Introduction
Drug abuse and illegal drug trade have become common vices in society. In the USA, the issue of alcohol abuse has been a major societal challenge. This paper focuses on the effects of alcohol among high school students. Alcohol misuse has been a main concern in most schools because of its pernicious effects on the well-being and educational performance of learners.
For Instance, in the US, statics reveal that one out of four individuals in the age bracket of twelve to twenty years consume alcohol at least once every month.
The situation is worse among high school learners because most of them are within this age cluster and ingest more than five bottles of alcohol in a row at least twice a month. There is strong correlation between alcohol consumption and academic performance among students.
For instance, a student who wakes up in a trance after a heavy drinking spree can boycott lessons or fail to accomplish and turn in course work assignments on time. Apart from its direct outcomes on the years of learning or school completion, premature drinking could negatively affect the number and quality of college enrolment and work quality.
In examining the outcome of teenage alcohol misuse on quality of students’ academic grades, the author of this article applied a fixed-impact estimation model in assessing the grade point average (GPA) derived from various high schools.
The study utilized data from first and second Waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of teenage health. In-home interviews in the first and second waves were carried out when the academic year ended. Information derived from each respondent was linked with GPA data matching with the academic year during which the participant was registered or had just completed when the survey took place.
This study is therefore superior to the previously conducted ones because it correlates alcohol misuse with educational performance among teenage learners in high school.
The second strength of this survey is the fact that it is based on objective GPA information derived from school transcripts, mitigating the possibility of methodical biases. Finally, the study explored several variables, which could underlie a harmful impact of alcohol misuse on performance.
Apart from examining intermediaries associated with exposure to learning (day of learning missed); the study has also interrogated the outcome of alcohol misuse on students’ capacity to concentrate on meeting learning objectives. The interviews generated elaborate information on the leaner’s social environment, risk-taking habits, and other individual traits.
Conclusion
The above analysis shows that alcohol has pernicious effects on students’ academic profile. The survey demonstrates that misuse of alcohol among teenage high school learners has a minimal negative impact on GPA. However, these effects have some gender specific variations.
The findings revealed few negative impacts on GPA of male students that are caused by truancy and difficulties in coping with learning activities. On the other hand, there were no substantial negative outcomes on GPA of female students since most of them did not abuse alcohol, but those who did had high chances of having trouble.
Lastly, the outcome of drinking on completion of high school studies among male students is small and non-significant among females. Nonetheless, this does not suggest that female students are invulnerable to the destructive effects associated with drinking.