Marijuana Use & Academic

AchievementMarion HughesSociology 391

Spring 2011

Q. 110: How many days out of the past 30 have you used marijuana?

0 1-5 6-10 11-15 16-20 21+

Recoded into 3 ordinal categories: 0 1-5 6 +

Independent Variable: Marijuana Use

Q14. Please indicate the range that best categorizes your current cumulative grade point average. Don’t have one 2.50 or less 2.51 – 2.67 2.68 – 3.50 3.51 or higher

Recoded into three ordinal categories: 2.67 or less 2.68 – 3.50 3.51 or higher

Dependent Variable: Cumulative GPA

Students who use marijuana will have lower GPAs than students who do not.

The frequency of marijuana use is negatively related to cumulative grade point average.

Research hypothesis

X2 = 2.177, df = 4, p <.703

Method: contingency table

No statistically significant relationship between marijuana use and GPA

My hypothesis is not supported

Bivariate results

Q. 204. What is your sex? female male

Hypothesis: Controlling for sex, the frequency of marijuana use is negatively related to cumulative grade point average.

Control variable: Sex

Females

X2 = 10.910, df =4, p <.028Cramer’s V = .235

Moderately strong, statistically significant relationship between marijuana use and GPA

However, my hypothesis is not supported

The occasional users (1-5 times a month) have the lowest GPAs

17.3% more of the women who used 6+ times last month have GPAs above 3.5 than women who never used

Results for females

Males

X2 = 3.023, df = 4, p < .554

No statistically significant relationship

Hypothesis not supported

Results for males

Hypothesis not supported by the data

Specification: significant relationship only exists for women, although not in the predicted direction

Outcome of elaboration

Shortcomings: time order of variables

Further research

Legalization of marijuana

Implications