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The Mentor: An Academic Advising Journal Underage Drinking: Challenges to Academic Advising and Performance Jose E. Coll, Saint Leo University This study discusses the complexity of underage drinking and associated problems as well as the role of advisers and professors in student life, retention, and safety among our college campuses. Furthermore, the researchers were interested in identifying drinking behaviors that may cause academic difficulties, which may be similar to behaviors targeted by first-year-experience academic warning systems, such as tardiness, low grades, absence, lack of academic development, and intoxication. The academic adviser has become an integral part of student life. Academic advisers assist students with decision making as a means to maximize student potential (Creamer, 2000; Grites, 1979). Due to the various changes in the composition of the student body, such as age, gender, and socioeconomic status, academic advisers need to be more versatile and develop a dualistic role in serving the student. Thus they may help students with direct academic issues as well as help them deal with personal conflicts that may pose threats to their educational goals. So it is not surprising that academic advising is indicated to be one of the principle variables in student satisfaction and ranked as the most important component of the student's educational experience (Noel-Levitz, 2003). Because students have a tendency to perceive their relationship with the institution according to their relationship with advising, the relationship between the student and adviser is in fact a major factor in recruitment and retention (Nutt, 2000). As retention programs continue to be developed across college campuses, underage heavy drinking continues to challenge these efforts. Underage heavy drinking on college campuses has been extensively researched and may directly impact retention efforts even before students complete their first semester. Heavy drinking is defined as having an average of three or more drinks per day for males and two or more drinks per day for females (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2005). Heavy drinking is estimated to occur among two in five students, resulting in negative consequences. Heavy drinking among college students increases the risk of physical, psychological, health, academic, and legal troubles. It also increases the probability of performing risky behaviors, such as drinking and driving (Wechsler, Lee, Nelson, & Kuo, 2002). Risky behaviors resulting from heavy consumption of alcohol are unquestionably the leading cause of accidental injury and death among young adults (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2001). Heavy drinking, furthermore, may impact academic achievement due to the effects that last beyond the initial drink, such as nausea, hangovers, blanking out, and either attending a course intoxicated or missing class (Engs & Hanson, 1994), and therefore may be directly influencing retention efforts. Studies of alcohol use among college students have measured student drinking patterns and behaviors with large data sets from private and public institutions. These studies have focused primarily on the physiological and psychological impact that drinking may have on the student. This study examines underage drinking among a homogeneous population of undergraduate students at a liberal arts institution in the Southeast. The primary purpose of this study is to provide an understanding of underage drinking and discuss implications for intervention strategies to offset underage drinking and promote healthy retention through advising. Method Participants Participants in the study were 129 undergraduate students at a private liberal arts university in the Southeast. Data for this research were collected through a survey in the 2005 fall semester and 2006 spring semester. Permission was obtained from the Institutional Review Board (IRB). A consent form was provided to all participants. All participants were under the age of 21, with a mean age of 18.3. The sample gender population consisted of 52.7% females (n = 68) and 47.3% males (n = 61). Sixty-nine percent of the of the participants were Caucasian (n = 89), 8.5% African American/Black (n = 11), 12.5% Hispanic (n = 16), and 10.1% identified themselves as other (n = 13). Instrument The researcher used the Student Alcohol Questionnaire (SAQ) created by Engs (1975), which measures alcohol use, knowledge of alcohol, and outcomes of use. In addition to surveying demographics such as age, gender, major, and race, the SAQ contains six questions that measure drinking pattern and problems resultant from alcohol use and thirty-six true-or-false questions that measure the participant's knowledge of alcohol. The SAQ questionnaire has an internal reliability of .79 (Engs, 1977, 1978; Engs & Hanson, 1994). Procedure Participants were approached in a required first-year course and were asked to complete the self-report paper survey (SAQ). To protect confidentiality, respondents did not put their names on the survey and were encouraged to contact the researcher for explanation regarding the study after data analysis. Results From the participants surveyed, nearly half reported drinking beer at least once per week (43.1%) while 53.6% reported drinking five or more beers on average at one sitting. As anticipated, the most commonly reported effects were hangovers (43.7%) and vomiting (22.7%), with notable reports of students missing class due to hangovers (16%), attending class after several drinks and cutting class after several drinks (6.7%), and in getting into trouble with administrators (7.6%). Males on average experienced 4.2 (SD = 3.8) problems resultant from drinking, significantly more than the 2.2 (SD = 2.6) average for females (t(105) = 3.5, p = .001). Males reported a significantly greater likelihood of experiencing drinking-related problems such as hangover (male M = 3.8, SD = 1.6, female M = 2.9, SD = 1.8, t(117) = 2.9, p = .004), vomiting (male M = 3.3, SD = 1.5, female M = 2.6, SD = 1.5, t(117) = 2.5, p = .014), and