Quantitative method for social health - Research Paper Example

Background: Various colleges of higher learning s have banned the sale of tobacco within their premises in order to reduce the harms associated with tobacco smoking. It is because of this reason that numerous colleges in Australia have declared their campuses a smoking free zone, thou this is a realistically a long way but it would at least help in lowering the number of third chain smokers or those who could be influenced by the smoking behavior of others. Therefore, there is a pending concern as to whether the student will support the ban on sale of cigarettes. Method: A convenience sample of 30 individuals on campus was used to collect data. Most participants were students, with some staff members and others visiting the campus ]. The student researcher invited people to the De Cafe at Sturt campus on various occassions and at different times of the day until 30 people had agreed to participate in the research and state their opinion on banning the sale of cigarette within the campus. Results: The main research question sought to establish if Flinders University students support the ban on the sale of cigarettes on campus. The feedback obtained in regards to this question noted that majority (43.3%) of the participants did not really believe that the ban if sale of cigarettes on campus would improve their perception of Flinders university as a good place to study. Conclusion: The perception of whether Flinders University is a good place to study or not is greatly influenced by other factors other than the sale of cigarette within the campus Introduction Adolescent access to cigarettes contributes to of the adoption of smoking behavior. From the research already done, there is sufficient evidence to prove that children brought up in smoking families are more prone to start smoking at an early age (Breslau, & Peterson, 1996). This is so because they can easily get access to the cigarettes from their family members either with their consent or without. This group of children will then influence their peers to smoke even if their peers are from non-smoking families (Preston 1976, Tyas, and Pederson, 1999; US Department of Health and Human Services, 2000; Sargent, and DiFranza, 2003). This trend has triggered a campaign to help in prevention of smoking amongst the adolescent and the young generation. This has been enhanced by earlier research confirming that if by any chance the smoking behavior does not start at the adolescent stage, then a person will probably never engage or start smoking in future (Nelson, Paynter, and Arroll, 2011). The data collected reveals that the likelihood of cessation among the mature people has an inverse relation to initiation age (Chassin, Presson, Sherman, 1990; Coambs, Seline, Kozlowski, 1992). The research further concludes that infrequent experimental smoking at the teenage years has a significant increase in the risk of adult smoking (Di Franza et al., 1994; Moran, Wechsler, Rigotti, 2004). Once the adolescents’ starts smoking, it becomes very difficult to cease and there is a great chance to have a long-term addiction as a negative effect (Ahmed, P. and Gleeson, G. 1970). From the data collected in 2008 by Australian Secondary School Students' on Alcohol and drug survey, it showed that the easiest and the more likely way for adolescents for cigarettes access was found to be through their friends. Other adolescents were found to get access to cigarettes through request that they be bought for them by other people i.e. 17% of the current smokers (White, & Smith, 2009). Despite it being illegal to smoke or to sell tobacco products to persons under 18 years of age within the territories and states in Australia, approximately 20% of adolescents aged between 12 and 17 years reported to have bought their last tobacco products in year 2008 as compared with 23% that was recorded in year 2005 (Scollo&Winstanley, 2008). Other jurisdictions in this country have been known to report lower rates of adolescents purchasing tobacco products as compared to the above-indicated national data. In this case, in 2008, New South Wales reported that 8.7 or fewer than1 in 10 students aged between 12 and 17 years purchased their last cigarettes as compared with 22% in the year 2002 and 20% for the whole Australia. In other places like South Australia 15% of students that were aged between 12 and 17 years reported to have purchased their last cigarette in 2008 as compared with 19% recorded on 2002 (White, & Smith, 2009; Johnston, O'Malley, Bachman, &Schulenberg, 2005). This analysis suggests that the possibility of having a personal purchase of cigarette increases with age as well as with the frequency of smoking behavior. Tobacco control measures are benefiting quite a significant number of people worldwide. This is according to the 2013 World Health Organization’s (WHO) account on Global Tobacco Epidemic (WHO, 2013). According to the report, 2.3 billion people residing in 92 countries, which translate to about one third of the whole world’s population, are now sheltered by one measure at least from the negative effects of tobacco. This figure has increased by far past half in the already past five years. However, it is discouraging to note that tobacco smoking continues to be in the lead in the global cause of avoidable death, killing about six million