The impact of tobacco smoking on the academic performance - Essay Example

?The impact of tobacco smoking on the academic performance of the from Queen Mary 1st Affiliation Address e-mail address ABSTRACT This study investigates the role that smoking of tobacco plays in poor performance of students in Queen Mary University. The study’s hypothesis is that use of tobacco leads to poor academic performance. The study involves an extensive review of the literature that is associated with this area, and then a primary data collection through face-to-face interview and filling of questionnaires. A total of 40 males students are randomly selected to participate in the study, which takes place at Queens Mary University. The questionnaire and the interview questions are framed in a manner to provide both qualitative and quantitative approach of data analysis. Regression analysis by the use of SPSS is conducted analyses the quantitative data, while the qualitative data is coded and common themes identified. The findings of the study are that the students who have used tobacco for many years score poor grades in their academic work. Some of the reasons identified as the causes of poor academic performance include lack of completion of assignments, absenteeism, poor memory and lack of ability to read. The study recommends further research to identify the causation effect of the variables. Key words: Use of tobacco; Addiction; academic performance; cognitive. INTRODUCTION Smoking of tobacco in institutions of higher learning is a common scenario that has caused a lot of concern because of the side effects that are associative with such substances. The impact of smoking in the brain includes occurrence of numerous physical changes, which can significantly impair the process of learning and concentrations hence lower the level of academic performance by in students in the institutions of higher learning. Study conducted by a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services [15] found that smoking of tobacco can have dire consequences on the academic performance of students. Some of the impacts they cited include lower level of concentration and activity, which occurs due to lack of nicotine in the body, for the time that the students stays away from smoking to attend classes; and high rate of absenteeism because the smoker’s immune system is weakened and hence susceptible to myriads of diseases such as asthma, bronchitis, and cold. In view of this, smoking of tobacco is potentially harmful to academic performance. This study will be aimed at identifying the impact of tobacco smoking on the academic performance of the students from Queen Mary University. LITERATURE REVIEW Use of tobacco among university students is a common trend and its impact is potentially hazardous in different ways, including impeding the level of academic performance. Some of the immediate risks include abuse and dependence, as well as numerous others psychological and physical impacts [13]. A study by Jones and Heaven [11] shows that not all smokers experience problems when they engage in smoking, while psychological risk model displays an intricate relationship between personality and individual factors, drug-taking behavior, and family and environmental factors. Lynskey et al. [14] and Han, McGue and Iacono [7] demonstrated that social and environmental factors rather than genetic factors influence use of substances. Most of the researchers in this field have cited common risk factors such as delinquent peers, depressive symptomatology, family functioning, child abuse, parenting style and expectancies, substance using, and antisocial behavior [e.g. 9]. It is also believed that use of substances can increase the risk of taking harmful drugs. The theory of gateway explains how the successive use of a particular substance to another is attained, but the issues of causal attribution and the exact sequencing are still not clear and further research is needed to shed more light [12]. Use of substances from very early ages has been associated with poor academic performance, which starts by impeding the victim’s motivation in academics [6]. On the other hand, poor academic achievement in early ages, association with negative perceptions towards schooling, and negative behavior leads to initiation of substance use in later years [4]. A number of researchers have sought the reason behind the correlation between academic achievement and adolescent substance use. Some propose that substance use initiation is caused by academic problems. The psychogenic theory, which established the relationship between substance use and academic performance, advocates that students increases or initiates substance use habits as a way of managing the difficulties they experience due to academic anxiety and failure [1, 2]. Whether poor grades only contribute towards initiation of substance use is a controversial topic. However, the possibility of skipping classes is common with students that perform poorly in their academic work, as well making friends with peers with disciplinary problems, all of which are fertile grounds for initiating substance use. What’s more, students that performs poorly in their academic work dislike schooling and is commonly in company of with deviant peers who influence them to start using substances [8]. Problem behavior theory provides that certain students are associated with negative behaviors that make them susceptible to initiation of substance use [10]. This theory adds that adolescents’ poor academic performance