Does Alcohol Abuse in a Family Influence Attitudes Towards Education on

the College-Aged Child?

Samuel D. Bates
Research Chair:
Dr. Amy Reckdenwald
11 April 2014

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2
Abstract

Several researchers have examined how drinking can impact a students 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 childs 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 Batess
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 (MusgraveMarquart, 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

Student Drinking

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 nondrinking 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 Sidelingers
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

Student Drinking

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,

Student Drinking

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 drinking
Ha(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 students 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

Student Drinking

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 students 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 I
This 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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10

Appendix II
Work 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.