RA_FINAL; 5.5.15

Running Head: STUDENT’S OPINION ON ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION AND LAWS 1

Student’s Opinion on Alcohol Consumption and Laws: Senior Seminar Project

Rashida Abrahams

PSY/SOC 452, Section A,

Robin Das, PhD

5 May 2015

Author’s Note: This research project was supported by Dr. Robin Das to Rashida Abrahams at

Concordia College – New York.

STUDENT’S OPINION ON ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION AND LAWS 2

Table of Contents

Abstract………………………………………………………………………………………....…3

Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………..4

Literature Review………………………………………………………………………………….4

Methods…………………………………………………………………………………………..14

Results and Data Analysis…………………………………………………………………….....16

Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………….........19

Appendices……………………………………………………………………………………….21

References……………………………………………………………………………………..…26

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Abstract

This paper will discuss the various stages of completing this senior seminar research project. The

research question is: What factors influence a student’s choice to consume or refrain from

consuming alcohol and what are their attitudes toward the legal drinking age? In this two-part

research question, the first part looked at some important factors which influence people to

consume alcohol or not. The second section entails the Minimum Legal Drinking Age (MLDA)

and the participant’s opinions concerning that area. The literature review is broken into sections

that show the connection between alcohol and religion, college students, ethnicity, policy and

law. The methods sections looks at how I gathered and analyzed the data for this research topic. I

used a questionnaire and analyzed the participant’s answers. Through this method, I was able to

gather some results that discussed how factors such as age, religion and ethnicity influence

people to drink alcohol. These factors, especially some religions and Christian denominations,

teach their followers to abstain from alcohol. Participants generally believed that students 18

through 20 should be allowed to drink, but many contradicted themselves when they did not

agree that the MLDA should be lowered to 18 years. It is concluded that it is best for the MLDA

to remain at 21 years to reduce the consequences that many students age 18 to 20 could

experience.

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Student’s Opinion on Alcohol Consumption and Laws: Introduction

Alcoholism is a prevalent problem on college campuses in America. The minimum age to

legally drink is 21 years old, but that does not decrease underage drinking. Instead the highest

cases of drunkenness in America come from high school and undergraduate students under 21.

This topic is important to studies in social science because it gives a light on why underage

college students prefer to drink while others do not. It also raises the question of why and does

certain factors have a determining influence on a person’s choice to either drink or not. This

project is intended to give the view point of how these college students feel toward the legal

drinking age being 21 years. Some questions revolve around whether the participant believes that

it would be a good idea for the legal drinking age to drop to 18 or not. This is important because

it is good to understand how some students feel toward these legal alcoholic restrictions.

This study will examine some of the variables that may cause a person to drink or refrain

from drinking alcohol. This study concludes by asking students to answer questions that share

their feelings toward the MLDA in America. The research question for this topic is: What factors

influence a student’s choice to consume or refrain from consuming alcohol and what are their

attitudes toward the legal drinking age?

Literature Review

To answer my research question, I had to read and summarize various academic articles

that would give a clearer understanding of the factors which affect underage drinking as well as

the policies that keep the underage laws in place. I begin my literature review by discussing the

connection between alcohol and religious beliefs, college students and ethnicity. I then give

insight into the laws and policies associated with alcohol consumption.

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Alcohol and religion/beliefs

Part of my research question was figuring out if religion is a factor that influences people

to drink or abstain from drinking alcohol. Researchers Emily H Bretching et al (2010) conducted

a study entitled, “The Role of Religious Beliefs and Behaviors in Predicting Underage Alcohol

Use,” which focused on finding the correlation between personal religious beliefs and alcohol

consumption. Bretching et al (2010) suggested that a person’s choice to consume alcohol is

rooted in their religious piety and practices. This explained that those who are not very religious

might not feel that convicted when drinking, as those who are associated with some conservative

religious teachings that discourage drinking alcoholic beverages.