people and leading to global economic damage of more than half a trillion dollars annually (Rigotti, Lee, & Wechsler, 2000). WHO has acknowledged six confirmation based tobacco control measures that have proven to be the most efficient in producing positive results (Harrald and Watkins, 2010). This was back in the year 2008. The measures have since then been known as “MPOWer” and they coincide to more than one of the demand reduction provisions contained in the WHO’s structure Convention on Tobacco control (WHO, 2013). Research question: Do Flinders University students support the ban on the sale of cigarettes on campus? Hypotheses 1. As cigarette is not a recreational drug, students will support a ban the sale of cigarettes on campus 2. Students who are current smokers will be as supportive of a ban on the sale of cigarettes as non-smokers 3. There will be different support for a ban on the sale of cigarettes between men and women 4. Older people will be less supportive of a ban on the sale of cigarettes than younger people Research plan, methods and techniques Study design According to O’Leary (2004), cross-sectional studies are descriptive studies that are part of group of research methods, which focus on the study of a particular population or a sample subset of the population during a specific point of time. Based on their approach, it is noted that cross sectional studies largely focus on providing information about a particular entire population rather than a small sample of the population. Robson (2002) on his part stated that since cross-sectional studies are descriptive it means that are pertinent in describing odds ratio, relative risks, and absolute risks that arise from prevalence of a particular disease and therefore, they can be used to devise and even support acclaimed causes and effects associated with a particular diseases or illness. According to O’Leary (2004), the cross-sectional studies have are particularly advantageous to this present study because of the fact that they are mostly suitable for health problems that are common such as cigarette smoking which is a global health issues. Secondly, this descriptive research method is more beneficial to the present study because of the fact that it can use data that has being routinely gathered thereby enabling large cross-sectional studies to be conducted at a lower cost. Through the cross-sectional study, the researcher will be able to look at the problem of cigarette problem and how it relates to various health problems that are largely attributed to cigarette smoking. The cross-sectional studies will present limitation to this present study because of the fact that it will be difficult for the buy to recall past events involving the Flinders University students supporting the banning of the sale of cigarettes within the campus. Moreover, this creates a loophole for the researcher to be bias. Participants and sampling A convenience sample of 30 individuals on campus was selected. A convenience sample is a sample selected due to their proximity to the researcher and even their convenient accessibility (Robson, 2002). Most participants were students, with some staff members and others visiting the campus for other reasons also included in the sample. The student researcher invited people to the De Cafe at Sturt campus over several times and at different times of the day until 30 people had agreed to take part in this research. The sample included both males and females, ages 18 and up. The survey was distributed to both smokers and non-smokers in order to attain a diverse sample. Data collection Data was collected using questionnaires, which contained questions that had been adopted from other previous research studies that bordered on the same research objective as this present research study. The actual center for data collection was the De Cafe at Sturt Campus whereby 30 participants provided back filled up questionnaires. A pilot study to test the suitability of the questionnaires for this present study was conducted whereby the researcher issued the sample questionnaires to her roommates in order to gauge how the questionnaires were being answered and any sections or wordings within the questionnaire that could be confusing to the participants. The pilot test was conducted in two days and through the process, the researcher was able to rectify the weak areas within the questionnaires. Data analysis Grounded Theory’ is applied for analyzing questionnaires and building theory with the combination of inductive and deductive approach. According to Robson (2002), ‘grounded theory’ is utilized to generate information inductively through the collection of data, after this the deductive approach is adopted in order to form conclusions based on logic. Descriptive data analysis was performed using the IBM SPSS whereby the findings of the research study were put to various test and in particular, the chi-test in order to provide valuable responses to the research questions. Results Descriptive statistics Thirty participants took part in this research. What are the characteristics of your sample. How many men/women, how old were they, what degrees were they studying? How many smokers and non-smokers? Students tended to be ambivalent, unsure about whether a selling ban would make Flinders University a better place to study or work (See Figure 1). This general