Method and Results - Essay Example

A study at Arizona University was done to determine a correlation between study time, alcohol consumption, and GPA among the students pursuing SOC 390. The study was based on two hypotheses. The first hypothesis states that there is no significant difference between the study time and the GPA. The second hypothesis states that there is no significant difference between alcohol intake and GPA (Ericsson, Hill & Asberg, 2005).

The survey questionnaires were administered to 180 students. The students were expected to answer questions that were specifically tailored to gather specific information regarding different areas. The responses were coded and tabulated. SPSS software was used to store the data ready for analysis. The software could allow the correlation of both the categorical and non-categorical variables. Consequently, it was possible for the management team of Arizostudent'sna University to find out how different factors related to the students influence the students performance (Creswell, 2008).

Participants

Participants for the study were SOC 390 and SOC 391/FAS 361 students from Arizona State University. Out of the 180 students enrolled in the survey, only 166 students took part. The demographic questions of participants’ study time and alcohol intake were used in the analysis as independent variables. The amount of time the student spends studying for a typical class each week, which was measured in hours. The dependent variable was a measure of the student’s current GPA. The alcohol use was measured in terms of ratio whereas the GPA was measured in interval level of measurement whereas the time spend studying was measured in ratio (Patton, 2002).

The study was based on a hypothesis that there is a positive correlation between studying and a higher GPA while there is a negative correlation between alcohol and students’ GPA. The data were analyzed using regression analysis in order to determine whether the GPA is dependent upon the study time and drinking of alcohol (McSpirit & Jones, 1999).

Analysis and results

This analysis was performed in order to determine the effects of the study time and alcohol drinking on the GPA. All of the 166 respondents provided answers in each category. The average GPA of student respondents was 3.2772 and the standard deviation was 0.51627. The mean of study time and alcohol consumption was 5.70 and 4.671 respectively whereas the standard deviation was 4.670 and 5.8437 respectively.

Descriptive analysis was done to show more information on aspects such as variance, skewness, Kurtosis, standard deviation and mean of the study time, alcohol consumption, and GPA. To analyze the hypothesis, multiple regression analysis was used. The Pearson correlation obtained shows a positive weak correlation between the GPA and the study time. This is shown by Pearson’s correlation moment of 0.085. However, the analysis revealed that there was a negative relationship between alcohol consumption and GPA. This is shown by Pearson’s correlation moment of – 0.202 (The UCLA Higher Education Research Institute's Freshman Survey, 2000).

Discussion

The findings from the analysis disagree with the null hypothesis. This means that there is a significant relationship between study time and the GPA. On the other hand, the analysis shows a negative relationship between alcohol consumption and GPA (National Survey of Student Engagement, 2000). These findings are true because alcohol consumption is associated with poor memory, lack of concentration, and insufficient devotion to academic performance. However, those students that have enough time to study perform well in their academic endeavors (Greenwald, & Gillmore, 1998).