Some religious groups allow their followers to drink alcohol while others strongly advise

their followers to abstain from consuming it. One of these religious groups that discourage

alcohol consumption is Islam. One of the questions on my questionnaire asked “Choose your

religion or belief”. 5 of the 80 participants wrote that they associated themselves with the

Muslim religion. Out of those 5 participants, 4 said that they do not drink alcohol because of

their religion or because it was morally wrong. The one participant who admitted that she drinks,

drank less than once a month and only at social engagements. Michalak and Trocki (2006) wrote

an article, “Alcohol and Islam: an overview” about Islam’s historical and current view on alcohol

consumption. Alcohol is prohibited or otherwise strongly discouraged among Islamic teachings.

Consequently, those in the Muslim religion have a high rate of alcohol abuse. There are several

references in the Quran, the Islamic holy book, that teach Muslims to abstain from drinking

alcohol. The one that has particular relevance to my research question is “Satan’s plan is (but) to

excited enmity and hatred between you, with intoxicants and gambling, and hinder you from the

remembrance of God, and from prayer: Will ye not then abstain? (Quran 5.94). This quote

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specifically instructs those, who observe the religious teachings of the Quran, to resist the urge to

drink; it separates them from God and prayer which is what they believe Satan wants. This may

be why many of the participants who said they were Muslim said they did not drink because of

religious teachings.

Now that it is evident that a religion or belief can play a major role in guiding someone’s

decision to drink or not, it would be interesting to further investigate why this occurs. Authors

Shepperd et al (2014) wrote an article entitled, “Does religion offer worldviews that dissuade

adolescent substance use?” In this article, they give evidence of a different scientific article

which suggested that religion has authority and therefore influences people to drink or not. There

are three theorized meanings as to why some youth may not drink. The first word is, personal

integrity, or the idea that the person has strong moral feelings as to why they should not drink.

The second phrase is “a sense of meaning” which implies that religious people have a higher

purpose in life instead of wasting their life by drinking. Last is, “moral compass” which suggests

that people do not drink because they feel like it is morally wrong. Shepperd et al (2014) noticed

that religious people had less cases of misused substances (that includes alcohol) than the non-

religious students.

Alcohol and college students

This next section discusses the association between alcohol and college students. Barry,

Stellefson and Woolsey (2014) evaluated student’s thoughts and beliefs about underage drinking.

They conducted a study where the asked under aged drinkers if they thought they were

responsible enough when they drank. They came to the conclusion that most underage drinkers

in fact admitted that they are less likely to drink responsibly. Results also showed that both over

aged and under aged students have similar feelings toward responsible drinking habits. These

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scholars strongly believed that if the drinking age was lowered to eighteen years, it would result

in more dire consequences on campus such as more hospitalizations. Two participants also

expressed their concern if the MLDA was lowered to 18 years and they were both under 21. The

first participant said, “I’m very in between because it really depends on how much responsibility

underage drinkers would be willing to take because at this age we’re all risk-takers and judgment

isn’t very well developed yet…” The next participant said, “I believe it is better to keep the

drinking age at 21 because people younger than that are not responsible or mature yet. There is

not enough education about the consequences of alcohol in schools.” Both of these participants

argued that students 18-20 are not yet ready to be responsible in drinking alcoholic beverages.

Although some students do not think that underage college students should be drinking

alcohol, it is being widely distributed on college campuses around America. 28 participants who

were 18-20 years old said that they drink alcohol either once every so often or some said more

than once per week. One question we should be asking is “How do underage college students

obtain alcohol?” One reason is that they illegally buy it themselves but another reason is that

college students 21 and older are supplying underage students with drinks or the means to obtain

drinks. This is the theory that Brown, Matousek and Radue (2009), authors of the article “Legal-

Age Students’ Provision of Alcohol to Underage College Students: An Exploratory Study” came

up with. They concluded that college students 21 and over do buy alcohol for underage students.

They also found out that many adults 21 and over stopped purchasing drinks for underage

drinkers when the law was strongly enforced or if there were serious consequences for buying

drinks for students under 21. Brown, Matousek and Radue (2009) concluded that if there were

stricter law enforcement as well as educating people on the consequences of buying and

distributing alcoholic beverages to underage students, it could decrease under age alcohol

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consumption. They believe that the reason so many college students drink is because adults 21

and over give it to or drink with them.

