalley also measured personality types and correlation to drinking. They had scales, measuring personality characteristics, and subscales measuring the intensity of each characteristic. For example, in the “openness” category; “trust, and modesty” are two of the subscales. For daily consumption, they used the Likert Scale. Overall, the researchers found a negative relationship between alcohol and success in school.

Zimmerman (1989) did a research that shows how sanctions can play a role into acceptance among peers. Social cognitive theorists, also known as social learning theorists talk about how a student might take an action, receive a positive sanction, and try to take more of those actions to receive more positive sanctions (Zimmerman, 1989). This is how students can either drink more and neglect school work, or not drink and focus on school based on the atmosphere of their interactions with other people in their dorms. This being said, other research showed that students with open-minded, easygoing personalities tended to have higher GPAs (Musgrave-Marquart, Bromley & Dalley 1997). Social cognitive theory plays a big role in this section of research. Booth-Butterfield & Sidelinger (1998) found that students tend to take on the views of their parents and carry these views into adulthood . Students generally are more influenced by their parents than they are by their friends in college. It is not just their peers, students can still do an action and receive a positive or negative sanction from their parents. Students who had the most and best communication about alcohol and drugs with their parents tended to either abstain from drugs and alcohol entirely, or use it in the most responsible ways. If a student grows up in a relaxed, non-drinking household, it is less likely that they will drink and more likely that the

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student will do better in school. That is if the student does not have a drinking roommate or drinking friends. A drinking roommate or drinking friends puts social pressure on the non-drinking student and they may then not do well because either they start drinking and not do school, or the distractions interfere with their school and their GPA drops. This here also means that there is neither a negative, nor a positive correlation between how parents drink, and how their college-aged children drink (Musgrave-Marquart, Bromley & Dalley 1997).

The type of home that a child grows up in has little affect on if that person will drink heavily or not. A child may see alcohol damage at the very worst, decide not too ever drink, and eventually drink because of various social forces. The opposite can happen too, a child may grow up in a household without any exposure to liquor at all. The media advertises drinking as companionship, and once the child enters adolescence or adulthood, they may start to drink because of acceptance among their peers (Randolph, Archuleta, Smith & Teasley 2013). Randolph and his team also found that students who play sports on a team also drink more than other students. Illicit drugs were found to be more stigmatized among students on sports teams. This could be because a lot of them impact the health of the athletes. That being said, marijuana was most popular among male athletes lest popular among female athletes. The media also plays a huge role in this. Alcohol beverage advertisements general use sports as the main tool in promoting their beverage. It is rare that the advertisements that revolve around sports will talk about the risks and dangers of drinking (Lisha & Sussman, 2010). Social research has shown that social forces are a powerful influence on adolescent drinking, however, when interviewed on the individual level, teenagers generally deny that their friends influence their decisions with alcohol at all (Booth-Butterfield & Sidelinger 1998). The main limitation to Butterfield and Sidelinger’s research is that they issued the students two survey. One was meant for the student and the other was meant for the parents. They researchers had no way of knowing if the students honestly gave the surveys to their parents for their parents to fill out. The results showed that students attitudes towards alcohol where the same, or closely related to their parents attitudes towards alcohol.

In 2004, DeBerard, Spielmans & Julka did a demographics study and found that a large amount of college students drop out. Most of them return at some point, but roughly forty percent of freshman right out of high school do not graduate. Good GPAs in high school tend to have a positive correlation with GPAs in college; however, a high test scores in high school does not mean that a student will not drop out of college. This is because college is significantly more stressful than high school. A lot of high school students are not prepared to deal with the heavy workload and the distractions that accompany a college education. This study examined two types of coping. The avoidance which is associated with heavy drinking; and acceptance, which was found to be associated with low GPAs. This research did show that regardless of college success, students with higher high school GPAs generally intended on returning to college at some point if they did drop out.Theoretical Argument and Hypothesis

Several different theories have been created to try to understand behaviors. This study will use the socialization process and social learning theory. Behaviors are learned through primary and secondary socialization. A child will look at their parents’ behavior and try to imitate the actions. The child gets older and begins to get exposed to other behaviors from various institutions. The child also feels the need to find his or her own identity, Most of the time secondary socialization reinforces what was learned in primary socialization. This paper will use

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social learning theory to explore when primary and secondary socialization can either work together, or in discordance with each other to improve the students’ academic success, or contribute to their lack of academic desire.