and use of substances are both attributable to similar set of underlying social and psychogenic risk factors. As a result, the possibility of a student getting involved in tobacco use dependents on conventional behaviors such as school achievement and participation in other associated activities such as violence [5]. A recent study by Bryant et al [3] links tobacco use and academic grades, in an investigation that came up with a conceptual model in which individual factors and poor academic grades were cited as the primary factors that stimulated initiation of tobacco use by students in their adolescence age. METHODOLOGY This study interviewed a total of 40 male students from Queen Mary University, who were selected randomly regardless of the course they are taking or the year of study. The students were asked a series of open-ended and closed-ended questions that were primary aimed at identifying whether they used tobacco and their level of academic performance. To gather relevant information, questionnaire with relevant questions to help answer the research questions were issued to the participants and appropriate instructions for filling them provided. In order to supplement the audio interview with observable features, the researcher videotaped the proceedings with a camera. The study took a quantitative approach, where the data was first captured in an excel worksheet and later analyzed in an SPSS. The software was primarily used to carry out a regression analysis with the aim of finding out the relationship between the relevant variables, which helped to make conclusions. On the other hand, for the part of the qualitative data, the qualitative study was aimed at identifying common themes. This was achieved by identifying different categories and groups depending on the nature of the ideas, and henceforth the frequency counts computed and responses coded. To ensure informed participation, Ellickson et al. [6] pointed out that it is critical to seek informed consent from the participants and also ensure their confidentiality. In this view, the researcher will ensure that a clear, informed and voluntary agreement is made by the participants The kind of informed consent, which will be used in this study, will have to meet specific requirements including a statement that the study is about research, specification of any experimental procedures, a description of the procedures that will be involved, an explanation of the purpose of the research, and details of the expected period of participants’ involvement. RESULTS AND ANALYSIS For the quantitative data, the results of the interview regarding the grades that the students scored relative to the years of tobacco use were studied through regression analysis. The following is the SPSS output of the regression analysis. Table 1 show that R squared for this regression model is 64.3%, which implies that years of tobacco use is a good predictor of the grades that students score in school. When the R squired is very close to 1, it is assumed that the model is very strong in predicting the value of the dependent variable. Table 2, which represent an F-test show that the p-value is less than 0.005, which is an additional evidence of the relationship between the dependent and the independent variable. When the p-value is less than 1, it is assumed that there is enough statistical evidence to prove a statistical relationship between the dependent and the independent variable. Table 3, which illustrate the regression coefficients in column B, show that there is an inverse relationship between years of tobacco use. The negative sign for the tobacco coefficient (-0.25) is the one that leads us to the conclusion that there is a negative relationship between the two variables. In other words, this means that the higher the number of years of tobacco use, the lower the grades that the student scores at the University. Adjusted R Square Std. Error of the Estimate Change Statistics R Square Change F Change df1 df2 Sig. F Change .643 .870 .652 71.322 1 38 .000 Table 1: Regression Model Summary Model Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig. 1 Regression 54.003 1 54.003 71.322 .000b Residual 28.772 38 .757 Total 82.775 39 a. Dependent Variable: Grade (score 1-5) b. Predictors: (Constant), Years of Tobacco use Table 2: ANOVA Model Unstandardized Coefficients Standardized Coefficients t Sig. B Std. Error Beta 1 (Constant) 3.956 .173 22.911 .000 Years of Tobacco use -.252 .030 -.808 -8.445 .000 a. Dependent Variable: Grade (score 1-5) Table 3: Regression coefficients Figure 1: Graph of Grades vs. Years of tobacco use The different ways in which alcohol abuse affects the students’ academic performance is presented in table 4. Majority of the students provided that tobacco use affected their academics in different ways, including lack of doing assignments, missing classes, ability to read, and ability to memorize what they read. This shows that the students who are addicted to tobacco are more likely to perform poorly in their academics than their counterparts who do not use tobacco – this is because they cannot perform well in academics without doing what they are required to do in order to perform well. Variables Percentages of students Missing classes 37.5% Lack of ability to read 15% Inability to memorize what I read 22.5% Lack of completion of assignments 25.8% Table 4: Effects of tobacco use on academics Figure 2: Effects of tobacco use on academics DISCUSSION The results of this study are evidence that tobacco use leads to poor academic performance. The