Not only should people think about how under aged college students obtain alcohol, but

what are some of the factors and consequences of underage drinking? White and Hingson (2013)

tackled this question by acquiring data on what causes college students to drink and what are

some of the consequences from excess drinking habits. Although the study focuses more on the

entire student body, i.e. college students age 18 and up which includes those who are 21 and

over, the factors and consequences apply to college students under 21. White and Hingson

(2013) resulted that college students who engage in weekly binge drinking will most likely black

out, vandalize property, have unprotected or forced sex or drive a vehicle. People chose to binge

drink because of their personal choice or because of strong influences from their college

environment, i.e. Greek socializations, parties etc. Males are more likely to participate in heavy

drinking than females. None of the questions on my survey asked about the consequences to

drinking alcohol, but this article explains how excessive drinking among college students can

result in negative repercussions.

Alcohol and ethnicity

Another factor or variable that has an impact on whether college students choose to drink

or not is their ethnicity. I will first give my three references and then I will explain how this

correlates with my study. Psychologists Cacciola and Nevid (2014) considered whether one’s

background influences college students’ desire to drink in their article, “Alcohol consumption in

relation to residence status and ethnicity in college students.” Their results showed that Whites

(Non-Hispanic) had higher rates of drinking than Blacks and Asians. Whites male and females

did not have a significant difference in alcoholic consumption but more Hispanic females

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reported that they drink than Hispanic males. Cacciola and Nevid (2014) hypothesized that

Minorities (i.e. Non-Caucasian people) were less likely to consume alcohol than Whites.

Dr. Karen Chartier and Dr Raul Caetano (2010) wrote in their article, “Ethnicity and

Health Disparities in Alcohol Research,” if ethnicity correlates with how much alcohol people

drink or if they were dependent on it. Chartier and Caetano noticed that there are differences in

alcohol consumption and dependence. Hispanics are reported to have the high drinking

consumption while Whites are at risk for alcoholic disorders. Native Americans have high rates

in both of the latter problems. High alcohol dependence rates were high in Blacks and Hispanics.

The researchers showed results that said that Minorities were most likely to suffer from notable

consequences from drinking alcohol.

“Alcohol Use and Related Problems Among Ethnic Minorities in the United States” was

an article written by observers Galvan and Caetano (2003). They wanted to examine alcohol use

between the various minority ethnic groups, i.e. African Americans, Hispanics (Non-white),

Asian Americans and Native Americans, compared to Whites in America. They also wanted to

look at the social norms that involve alcoholism within the minority groups. They found that

Asians typically drink less alcohol than Whites and other ethnic groups because of a biological

gene which causes Asians to not break down alcohol like many other ethnic groups. Galvan and

Caetano (2003) mentioned Caetano and Clarks’ (1999) study which said, “In national probability

sample, both Blacks and Hispanics have reported more conservative alcohol norms and attitudes

than whites, which are reflected in the greater abstention rates among Blacks and Hispanics than

among Whites.” Some of the data from these three studies do not all completely align. They

generally conclude that Whites have a high percentage of alcohol drinkers while minorities have

problems with alcohol but it might be different or lower than Whites. The results from data also

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show that whites have the highest percentage of alcoholic drinkers followed by Blacks and

Hispanics; Asians, not including Native Americans, had the lowest percentage of alcohol

drinkers.

Alcohol and policy

The second part of my literature review will provide academic articles that discuss

alcohol, policy and law. Pendelton, Smith and Roberts (1990) published an article named,

“Public opinion on alcohol policies.” The article discussed how British organizations confronted

alcohol use and have used various means to limit its use and distribution. They noticed that

some policies are supported by the public such as the labeling of alcoholic drinks or more

awareness concerning driving while under the influence. Pendelton, Smith and Roberts (1990)

showed that one part of their survey shared people’s opinions about whether the underage

drinking laws should be more monitored. The results showed that 92% of the participants

believed that laws should be stricter when it comes to monitoring under aged drinking. My

participants did not have any questions about whether underage drinking laws should be

monitored or not. They did think that if 18 year olds can join the army then they should be

eligible to drink alcohol.

