Thank you so much for your insights and your humor. I continue to learn so
much from your discussions.
Sincerely,
Jennifer
Robert J. Chapman, Ph.D. wrote:
> 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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