regression analysis shows that tobacco use is significantly correlated with academic performance as reveled by poor grades by those who have used tobacco for long. This could also mean that the students who score better grades are less likely to smoke, though the analysis only considered years of tobacco use as the predictor variable and not the other way round. These observations affirm those of Ellickson et al. [6], who found that use of substances from very early ages has been associated with poor academic performance, which starts by impeding the victim’s motivation in academics. Use of tobacco leads to psychological and physical problems, which in effect makes it difficult for the students to concentrate in their studies, hence scoring poor grades. Missing of classes, for example, is a very common scenario with tobacco addicts because they want to keep away and have time to smoke or simply because they cannot concentrate for long hours in classes without smoking. Most of these other factors that lead to poor academic performance are either as a result of lack of ability to concentrate of due to cognition impairments, all of which are lead to poor grades in school. CONCLUSION The findings of this study show that smoking of tobacco is negatively correlated with academic performance. As such, the students that score higher grades are less likely to smoke tobacco that their counterparts who scores lower grades. Furthermore, the students that do not engage in smoking of tobacco have better behavior than those who smoke tobacco, which affect the level of academic performance. Even so, these relationships do not establish and evidence for causation. As such, a further research should be conducted to establish whether smoking of tobacco leads to poor grades, poor grades lead to smoking of tobacco, or if some other factors are responsible for the two problems [4, 13]. REFERENCES 1. Beman, D.S., 1995. Risk factors leading to adolescent substance abuse. Adolescence, 30 (117), pp. 201-208. 2. Brunswick, A.F. and Messeri, P.A., 1984. Origins of cigarette smoking in academic achievement, stress and social expectations: does gender make a difference? J Early Adolesc, 4, pp. 353-370. 3. Bryant, A.L., Schulenberg, J., Bachman, J.G., O'Malley, P.M. and Johnston, L.D., 2000. Understanding the links among school misbehavior, academic achievement, and cigarette use: a national panel study of adolescents. Prev Sd, 1(2), pp. 71-87. 4. Diego, M. A., Field, T. M. and Sanders, C. E., Academic performance, popularity, and depression predict adolescent substance use. Adolescence, 38,149, pp. 35–42. 5. Donovan, J.E., Jessor, R., 1978. Adolescent problem drinking: psychosocial correlate in a national sample study. J Stud Alcohol, 39 (9), pp. 1506-1524. 6. Ellickson, P. L., Tucker, J. S. and Klein, D. J., 2001. High-risk behaviors associated with early smoking: Results from a 5-year follow-up. Journal of Adolescent Health, 28, 6, pp.465–473. 7. Han, C., McGue, M. K. and Iacono, W. G., 1999. Lifetime tobacco, alcohol and other substance use in adolescent Minnesota twins: Univariate and multivariate behavioral genetic analyses. Addiction, 94 (7), pp.981–993. 8. Hawkins, J.D. and Weis, J.G., 1985. The social development model: an integrated approach to delinquency prevention. J Prim Prev, 6(2), pp. 73-97. 9. Hops, H., Davis, B. and Lewin, L. M., 1999. The development of alcohol and other substance use: A gender study of family and peer context. Journal of Studies on Alcohol. Special Issue: Alcohol and the Family: Opportunities for Prevention, Supp, 13, pp. 22–31. 10. Jessor, R., Jessor, S.L., 1977. Problem Behavior and Psychosodal Development: A Longitudinal Study of Youth. New York: Academic Press. 11. Jones, S. P. and Heaven, P. C. L., 1998. Psychosocial correlates of adolescent drug-taking behaviour. Journal of Adolescence, 21(2), pp. 127–134. 12. Kandel, D. B., 2002. Stages and pathways of drug involvement: Examining the gateway hypothesis. US7. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. 13. Lewinsohn, P. M., Rohde, P. and Brown, R. A., 1999. Level of current and past adolescent cigarette smoking as predictors of future substance use disorders in young adulthood. Addiction, 94(6), pp. 913–921. 14. Lynskey, M. T., Heath, A. C., Bucholz, K. K., Slutske, W. S., Madden, P. A. F., Nelson, E. C., et al., 2003. Escalation of drug use in early-onset cannabis users vs. co-twin controls. JAMA: Journal of the American Medical Association, 289, (4), pp. 427–433. 15. United States Department of Health and Human Services. 1998. School Health: Evaluated Programs, Second Edition. Washington, DC: SAGE. APPENDICES Questionnaire (to be filled by the students) 1. Do you use tobacco? 2. If (1) is yes, how many years have you used tobacco? …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 3. What was your grade last semester? A(5) B(4) C(3) D(2) E(1) 4. If you take tobacco, which reasons prompts you to do so? ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 5. Do you complete your assignments on time? …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 6. Do you have problems memorizing what you are taught in class? …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 7. How many times do you miss classes in a semester? …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 8. Do you have friends who use tobacco? How many are they? …………………………………………………………………… 9. What motivates you to learn? ………………………………….. 10. What is the maximum number of hours that you can concentrate in class? ………………………………….. Read More