Over the years, there have been many debates on whether the legal drinking age in the

United States should be 21 or if it should be lowered to 18 years. Authors Treno et al (2015)

wrote an article about alcohol policies in the United States. Their article, “A Review of Alcohol

and Other Drug Control Policy Research” examines the results of alcohol policies over the past

seventy-five years. Part of their study was dedicated to looking at the effects of the minimum

drinking age that is legalized in the United States. The Minimum Legal Drinking Age (MLDA)

was chosen by each state in the mid-20th century and the ages varied between different states.

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Treno et al (2015) noted that after Massachusetts increased its legal drinking age from 18 to 20,

car accidents decreased. Alcohol related fatalities decreased 19% when the legal law was

increased to 21. In 1984, The National Minimum Drinking Age Act was passed which increased

the MLDA from 18 to 21 years and has been that way ever since. The authors wrote sales of

alcohol to minors could reduce if law enforcement is taken more seriously.

Like Treno and colleagues, Wechsler and Nelson (2010) also discussed thoughts

regarding the Minimum Legal Drinking Age (MLDA) and it policies in there article, “Will

Increasing Alcohol Availability By Lowering the Minimum Legal Drinking Age Decrease

Drinking and Related Consequences Among Youths.” They gave a quick summary about the

history of alcohol consumption in the 20th century from the end of Prohibition to when the

MLDA was established in 1984. The MLDA was brought back up from 18 years to 21 because

there were increased tragedies, especially vehicle crashes, and the increased selling and

consumption of alcoholic beverages. Although the MLDA is 21, many college students ages 18-

20 consume high levels of alcohol. This caused some college faculty and staff to wonder if the

21 and over legal drinking age was doing any good since under aged college students were still

consuming alcohol. 135 colleges and universities created a petition, called the Amethyst

Initiative, in 2009 which encouraged law and policy makers to lower the MLDA from 21 years

to 18 years. They argue that the reason there has been an improvement of less vehicle crashes is

because vehicles and road safety have improved, not because there is less drinking among

college students. Wechsler and Nelson (2010) gave opposing viewpoints on lowering the

MLDA. Studies show that adults felt that if the MLDA was lowered, there would be more cases

of alcohol related disorders and abuses. These studies also brought up that there were fewer

vehicle crashes because the MLDA was 21 years. They also noted that countries that have the

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legal drinking age lower than 21 have negative consequences, especially in Europe. Some

participants thought that since some college students are illegally drinking alcohol anyway, why

not lower the age to 18. Maybe if they saw the statistics they show the detrimental results of 18-

20 year olds who consume excessive amounts of alcohol then they would have a different

opinion.

Alcohol and law

In 2004, the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics published an article entitled, “Reducing

Underage Drinking: The Role of Law.” This article gave the responses of James Mosher, Ralph

Hingson, John F. Bunker, with Richard J. Bonnie as the moderator on their opinions about

underage drinking. These men are committee members of the National Academy of Sciences.

Mosher suggested that the social environment has a lot to do with why teenagers want to drink.

He said that alcohol is too easily available for underage drinkers to obtain and there should be

stronger restrictions. Hingson and Bunker explained how the lack of alcohol prevention sites and

alcohol treatment centers continue to allow young adults to engage in underage drinking. For

example, New Futures is a non-profit organization specializes in treatment and reducing cases of

underage drinking.

Social Scientists Valerie F Reyna et al (2013) conducted a study which focused on how

effective these laws are. In their article, “Endorsement of a personal responsibility to adhere to

the minimum drinking age law predicts consumption, risky behaviors, and alcohol-related

harms” they explain how they divided a group of college students into 2 groups to gather their

results. One group acknowledges laws that uphold 21 as the legal drinking age, while the other

group disproves the law. The results revealed that groups who endorsed the law were less likely

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to consume high levels and alcohol and behave in a radical and inappropriate way. They also

noticed the reverse response occurred for the non-endorsers.

If laws were changed to age 18 for legalized drinking, it would affect socialization and

staff roles on campuses. More social events on campus would have alcoholic beverages and

Resident Staff would not have to confiscate or deal with the illegal possession of alcohol. Many

high school and college students are drinking on campuses anyway, so would lowering the

legalized age from twenty-one to eighteen make a difference? Disney, LaVallee, and Yi (2013)

focused on evaluating if laws that monitor underage drinking are indeed effective in reducing

minorities who drink. They wrote an article entitled, “The effect of internal possession laws on

underage drinking among high school students: a 12-state analysis” The results revealed that

mostly younger, i.e. 14 to 15 year old adolescents are more likely to stop drinking because of the

laws. Also, younger men were more likely to reduce their drinking habits. This study helps to

show that monitoring under aged drinking is beneficial to young teenagers, but did not reference

how it affects college students. These laws that require legal drinking to be 21 years and over, do

lessen the use and consumption of alcoholic beverages for students 18-20 years.

