Perceptions of collegiate social norms and their relationship to alcohol consumption /

Abstract

A descriptive correlational research design composed of a convenience sample of students from a select northeastern Ohio university was used to determine the relationship between current alcohol consumption in the last 30 days and peers' perceptions of others' alcohol consumption. The hypothesis tested were students' perceptions of peer alcohol use will affect their consumption of alcohol and other factors will affect perceived use. The design consisted of a single group of 747 students enrolled in 26 courses at the select university who completed and returned the Core Alcohol and Drug Surveys. A secondary data analysis was completed on the data. From the personal sociodemographic data, it was indicated that participants' ages ranged from 16 to 57 with a mean of22.6 years of age. The ratio ofmen to women participants was 39 percent males to 61 percent females. Information from the completed survey provided correlative results which were used to determine relationships between current alcohol consumption in the last 30 days and peers' perceptions of others alcohol consumption. Eighteen percent of the variance was accounted for by variation with six independent variables in relationship to current alcohol consumption in the last 30 days. Only three percent was accounted for by variation with three independent variables in relationship to perceptions of others' rate of alcohol use. Analyses revealed that perception of peers' alcohol consumption was moderately but significantly related to actual alcohol consumption in the last 30 days. Although perceptions of peers' alcohol consumption was significant, the age when the student first began to drink, gender and classification were more strongly related to alcohol consumption in the last 30 days. Recommendations for future research were to use the long form of the survey and a more scientific process of survey administration.