finding affects all subsequent cross-analyses by smoking propensity, gender, and age group. Logically enough, therefore, the hypothesis test summary is statistically significant for the null hypothesis that the distribution is uniform (p=0.021). The null hypothesis can be rejected but given that the variable of concern is attitudinal, there seems no point to accepting the alternate hypothesis. According to whether participants smoked Given the fact that the 4 cells used during the chi-square test had an expected count that is less than 5, the minimum expected count was 1.00. The P value that was obtained from the study is 0.726, which is beyond the stipulated minimum count of 1.00. Therefore, this test of independence shows that there is no statistically significant relationship between propensity for smoking and attitude toward banning the sales of cigarettes on campus and it means that it is impossible to reject the null hypothesis that propensity to smoke is independent of attitudes towards banning the sale of cigarettes on the Flinders campus. Case Processing Summary Cases Valid Missing Total N Percent N Percent N Percent Do you curently smoke? * Would a ban on the sale of cigarettes on campus improve your perception of Flinders University as a good place to study or work? 30 100.0% 0 0.0% 30 100.0% Do you curently smoke? * Would a ban on the sale of cigarettes on campus improve your perception of Flinders University as a good place to study or work? Crosstabulation Would a ban on the sale of cigarettes on campus improve your perception of Flinders University as a good place to study or work? Total A lot A little Not really Not at all Do you curently smoke? yes Count 1 6 7 1 15 Expected Count 2.5 5.0 6.5 1.0 15.0 no Count 4 4 6 1 15 Expected Count 2.5 5.0 6.5 1.0 15.0 Total Count 5 10 13 2 30 Expected Count 5.0 10.0 13.0 2.0 30.0 Chi-Square Tests Value df Asymp. Sig. (2-sided) Exact Sig. (2-sided) Exact Sig. (1-sided) Point Probability Pearson Chi-Square 2.277a 3 .517 .726 Likelihood Ratio 2.407 3 .492 .726 Fisher's Exact Test 2.401 .670 Linear-by-Linear Association .730b 1 .393 .526 .263 .119 N of Valid Cases 30 a. 4 cells (50.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is 1.00. b. The standardized statistic is -.854. According to gender This next test of independence shows that there is no statistically significant relationship between gender and attitude toward banning the sales of cigarettes on campus. This is because there were 6 cells used in the Chi Square test, and the expected count was less than 5 while the P value was 0.447, which was slightly less than the minimum expected count of 0.47. This therefore, validates the null hypothesis that gender is independent of attitudes towards banning the sale of cigarettes on campus. Case Processing Summary Cases Valid Missing Total N Percent N Percent N Percent Q1 What is your gender? * Would a ban on the sale of cigarettes on campus improve your perception of Flinders University as a good place to study or work? 30 100.0% 0 0.0% 30 100.0% What is your gender? * Would a ban on the sale of cigarettes on campus improve your perception of Flinders University as a good place to study or work? Crosstabulation Would a ban on the sale of cigarettes on campus improve your perception of Flinders University as a good place to study or work? Total A lot A little Not really Not at all Q1 What is your gender? male Count 5 8 9 1 23 Expected Count 3.8 7.7 10.0 1.5 23.0 female Count 0 2 4 1 7 Expected Count 1.2 2.3 3.0 .5 7.0 Total Count 5 10 13 2 30 Expected Count 5.0 10.0 13.0 2.0 30.0 Chi-Square Tests Value df Asymp. Sig. (2-sided) Exact Sig. (2-sided) Exact Sig. (1-sided) Point Probability Pearson Chi-Square 2.781a 3 .427 .447 Likelihood Ratio 3.767 3 .288 .412 Fisher's Exact Test 2.789 .397 Linear-by-Linear Association 2.610b 1 .106 .133 .085 .058 N of Valid Cases 30 a. 6 cells (75.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is .47. b. The standardized statistic is 1.616. According to age The last test of independence shows that there is no statistically significant relationship between age and attitude toward banning the sales of cigarettes on the Flinders campus. This is because from the 6 cells used in the Chi Square test the expected count was less than 5 and the P value that was obtained is 0.151, which additionally failed to meet the minimum expected count of 0.60. This therefore, validates that the null hypothesis that age is independent of attitudes towards banning the sale of cigarettes on campus. Case Processing Summary Cases Valid Missing Total N Percent N Percent N Percent AgeGroups * Would a ban on the sale of cigarettes on campus improve your perception of Flinders University as a good place to study or work? 30 100.0% 0 0.0% 30 100.0% AgeGroups * Would a ban on the sale of cigarettes on campus improve your perception of Flinders University as a good place to study or work? Crosstabulation Would a ban on the sale of cigarettes on campus improve your perception of Flinders University as a good place to study or work? Total A lot A little Not really Not at all AgeGroups young people Count 3 1 5 0 9 Expected Count 1.5 3.0 3.9 .6 9.0 older people Count 2 9 8 2 21 Expected Count 3.5 7.0 9.1 1.4 21.0 Total Count 5 10 13 2 30 Expected Count 5.0 10.0 13.0 2.0 30.0 Chi-Square Tests Value df Asymp. Sig. (2-sided) Exact Sig. (2-sided) Exact Sig. (1-sided) Point Probability Pearson Chi-Square 5.348a 3 .148 .151 Likelihood Ratio 6.097 3 .107 .158 Fisher's Exact Test 4.821 .140 Linear-by-Linear Association .556b 1 .456 .495 .305 .140 N of Valid Cases 30 a. 6 cells (75.