The following research project will examine the factors and attitudes toward the

MLDA. Some factors that will be discussed are college students, religion and ethnicity. There

will also be a discussion on the role law and policies have in deciding on a satisfactory legal

drinking age. My research question is: What factors influence a student’s choice to consume or

refrain from consuming alcohol and what are their attitudes toward the legal drinking age? The

results and discussions section of my project with help to answer my question.

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Methods

In this section, I will discuss the methods that I used to gather the data for my research

project. I looked at the various topics in social sciences that are popular in today’s culture and

took an interest to alcohol. Many students complete projects on alcohol because there are lots of

scientific journals and experiments discussing people’s involvement with alcohol. Some people

do not mind answering questions about alcohol and they find it interesting. Within the topic on

alcohol, I wanted to examine the different factors that guide people to either drink or abstain

from it. This allowed me to think if religion, age and ethnicity had any influence towards a

person’s desire to either drink or abstain from alcoholic beverages. After formulating my

questionnaire and reading through some literature review articles, I came up with the idea that I

wanted to study how these various factors (i.e. religion, age, and ethnicity) correlated with

alcohol consumption and abiding to alcohol laws.

I used a questionnaire as the primary source of gaining information for my project. I

organized this questionnaire into different sections. My first section focused on gathering some

background information on the participant. Next I asked the participant questions about their

home country and what age individuals are legally allowed to drink. Next I asked a question

about the participant’s religion and if they were Christian, what denomination they associated

themselves with. The middle section of the survey asked the participants if they drink and if so,

what influenced them. The last section asked the participants to share whether their thoughts

concerning underage drinking and whether they thought the US law and should be lowered to

eighteen years or not.

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Most of the questions on my questionnaire featured closed ended questions, so participants

checked off the questions that they agreed or disagreed with. I had a few open ended questions.

The part of these questions that were open ended asked why or why not the MLDA should be

lowered to 18 years. I also gave participants the opportunity to write some of their thoughts

about the MLDA. I asked a few background questions (i.e. age, sex, and country), religious

affiliation, and why did the person consumed alcohol or not. If they thought the legal drinking

age should be lowered, they could explain why or why not.

I used a deductive research which starts with a social theory and then supports it by using

tests and analyzing the data. My social theory was what influences people to drink or not and

their feelings toward the MLDA. I used a quantitative research and data analysis which is an

analysis based on the statistical summary of data. I analyzed the data from my questionnaire

using statistical computations in Microsoft Excel. I used the cross-sectional research design

which is a cross-section or a slice that cuts across an entire population. My population was the

entire student body at Concordia College and my sample was the 80 students who participated in

the survey. I collected all my data for the research project at one time. I decided to use a non-

probability sampling since I could not randomly select students and had to use an availability

sampling. I wanted to give my survey in a class setting to interested students and gave out the

questionnaire to anyone would complete it. I could not use random sampling because, in order

for a random sampling to effectively work, I would have to somehow randomly obtain names

from a roster of all the students.

Since it was a questionnaire, there was no known risks to this experiment. I maintained ethics

by making sure it was voluntary by having participants fill out a consent form. Only students 18

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years and over participated and I maintained confidentiality by making sure the participants

names was not written on questionnaire.

I used a nominal level variable which is when categories vary in kind not amount. Examples

include religion, sex, ethnicity, and GPA. A few of my independent variables are: ethnicity,

country of origin, religion or belief, and Christian denomination. My dependent questions were

mostly “Yes or “No” questions. Three of them are: “I think that college students ages 18-20

should be able to legally drink on and off campus.” “Do you think that students on college

campuses would drink more if the drinking age was lowered?” and “Do you think that the

drinking age should be lowered to 18 years?” This was an exploratory study which explored

undergraduate student’s feelings toward the legalized drinking age in America. It also explored

what factors may influence people’s choices to drink or not.

