Alcohol Survey

1. Introduction

I like alcohol very much. How about you? What do you think about drinking? How many times do you drink per week? Should the drinking age be lowered to 18? Nowadays, alcohol causes many problems such as violence, traffic accidents and sexual assaults, especially, among young people. In “The National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (NHSDA) Report” the author says that “nearly 70 percent of underage persons who drank any alcohol in the past month had at least one occasion in that period when they consumed five or more drinks” (2003, p.3). It shows that many minors can drink even though it’s illegal. Therefore, many people argue about legal drinking age. We should consider whether changing the legal drinking age to 18 is right or not.


2. Purpose

Our group, EAP1-A, decided to find out how drinkers feel about legal drinking age in Carbondale. I wanted to know the relationship between gender and when people start drinking. Also, I wanted to know the relationship between gender and how people feel about alcohol. Moreover, I wanted to know the relationship between gender and thinking about legal drinking age.


3. Hypotheses

I had three hypotheses about drinking. First, I believed that males would say they started drinking earlier than females. Next, I believed that males didn’t care about drinking more than females. Third, I believed that males were more likely to agree to changing the legal drinking age to 18 than females.


4. Methods and Procedures

Our group was supposed to ask thirty-three males and thirty-three females at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. However, we only asked twenty-five males and twenty-four females. Almost all were students, probably. We prepared a survey that had nine questions, and it included a subjective question.


5. Data + Chart

http://eap1.blogspot.com/2008/02/practice-survey-results_27.html/


6. Results

Actually, females said they began to drink earlier than males. 61% females started drinking before 19 years old, and 48% males started drinking before that age. 66.3% people who are eighteen to twenty years old already started to drink. 70% people who are more than twenty years old disagreed that drinking age should be lowered.

http://eap1.blogspot.com/2008/02/practice-survey-results_27.html/

7. Conclusion and Discussion

I believed that males started to drink earlier than females. However, it was not true, because our survey showed that females began to drink earlier than males. And most people disagreed with changing the drinking age to lower, even young people, even though they already began to drink. It might mean they reason that drinking causes many problems. Moreover, about 15% people said that too much drinking was a problem in Carbondale. It is more than I thought. I’m interested in this survey, and I wonder that what kinds of facts could affect them.


8. Reference

Alcohol Use by Persons Under the Legal Drinking Age of 21. (2003, May 9). The NHSDA Report. Retrieved February 14, 2008, from http://www.oas.samhsa.gov/2k3/UndergeDrinking.htm/


9. Appendix

Copy of Survey

http://eap1.blogspot.com/2008/02/practice-survey-results.html/