Alcohol Consumption by Dartmouth Students James Seidman, Matthew Shwartz, Alyssa Palmer, Eugene Oh

Why this topic? In 1998, the college conducted a drinking risk assessment survey We believed the results to be incorrect Our expectations: higher numbers

Comparison We decided to use the exact same questions from the 1998 survey This would allow for a parallel comparison of our results to those collected by the college

The Survey 1.What is your graduation year at Dartmouth? 2.Are you male or female? 3.Are you affiliated with a coed, fraternity, or sorority? 4.Have you consumed five or more drinks on one occasion within the last two weeks? 5.Have you consumed five or more drinks two or more times in the past two weeks?

The Survey Continued 6. Have you missed class within the last year due to alcohol? 7. Have you drunk to relax or relieve tension within the past year? 8.Have you drunk as a reward for working hard within the past year? 9.How many drinks have you had in the past week? 10.How many drinks do you have in a typical week at Dartmouth?

Who was surveyed? Students from each of the 4 classes were randomly selected for the survey 1300 students in total were sent the survey through Blitzmail

Random Sampling We used a random number table with the numbers corresponding to classes and letters of the alphabet We continually narrowed down, first by class and then by letters of the last name, to determine who would randomly receive the survey

Responses Of 1300 students surveyed, we received a total of 163 responses This is approximately a 12.5% response rate Why such a low rate? –Length of the survey –Administered on a weekend –Dealt with a sensitive issue

Dealing with Bias Non-response bias- –We increased our n to a very high value, hoping to guarantee a large number of responses Under-coverage- –We sent the survey to all portions of society in each of the 4 classes at Dartmouth

More Bias Interviewer Bias- –Names were selected randomly by numerical values and surveys were administered by blitz Reprisal Bias- –Interviewees were assured that answers would be kept private and confidential –Information was strictly for student research and there were no possible consequences

Margin of Error In order to calculate the margin of error, we divided 1 by the square-root of 163 and found a value of 7.8% This is a large margin of error and any further conclusions must be viewed in light of this

And now…

The Results

Hypothesis Testing For the following tests, we used a level of significance of.05

Hypothesis Testing 2

Hypothesis Testing 3

Hypothesis Testing 4

Hypothesis Testing 5

Conclusions We were unable to make conclusions about any difference in the relationship between the 2002 and 1998 samples with regards to their definition of binge drinking (5 or more drinks) We were able to conclude that the rate of missing class due to alcohol and the rate of drinking to relax is statistically significantly lower in 2002 than in 1998

Conclusions We were able to conclude that the rate of students drinking alcohol as a reward is statistically significantly greater in 2002 than in 1998