Results and Data Analysis

My results showed that my sample was influenced by the variables and generally had mixed

feelings when it came to deciding whether the drinking age should be lowered or not. I started

the questionnaire with some basic background questions. The first was age and most of my

participants were 20 years old (see appendix 1). I asked the participants to write down their sex;

80% were women while only 20% were men (see appendix 2). Question 5 asked participants to

write down their Race/Ethnicity. 30% were Hispanic, but it was closely followed by Blacks,

23%, and Whites, 20% (see appendix 3).

Students were asked to answer “yes” or “no” to three of the questions that was specifically

tailored to pin point people’s thoughts concerning the legal drinking age and whether it should be

lowered. The first question was, “I think that college students ages 18-20 should be able to

legally drink on and off campus." Do you agree with this statement? 44% said “no” and 56%

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said “yes” (see appendix 4). The next statement was, “Students ages 18-20 would drink more if

the drinking age was lowered from 21 to 18 years in the US.” The results from this question held

a bigger difference than the first question. This results showed that 49 participants said “yes” and

31 undergraduates said “no.” (see appendix 5). The results showed that many college

undergraduates think that the legal drinking age should be dropped and that this would increase

drinking on campus. Question 17 which asks, “Do you think that the drinking age should be

lowered to 18 years?” only 39 said “yes” and 41 said” no” (see appendix 6).

I created a table which exampled the correlation between race and ethnicity and whether a

person drinks alcohol or not. If they drank alcohol, they had the option of choosing how often

they drank. These results should not be generalized to the overall population of people, this is

only the results from the 80 participants who filled out the survey. Out of the 9 Asians who

participated, only 3 said that they drank alcohol. The 3 Asian participants claimed they only

drank 1-3 times per month. 13 out of the 16 White students drank alcohol. 15 out of 24 Hispanic

students drank alcohol which is a little more than half of the Hispanic students. 14 out of 18

Blacks drink alcohol which only leaves 22% who do not drink. An interesting discovery is that

only 38% of the people who chose “Mixed/Other” drink alcohol while 5 out of the 13

“Mixed/other” participants drink once a week or less (see appendix 7).

I created a cross tabulation table that examined the correlation between religion and drinking

habits. The results from the 80 participants concluded that most people who associate

themselves as Christian drink alcohol; the highest number, which is 28, being 1-3 times per

month. 39 out of 57 Christians drank alcohol one or more times a month and only 32% did not

drink alcohol. Participants who associated themselves as Buddhist and Muslim had the highest

rates of people who do not drink. Only 2 individuals associated themselves as Buddhist and both

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of them did not drink alcohol. 80% of the Muslim participants do not drink which meant that

only 1 of the 5 Muslims drank alcohol. No one associated themselves as Hindu. The other three

options were “Atheist,” “Other,” and “I choose not to answer” and some did not answer the

question at all. The total number of participants who belonged to one of the previous list of

columns equals 16. 5 out of the 16 participants do not drink while 11 out of 16 drink alcohol (see

appendix 8). 39 participants answered “yes” to whether they think the legal age should be

lowered to 18 years and 41 said “no”. 44 participants answered question 18 which ask the

participants to choose a reason why they believe the drinking age should be lowered to 18 years.

34 participants agree with the choice that “Students under 21 are going to drink anyways.” 49

participants took the stance that the legal drinking age should not be lowered to eighteen years of

age. 27 participants chose either “all of the above” which included the statements, "there would

be more drunk students on campus" "there would be more alcohol related fights and crime on

campus" and "students 18-20 are more likely to get drunk or alcohol poisoning quicker than

students 21 and up"

The last part of the results from the data analysis will discuss improvements, mistakes and its

significance. If I had more time and resources, I would have increased my sample size from 80

participants to 1000. Maybe then I could have generalized it to college students in America. I

should have written more questions about how participants feel about the legal drinking age. For

example, one of my questions should have been, “Should Student Life staff and police monitor

and restrict the use of alcohol consumption among students 18 through 20.” I should have taken

out some of the background questions, such as GPA or what country they are from. If I had more

time or if I had a different research question, I could have looked for comparisons between some

of the back ground questions i.e. “Do underage residents drink more than commuters?” I re-

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arranged the question “Do you drink alcohol?” because I thought it was too intrusive and that

participants would feel uncomfortable answering the question honestly even though it is an

anonymous survey. I think that question 16 was not worded right. The question should have said

“Do you think that students age 18-20 would drink more if the legal drinking age was lowered

from 21 years to 18 years. If the question was worded this way, it would have made people think

closely about answering the question that connected to the legal drinking age.