The research prior to this study render three main themes that contribute to social learning in the case of this study. Students whose parents drink typically drink themselves; students with non-drinking parents typically do not drink themselves, and parents who value education are likely to have students who value education. Social learning theory, when applied to these three ideas is as follows: children are exposed to their parents drinking patters (primary socialization). As the children get older, they see other adults drinking, either on television, when they go out to eat, or any other institution. The drinking behaviors the children see reinforce their learned ideas from previous primary socialization, The students get to college and believe that drinking is normal for college students. Once at college, the students receive negative and positive sanctions for drinking.

This project will use social learning theory. When applied to this research, the theory is that students learn their drinking behaviors from their parents or older siblings when they are young. The children mimic these behaviors once they enter college. The students who learned to drink more heavily from their parents will have behaviors that do not favor their academic performance once they enter college. Students who grow up in a non-drinking household do not learn drinking behaviors from their parents, therefore they are not distracted from their school work. Along with social learning theory comes socialization. Socialization has two parts. Primary socialization, meaning behaviors that are learned from the parents; and secondary socialization or behaviors learned outside of the home. Just because a child does not grow up in a drinking household does not mean they will not drink in college. There are many other social forces that govern this. A few of these social forces are: Advertisements through media, friends, ideas on sports and brotherhood. The list may go on. This research will use social learning theory and try to examine the relationship between learned behaviors involving drinking, and attitudes towards school.Methodology

This project will be a quantitative study. It is a cross-sectional study with a sample of primarily University of Central Florida students (graduate and undergraduate) with a few other college aged students from local colleges who were added into the sample for statistic significance. The independent variable is students’ perceptions of drinking within their family and the dependent variable is their attitudes towards academia. The survey brings up questions that may be sensitive for the participants. Steps have been taken to help ensure validity among the results. To help insure anonymity, various professors will be contacted and asked to distribute the survey to their class.

The survey does ask question in which validity becomes an issue. The first issue is the participants are being asked to recall something of the past. This does not have much of a solution. The survey asks sensitive questions. Before the survey, participants are warned of the topics that may be sensitive. The participants are given contact information to the University of Central Florida alcohol and substance abuse section of the health service department.

The survey begins with asking the students about their own drinking habits. It then proceeds to ask about the drinking habits of their parents and siblings. In the survey, the questions are arranged with the following options: never, once every few months, once a month,

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a few times a month, once a week, two or three times a week, daily. The next set of questions refer to various activities. These are asked with a seven point Likert scale. After the results were analyzed in SPSS. The drinking questions will group anything once a week or less, and group it into one variable. Twice a week or more will be a second variable. Likert scale questions will be the same way; anything less than four is one variable, anything more than a five is another variable. combining everything into a two variably nominal level of measurement will allow for easy regression testing. The survey ends with the demographic questions. The full survey may be seen in appendix I.

The research will use a binary logistic regression test. After results have been collected, variables will be combined from broad categories into basic two variable categories. The survey asked broader questions for the ease of the participant. A theme throughout the literature review (as well as in the research of the following sociologists: Hildebrand, K. M., Johnson, D. J., & Bogle, K. (2001)) is that heavy drinking is generally defined as five or more drinks more than twice a week. Everything less than once a week was combined into one variable, and everything more than twice a week was another variable. The combining everything into two variables allows a regression test, because lighter drinking patterns is not a necessary variable to study for this research.Data

The research question was interested in one topic. Other variables were added into the survey to measure other variables that may, or may not have, influenced the results once analyzed in SPSS. The main ideas the survey asked are as follows:How often do your parents drink?How often did your older siblings drink?How often do you drink?What is your GPA?How important is your body weight maintenance?

The project uses these variables to hypothesize the following:(IV=Independent Variable. DV=Dependent Variable)

1. IV-how often did your parents drink alcohol?DV- what is your GPA?Ho (null)- Students’ GPAs are not affected by their parents’ drinkingHa(alternative)- Students’ whose parents drink heavily will have lower GPAs then students’ whose parents do not drink heavily.

