Question

You conducted a study on the relationship between alcohol consumption and depression among college students in which you distributed a survey to 300 college seniors. Students who completed the survey responded to a standardized questionnaire measuring depression symptoms and to a series of questions about their typical alcohol consumption patterns. The results of your study indicated that the correlation between depression and alcohol consumption was +.34.

Explain what this correlation means in terms of direction and strength.

One possible explanation for this relationship is that depression causes people to drink more. What are two other possible explanations for this correlation? What are they?

This study was a descriptive/correlational study. Explain to me why you would NOT use an experimental study to examine these two variables.

Answer 1

The correlation coefficient of +0.34 indicates that the two variables are positively correlated with each other that is, increase in the symptoms of depression would likely lead to increase in alcohol consumption. However, the magnitude of the correlation indicates a weak correlation between depression an aclcohil consumption in the sample of college students as the value of 0.34 is closer to a ‘zero’ correlation coefficient or no significant relationship. Both +1.00 and -1.00 indicate strong correlations and values farthermost away from this show weak correlations.

The correlation between the two variables could be due to other factors such as academic stress which increase both depression due to stress and alcohol consumption as stress buster. Another reason for the correlation values could have been the type of sample of college students as there can be gender differences in the way Male and female students respond to questions about their drinking habit as females are more likely to not report higher levels of drinking due to the stereoytpes about gender appropriate behaviours.

The given study is a descriptive study and it uses correlational data. For such a study, the experimental method is not suitable as the findings cannot be used to draw generalisations about the population from the study of the sample. The experimental method is more appropriate for inferential reasearch. Moreover, there can be ethical issues in devising a laboratory manipulation of the sample in term of the variables of depression and alcohol consumption as both are associated with uncontrollable negative consequences.