Descriptive statistics were employed in the study to examine the data and spot trends in substance abuse among college students. The techniques are suitable since they enable the researchers to investigate the prevalence of various chemicals used in e-cigarettes and comprehend how college students see these items. However, reliance on self-reported data, which may not be accurate, is one of its possible weaknesses. The research dependency on students recalling and reporting their usage of electronic cigarettes may be subject to bias. Additionally, the study gave no information about the sample’s representativeness, which restricts the generalizability of the results. According to Kenne et al. (2017), since data were only gathered from one particular Midwestern university, the scope of the present findings is constrained. Finally, the analysis provided no details regarding the authenticity of the self-reported data. Overall, the limitation of descriptive statistics is that they only let one summarise the individuals or things they have measured, hindering the ability to encompass other individuals or items.
A convenience sample of 1,941 undergraduate students from a major American university was included in the study. As a result, the researchers gathered the most pertinent information to each part of the research topic. The requirement for inclusion was that participants must be enrolled in college at the moment. On the other hand, the exclusion criterion was that the respondents were prohibited from participating if they had used an e-cigarette during the previous 30 days.
The study’s findings revealed that marijuana, alcohol, and tobacco are among the drugs college students use in e-cigarettes. Nicotine and marijuana were the two substances utilized most frequently. E-cigarette use among college students was reported for socializing, unwinding, and getting high. Descriptive statistics were employed in the study to examine the data and spot trends in substance abuse among college students. Present tobacco cigarette smokers (51.0%) reported OSUE at a considerably higher rate than never (33.7%) and past (15.4%) users (Kenne et al., 2017). As a result, the results of the research were statistically significant.
There were significant disparities in the outcomes between the study’s groups. At the end of the trial, the group using electronic cigarettes with nicotine had a much higher rate of smoking cessation than the one using e-cigarettes without nicotine. The group who used e-cigarettes containing nicotine experienced a much higher rate of reduction in daily cigarette smoking compared to the one that used nicotine-free e-cigarettes.
Reference
Kenne, D. R., Fischbein, R. L., Tan, A. S., & Banks, M. (2017). The use of substances other than nicotine in electronic cigarettes among college students. Substance Abuse: Research and Treatment, 11, 1-8.