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is .60. b. The standardized statistic is .746. Discussions To begin with, the voluntary support of the ban of the sale of cigarette at the campus is a positive indication that the students, and university staff as well as other stakeholders are well aware of the negative implications of selling cigarettes within the campus background and in particulars, the health problems that are associated with cigarette smoking. The main research question sought to establish if Flinders University students support the ban on the sale of cigarettes on campus. The feedback obtained in regards to this question noted that majority (43.3%) of the participants did not really believe that the ban if sale of cigarettes on campus would improve their perception of Flinders university as a goof place to study. This nullified the hypothesis that as cigarette is not a recreational drug, students will support a ban the sale of cigarettes on campus (Halliwell and Poulse, 2007). The response obtained on this question could infer to various assumptions that include an assumption that there are insignificant number of smokers within the campus and therefore, a ban on the sale of cigarette could make less impact on the perception that people have on the Flinders University. Secondly, this response infers that there are other greater factors that influence the perception people have on the university other than the sale of cigarettes within the campus. In regards to the opinion of whether smokers and non-smokers believed the banning of the sale of cigarette could influence their perception of the university, majority of smokers stated that not at all while non-smokers stated not really, which nullified the hypothesis the current smokers will be as supportive as non-smokers on the ban of cigarette selling. Therefore, banning of the sale of cigarettes within the campus will not have any significant impact on the perception of smokers or non-smokers further indicating that cigarette smoking might not be a major issue at the university (Kozlowski et al. 2001). In regards to gender it was noted that majority of the male stated that their perception about the university as a good place to study would change a little if a ban was imposed on the sale of cigarettes within the university. This inferred there is possibility majority of smokers are male and therefore, the male participants are more affected by the sale of cigarettes within the university campus. As for the female participants, they stated that their perception of the university would not be changed to a greater extent if there was a ban on the sale of cigarettes within the campus. The differences in the opinion across gender validated the hypothesis that there will be different support for a ban on the sale of cigarettes between men and women. In terms of age, it was noted that young participants would not greatly change their perception if the sale of cigarette was banned within the campus while the older participants indicated that their perception would change slightly, which nullified the hypotheses, which stated older people would be less supportive. This inferred that majority of smokers within the campus could be older people and therefore, they are more disrupted by the sale of cigarette within the campus (Dhillon, 1985). The response obtained relates to the theory presented by Breslau and Peterson (1996) and Clinard and Meier (2010), which stated that people would not champion against certain vices that have a negative impact on their health if they are not directly affected by the issue. Therefore, it is say that the issue of cigarette smoking has not reached an alarming level at the Flinders University as well as the surrounding environment. Strength and limitation of the study The key strength of the study is drawn from the fact that it mainly seeks to establish whether people think the banning of cigarette sale is a resolution to the health problem of smoking of which the findings have clearly noted that this does not have a significant impact. This study is limited in the sense that it does not look into the causes of cigarette smoking and actual ways of resolving this health problem. Conclusion From the study, it is evidently clearly that there are other factors, which influence the perception that people might have on the Flinders University of which this could be the quality of education at the institution, the learning environment, the experience of the teaching staff, or the entire organization of the school among other factors. Therefore, the banning of the sale of cigarette will not have a major influence on the perception that people have on the university, which alludes to the fact that there level of cigarette smoking could not be at an alarming level to an extent that it disrupts the learning process. Top of Form References Ahmed, P. and Gleeson, G. 1970. Changes in cigarette smoking habits between 1995 and 1966. 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Canberra: WHO (2013). WHO Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic, 2013 - The MPOWER Package. Geneva: World HealthOrganization. Read More