2. IV- how often did your older siblings drink?DV- what is your GPA?Ho (null)- There is no difference in GPA between students whose siblings drink and do not drink Ha (alternative)-. Students who have siblings who drink will have a lower GPA then students whose siblings do not drink.

3. IV- What importance do you place upon health?DV- What is your GPA

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Ho (null)- There is no difference in GPA between students who maintain their health and do not maintain their health.Ha (alternative)- Students who maintain their health are likely to have better GPAs then students who do not maintain a healthy body weight.

The variable referring to eating habits was split into two groups. The first grouping looked at students who said they had a GPA of 3.5 or less. The second grouping recoded the variable into students with a 3.6 or more grade point average.

Before the results of this may be analyzed, other information should be taken into consideration. I had a small sample size, and not all the respondents answered all the questions. The frequency is the actual number of respondents. The percent is the percent of respondents who answered the question. The missing numbers were not included in this chart.Some students may not have answered all of the questions. Other students may not have older siblings. The small sample size of 171 University of Central Florida (UCF) students is not sufficient for this type of research.Results

The first two tests both fail to reject the null hypothesis. There is no relationship between drinking within the family and attitudes towards academia; additionally there is no relationship between siblings drinking and attitudes towards academia. The significance levels imply that the ODDS and the Exp(B) both happened by chance. The research question about body weight became an extra variable that was added into the survey to examine another variable that may impact a student not drinking in order to be healthy. The first test on this variable recoded the GPA into two groups. Students below and above an average of 3.5 and 3.6 GPA.

Both tests about drinking in the family said to fail to reject the null. This means that there is no relationship between drinking within the family and academic performance. The test about body weight both tested to fail to reject the null. This means that there is a relationship between the two variables. The first test said that students who exercise are likely to have above a GPA of 3.5. Examining students who perform better in school, in the 3.6-4.0 range still have a significant relationship with body maintenance, however, it goes the opposite way. The students who have over a 3.6 GPA tend to exercise less.Discussion and Conclusion

The test examining parent drinking patterns and sibling drinking patterns gave failed to reject the null. The tests involving drinking within a family and the student’s academic performance both say to fail to reject the null. Therefore, the test results occurred by chance because the level of significance tested above .05. This could be a consequence of the small sample size. This test may be done again. The change that should be made is the sample should be a quota sample of 350 UCF who have older siblings. This will ensure more accurate testing. The other change that should be made is the survey should also be aimed at first and second year students. Older students who may be seniors, or returning students may have lived out of their parents house long enough for academic attitudes to change. The survey should also ask more in depth housing questions. The survey used is a social research project and did not ask sufficient enough questions and did not reach the intended sample size, thus testing insignificant results.

Another explanation to the results of the first two tests is that in some cases, social forces and secondary socialization may be more powerful than primary socialization. Students may be born into a high-achieving house hold, but not live up to the standard of their parents because

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social pressure became more powerful than that of their parents. Another explanation is the idea of freedom. Students entering college may be experiencing freedom for the first time, and in that case, academic work slips from being a first priority. Before any conclusions could be claimed, more research should be done on the drinking within a family study.

The test examined three hypothesizes with the third variable broken into two parts. The third test is the only test that tested significant. The first test performed tested students who place a high emphasizes on exercise and said they had a GPA of at most 3.0. The test said to reject the null, this is interpreted as there is a significant relationship between exercise and grades. The second test decided that using at most a 3.0 may not be sufficient to study students academic performance, therefore I did a second test with the same data, this time testing anything above 3.5 against healthy eating habits. The second test said to reject the null for the null hypothesis. This means that there is a significant relationship between students who maintain their body weight and there GPA. The important thing to note here is that students who scored up to a 3.5 GPA placed a high emphases on maintaining a healthy body wait. The other group of students who said they had a 3.6-4.0 GPA placed less importance on body weight.The variable referring to body health was added into the survey to assess other random variable that may influence a student drinking or not drinking. The literature review and the researcher are not prepared for an entire analysis of what the relationship may be. A basic explanation is that people who take care of their body, tend to take care of their intellect. There are several outliers to this though. An explanation for the students who said they had the highest GPAs, they probably do not have the time to devote to creating a healthy diet. People that are extraordinarily healthy and active but do not show interest in academia. This entire concept should be explored further.