There are a few significant reasons why the results are important to understand. First, I can

say that religion does have a role in influencing people’s choice to drink or not, but it does not

have as much of an influence on students drinking alcohol as age. I thought that more Christian

students would refrain from drinking because of their religion, but most of the people who

affiliated themselves with Christianity drank. Many students 21 and over did not want the

drinking age to be lowered which may suggest that they understand that students 18 through 20

are not responsible enough to legally buy and consume alcohol.

Conclusion

As stated before, by research question is: What factors influence a student’s choice to

consume or refrain from consuming alcohol and what are their attitudes toward the legal drinking

age? I cannot generalize this study because I only had 80 participants and that is not enough to

generalize to the entire population or the student body.

I found out that there are several factors that influence a person’s choice to drink alcohol

or not. First, a big factor is religion and ethnicity. Islam discourages its followers from

consuming alcohol. Some denominations of the Christian belief allow their followers to drink

while others do not. Ethnicity surprisingly also influences people to drink, according to some

studies, Asians are least likely to consume heavy amounts of alcohol while Caucasians tend to

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drink often. Other influences were age. In the study, most of the participants were between the

ages of 18 and 23 and most of those students drank alcohol.

Participants had varying thoughts about whether the legal drinking age should be changed

or not. Most participants believed that college students age 18 and up should be able to legally

drink on and off campus. Most students also believed that students would drink more alcohol on

campus if the age was lowered to 18 years. Lastly, most students thought that the drinking age

should not be lowered to 18 years. Some of the reasons were because they thought that students

ages 18 through 20 were not responsible or mentally developed enough to control their alcohol

intake. My results were for the most part consistent with the literature review. Many of the

authors expressed how the various factors like religion and ethnicity influence people’s decisions

to consume alcohol. They also believe that being a college student alone strongly influences a

person to consume alcohol. Also the reason many authors said that the legal drinking age should

remain 21 is because younger people tend to have more dire consequences from drinking

excessive amounts of alcohol like drinking and drinking or being a victim of rape. Many of the

participants who took my questionnaire said that the legal drinking age should not be lowered

because there would be more drunk students on campus who are more likely to commit alcohol

related crimes on campus. Overall I agree with the results from the study and literature review. It

answered my research questions and guided me to support the idea that the MLDA should in fact

remain at 21 years of age to provide a better, safer and healthier campus environment.

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Appendices

Appendix 1

Appendix 2

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Appendix 3

Appendix 4

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Appendix 5.1

Question 16: Do you think that students on college campuses would drink more if the drinking

age was lowered?

Q16 # of Participants

Age No Yes Grand Total

No Answer 2 2

18-20 15 28 43

21-23 12 14 26

>24 4 5 9

Grand Total 31 49 80

5.2

Appendix 6

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Question 17: Do you think that the drinking age should be lowered to 18 years?

Age # or Participants

No 41

NoAnswer 2

18-20 18

21-23 18

>24 3

Yes 39

18-20 25

21-23 8

>24 6

Grand Total 80

Appendix 7

Alcohol and Race/Ethnicity

White Hispanic Black Asian Mixed/OtherNo Alcohol 3 9 4 6 81-3/month 7 13 10 3 2Once/week 4 1 2 32+/week 2 1 2 Total 16 24 18 9 13 % Drink 81% 63% 78% 33% 38%No drink 19% 37% 22% 67% 62%

24


Appendix 8

Correlation between religion (Question 9) and count of drinks (Question 12)

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Count of DrinkQ12 DrinkQ12

Religion9 Age1 Don'tdrink1-3 per month 1 per week

2 or more per week Grand Total

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Choosenot 18-20 2 2 4

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Choosenot Total 2 4 1 7

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