Date of Award

5-12-2012

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Honors Thesis

Department

Sociology

First Advisor

Dr. Katherine Novak

Abstract

The purpose of the present research was to evaluate the alcohol prevention program of a small Midwest university. It was hypothesized that the students' knowledge about the potential negative consequences of alcohol use and intentions to engage in responsible drinking at the end of the program would not affect students' drinking behaviors. The residential freshmen at Butler University (population = 860) were requested to participate in two surveys to measure the independent variables of knowledge and responsible drinking, the dependent variable of drinking behavior, and control variables of gender and high school drinking. The variables were measured using sets of true or false, open-ended or close-ended questions related to each variable. The first survey was administered directly after the alcohol prevention program, called Red Cup Culture (n=683), followed by the spring survey (n=261), which resulted in a final matched sample of 184 respondents. Among the participants in the study, 79% were females, 32% drank in high school and 15% reported binge drinking. The results indicate that the respondents seemed to have the knowledge intended by the program, which was correlated with the intent to use protective behaviors; however, this did not translate into actual drinking behaviors, nor did drinking intentions.

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