It is very possible that social forces are powerful enough to alter the results of any study such as this one. The theoretical argument that the socialization process could offer an explanation to the relationship between drinking in the family and education attitudes is invalid until a more thorough research may be done. The relationship between eating healthy and higher GPAs must be studied further.

The question asks students about how their home experiences involving alcohol may influence their ideas on academia. People are exposed to massive numbers of ideologies every day that may change their own ideas. Another variable that the survey did not take into consideration for conceptualizing reasons is if the student or the student’s family uses illicit drugs at all. The most important action that should be taken is ensure the intended sample size is reached, and insure that the respondents parents and older siblings drink alcohol, then a more accurate study may be performed.

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Appendix IThis survey contains questions that may be sensitive. If you would like more information on alcohol and drug abuse, you may contact the UCF alcohol and drug services at 407-823-5841. The one taking the survey is welcome to stop at any time if any question makes her/him feel uncomfortable. The survey has been sent out through a computer program and the researcher has no way to identify who answers what questions.Please check the box that applies. Only check one per question.This first set of questions will be about you personally within the 12 months.1. How frequently have you drank alcohol?2. How frequently have you consumed enough drinks to get drunk?3. How frequently have you blacked out from drinking?In the next set of questions, drinking heavily will be defined as five or more drinks more than twice a week.4. Do you have older siblings?5. (If yes) how often did your older siblings drink?6. Did your parents drink or use heavily during your childhood?7. (If yes) how often did your parents drink?The next questions are about your attitudes towards drinking and school right now.These questions are done on a 0-7 scale.12. Do you have roommates who drink to the point it becomes a distraction?15. What is your GPA?16. How old are you?17. What is your gender?18. What is your major?

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Appendix IIWork Cited

Booth-Butterfield, M., & Sidelinger, R. (1998). The influence of family communication on the college-aged child: Openness, attitudes and actions about sex and alcohol. Communication Quarterly, 46(3) 295-308.

DeBerard, M. S., Spielmans, G., & Julka, D. (2004). Predictors of academic achievement and retention among college freshmen: A longitudinal study.College Student Journal, 38(1), 66-80.

Grotevant, H. D., & Cooper, C. R. (1985). Patterns of interaction in family relationships and the development of identity exploration in adolescence. Child development, 415-428.

Hildebrand, K. M., Johnson, D. J., & Bogle, K. (2001). Comparison of patterns of alcohol use between high school and college athletes and non-athletes. College Student Journal, 35(3), 358-365.

Kremer, M., & Levy, D. (2008). Peer effects and alcohol use among college students. The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 22(3), 189-206

Labouvie, E., & Bates, M. E. (2002). Reasons for alcohol use in young adulthood: Validation of a three-dimensional measure. Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 63(2), 145-155.

LaBrie, J.W., Rodrigues, A., Schiffman., & Tawalbeh, S. (2007). Early alcohol initiation increases risks related to drinking among college students. Journal of Child & adolescent Abuse, 17(2), 125-141.

Lisha, N. E., & Sussman, S. (2010). Relationship of high school and college sports participation with alcohol, tobacco, and illicit drug use: A review. Addictive behaviors, 35(5), 399-407.

Musgrave-Marquart, D., Bromley, S. P., & Dalley, M. B. (1997). Personality, academic attribution, and substance use as predictors of academic achievement in college students. Journal Of Social Behavior & Personality, 12(2), 501-511.

Randolph, K. A., Archuleta, A., Smith, T., & Teasley, M. (2013). Beliefs about alcohol use among youths during early adolescence. Journal of Child & Adolescent Substance Abuse, 22(4), 295-320.

Sparkman, L. A., Maulding, W. S., & Roberts, J. G. (2012). Non-Cognitive predictors of student success in college. College Student Journal, 46(3), 642-652.

Trice, H. M., & Beyer, J. M. (1977). A Sociological property of drugs; acceptance of users of alcohol and other drugs among university undergraduates. Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 38(01), 58.

Yusko, D. A., Buckman, J. F., White, H. R., & Pandina, R. J. (2008). Alcohol, tobacco, illicit drugs, and performance enhancers: A comparison of use by college student athletes and nonathletes. Journal of American College Health, 57(3), 281-290.

Zimmerman, B. J. (1989). A social cognitive view of self-regulated academic learning. Journal of educational psychology, 81(3), 329-339.