Smoking as a Predictor of Underachievement Research Paper

Introduction

Smoking is a common trend among teenagers, which includes smoking both classic cigarettes and vaping disposables. Smoking is a severe public health threat and leads to many undesirable health consequences (Frederick Health, 2021). However, an issue of interest is identifying smoking as a potential predictor of reduced academic performance among adolescents. This paper proposes using inferential analysis to examine this relationship between two groups of adolescents, smokers, and nonsmokers, respectively.

Statistical Model

The null hypothesis is that there is no difference in academic performance between the two groups of adolescents depending on whether or not they are in the category of smokers. The dependent variable could be the grade point average assessed for a particular school year, such as K-12 for relatively mature adolescents. Testing sample averages for the two groups is the goal of the parametric t-test, which is based on examining the statistical difference between the averages (Hora, 2021). For example, one might assume that adolescents who smoke have comparably lower mean scores μ_smoking < μ_non-smoking, and thus the null hypothesis in this example is postulated as μ_smoking ≥ μ_non-smoking. The parametric test determines the statistical significance of this difference p-value, from which it can be concluded whether there is a proven effect of smoking on adolescent academic performance. The parametric nature of this test allows the results to be extrapolated to the general population, but in this case, the size of the two samples should be sufficient to reduce undesirable bias effects.

Conclusion

To summarize, it should be clarified that smoking may affect adolescent academic performance, but this assumption requires statistical testing. By comparing two groups — smoking and non-smoking adolescents — through a parametric t-test, it is possible to examine this assumption and draw conclusions based on the resulting p-value. This result implies a preventive practice that encourages smoking cessation among adolescents if the alternative hypothesis is accepted. If smoking does affect academic performance, then follow-up studies could test the effect of the frequency of this smoking in combination with additional predictors, such as alcohol consumption and video games, in multiple regression tests.

References

Frederick Health. (2021). Dangers of smoking at a young age. Frederick Health.

Hora, S. (2021). Parametric Tests — the t-test. TDS.