Ron - I share your concern about targeting a position and then seeking out
the statistic to support the desired position. This clearly is the
antithesis of the scientific method. This being said, however, I can
appreciate the wish of a health educator to track down a resource that was
originally cited to advance a particular point. What I think we in the
health education field need to be particularly careful about is what we do
with the "cited" information when we find it. For example in the 1991 White
Paper written by Eigen, an often cited source a few years back regarding
the impact of drinking on higher education, it was reported that
"...alcohol is a factor in 34% of all academic problems and 25% of the
dropouts" (p. 20). Now, we have a reputable document reporting an important
piece of information likely to turn the heads of many an administrator
concerned with the cost effectiveness of AOD programming in higher ed and
bottom lines, yet when we check Eigen's source, these data were
self-reported in the College Alcohol Survey conducted by Anderson and
Gadaleto in 1988. Now, I do not wish to diminish the importance of David
Anderson's work in his regular surveys of colleges, drinking, promising
practices, etc., but it is something of a leap for a health educator at the
U of Hard Knocks to go to the Provost and say that 34% of all "our"
academic problems and 25% of all "our" dropouts are "because" of alcohol
and then cite Eigen as the source.
It is important for us health educators to remember the "stat 101" maxim
that correlations do not imply causation. Even if there are data to support
the fact that 9 out of 10 rape victims or perpetrators were intoxicated at
the time of the incident, this correlation in and of itself is not
definitive evidence that intoxication caused either the victim's or
perpetrator's behavior. While we can document that intoxication does
increased the likelihood of a particular behavior for a particular type of
person (see the literature by Steele and Joseph on "Alcohol Myopia"), we
cannot make an arbitrary leap and say that alcohol use, or even excessive
alcohol use, causes rape.
In summary, we need to be VERY CAREFUL about taking a sound bite from the
six o'clock news and publishing a brochure that is distributed on campus.
We need to 1) consider the source of the data, e.g., do they result from an
empirical investigation or are these survey results/anecdotal information,
etc.? 2) if an empirical study, we need to consider its design, i.e., was
it sound and unbiased, was the sample random, etc? were good statistical
methods employed (for quantitative research)? and 3) not attempt to prove
causation by citing qualitative research. As important as qualitative
research may be, it is not designed to prove causation, e.g., 24 students
from campus "A" report believing "X" therefore "X" must be what all
students are thinking and the reason why we are going to hell in a
handbasket.
The single biggest temptation I must fight in my position as a health
educator and counselor educator is the temptation once having read an
interesting article to say, "Ah ha! Now I have the answer." Contrary to
popular belief, there is no silver bullet to slay the werewolf of high-risk
drinking, or the "campus phenomenon formerly know as 'binge drinking,'"
(although I heard this morning that The Artist Formerly Known as Prince has
now returned from his identity crisis and is again simply referring to
himself as Prince : )
Robert
Robert J. Chapman, Ph.D.
Coordinator, AOD Programs
Associate Faculty, Clinical/Counseling Psychology
La Salle University Counseling Center
1900 W. Olney Ave.
Philadelphia, PA 19141-1199
Phone: 215-951-1355 Fax: 215-951-1451
mailto:chapman@lasalle.edu
home page http://www.lasalle.edu/~chapman/home.htm
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