getting into trouble with university administrators (male M = 1.7, SD = 1.4, female M = 1.1, SD = 0.5, t(66) = 2.9, p = .005). While group means for males considerably exceeded those of females in frequency of drinking beer (male M = 2.5, SD = 2.2, female M = 1.2, SD = 1.7, t(96) = 3.3, p = .001), amount of beer consumed in one sitting by males also significantly exceeded that of females (male M = 6.0, SD = 2.5, female M = 2.8, SD = 2.1, t(95) = 6.9, p = .000), as did regularity of drinking liquor (male M = 2.1, SD = 1.9, female M = 1.2, SD = 1.6, t(102) = 2.7, p = .008) and amount of liquor consumed in one sitting (male M = 4.8, SD = 2.5, female M = 3.0, SD = 2.0, t(98) = 4.2, p = .000). Discussion This study was conducted to understand the complexity of underage drinking and associated problems as well as to determine and discuss the increased importance of the role of advisers and professors in student life, retention, and safety among our college campuses. Furthermore, the researchers were interested in identifying drinking behaviors that may cause academic difficulties, which may be similar to behaviors targeted by first-year-experience academic warning systems, such as tardiness, low grades, absence from class, lack of academic development, and intoxication. Analysis of the data revealed unique relationships. First, the analysis showed significant differences among male and female students' associated problems due to drinking. Second, frequent class absence and headaches, which may cause academic problems, may in fact be signs of a greater problem such as alcohol dependency. The method through which underage alcohol use and alcohol-related problems influence social and educational outcomes may differ at a small campus where professors tend to know students by name and the opportunity to build positive of rapport is high. The development of relationships with students may be seen as an asset in recognizing early on unusual behavioral patterns associated with drinking. Furthermore, the rapport that an adviser or professor builds with a student can be an important early step towards a university-wide intervention program that focuses on safety, academic success, and retention. Academic advising either from a professor, professional adviser, or student center may be the only service that guarantees interaction with students. It is this particular contact that makes the adviser the perfect person to detect underage drinking and begin early intervention. Limitations There are several limitations in this study that are important to note. A larger sample size may have revealed different results. Although the sample was representative of the university's first-year population, we are careful in generalizing to other university's first-year populations, especially at larger public state universities. Although we focused on academic advising as a potential area for intervention, we understand that academic advisers are not the only sources for early interventions with students. Counselors, non-advising professors, and other staff members may be instrumental in helping students who may be at risk for alcohol-associated problems. We also understand that the most successful efforts for preventions and intervention programs are those that are supported university wide. Our focus on academic advisers was brought about because of the value that students place on their interactions with their advisers. We thought that this would be important to university retention programs that have the goal of helping students to realize their academic goals. Future studies may focus on whether students' worldview and coping styles are related to academic outcome expectancies. That is, are students who have a particular worldview more prone to use alcohol to cope, and do these worldviews impact students' expectations about their future academic goals, which may impact retention efforts? References Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2005). Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System survey data. Retrieved January 18, 2007, from http://www.cdc.gov/brfss/ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2001). Notice to readers: Alcohol involvement in fatal motor-vehicle crashes—United States 1999–2000. Morbidity Mortal Weekly Report, 50, 1064–1065. Creamer, D. G. (2000). Use of theory in academic advising. In V. N. Gordon & W. R. Habley (Eds.), Academic advising: A comprehensive handbook (pp.18–34). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Engs, R. (1977). Let's look before we leap: The cognitive and behavioral evaluation of a university alcohol education program. Journal of Alcohol Drug Education. 22(2), 39–48. Engs, R. (1978). College students' knowledge of alcohol and drinking. Journal of American College Health, 26, 189–193. Engs, R., & Hanson, D. J. (1994). The student alcohol questionnaire: An updated reliability of the drinking patterns, problems, knowledge and attitude subscales. Psychological Report, 74, 12–14. Grites, T. J. (1979). Academic advising: Getting us through the eighties. (AAHE-ERIC/Higher Education Report No. 7). Washington, DC: American Association of Higher Education. Noel-Levitz. (2003). 2003 national adult learner satisfaction priorities report. Retrieved March 3, 2005, from http://www.cael.org/pdf/publication_pdf/ALI%20Ntl%20Report03.pdf Nutt, C. L. (2000). One-to-one advising. In V. N. Gordon & W. R. Habley (Eds.), Academic advising: A comprehensive handbook (pp. 200–227). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Wechsler, H., Lee, J. E., Nelson, T. F., & Kuo, M. (2002). Underage college student's drinking behaviors, access to alcohol, and the influences of deterrence policies. Journal of American College Health, 50, 223–236. About the Author Jose E. Coll is instructor of social work, School of Education and Social Services, Saint Leo University. He can be reached at jose.coll@saintleo.edu. Published in The Mentor on January 18, 2007, by Penn State's Division of Undergraduate Studies Available online at www.psu.edu/dus/mentor/ Privacy and Legal Statements | Copyright | © The Pennsylvania State University | All rights reserved | |