Examining College Student Drinking Motives by Academic Division

Indianapolis, IN

College student alcohol consumption persists despite intervention and prevention efforts. One common method for examining college student alcohol consumption is to examine the reasons why students drink, or drinking motives (Cooper, 1994; Bosari & Carey, 2003). In the drinking motives literature, several demographic and personality factors relate to differences in college students' motives to consume alcohol. However, it is currently unknown whether academic area of study is related to drinking motives. To examine whether drinking motives differ among students of different academic colleges, data was collected from a sample of 4,430 students at a Midwestern university via an online survey. The results indicate that business students drink far more than students of any other academic college. After controlling for the amount that students drink, students of all academic divisions report drinking due to social motives (e.g., to party) more than they drink to cope with a negative mood, enhance a positive mood, or to conform to their peers. However, pairwise comparisons of the academic divisions within each drinking motive category revealed that engineering and computing students drink for social reasons less than students of any other academic college; they were also found to drink for conforming reasons less than all other divisions except for the creative arts. Additionally, students of the arts and science and education were found to drink for coping and enhancement reasons more than students of engineering and computing or business disciplines. These results could help university administrators to better address the issue of students' alcohol-related behavior.