DRAFT 1: Who Parties Harder? A Study of Miami Honors and Non-Honors Students

This topic submitted by John Kearney, Lindsey Solden, Nicole Vecchione ( vecchine@muohio.edu ) on 11/4/09. [Section: ]

Explorations in Inquiry---Western Program---Miami University

Introduction:
What is the difference between nightly activities of the Honors and non-Honors students at Miami? In this investigation, we will examine where students spend their nights throughout the week and compare the honors students to the non-honors students.
We hypothesize that the non-honors students will spend more nights out of their room and dormitory than the non-honors students. We expect more non-honors students to be heading uptown or socializing outside of the dormitory while honors students will be more focused and spend more time in their rooms. In the process of this investigation, we hope to test the stereotypes of honors students being more studious or confined as opposed to their counterparts. As honors students, we would like to actually see what goes on in the dorms of other types of students. This is interesting to us because it affects the stereotype of a group that we identify. This inquiry could potentially challenge common belief and that is something that we are excited to test.

Research Proposal:
Our project will be testing the social activities of honors and non-honors students at Miami University. As described by the Honors and Scholars Department of Miami University, the honors program is Òa community composed of bright, highly-motivated students looking to push themselves as intellectuals and individualsÓ (Miami Honors and Scholars webpage). Clearly, there is a distinction in the universityÕs eyes between the honors and non-honors students; enough to validate a separate application and graduation process. However, the distinction does not stop at the faculty level but rather exists at the student level as well. It is easy to see why, when there are separate dorms, separate classes and separate requirements for honors students that play a role in day-to-day student life.

There is a video on YouTube called ÒThe Real Miami UniversityÓ which addresses many of the stereotypes that Miami University students face. There are spoofs about the way our students dress, the way they act, the students on Western Campus (theyÕre all hippies after all!), and also about the honors students. The honors students are featured at the very end, in which an honors class is meeting simply to Ômake sure they are better than everyone elseÕ, to which everyone agrees and class is dismissed. It may seem trivial to bring a media site such as YouTube into the picture of our research project, and even more trivial to use an independent, student-made video as an example. However, if students made the video, there must be some reason behind their viewpoints. This is where our study is going to focus: the stereotypes that Miami students hold about one another in the academic sense, as well as how their individual actions actually play out in light of these stereotypes.
Using various resources and research materials, we have accumulated background knowledge of the distinctions between academically achieving students (honors students) and non-honors students. While most of our sources focus on alcohol consumption, we will not be asking our participants to reveal this information. Instead, we have used these sources about alcohol use to typify the various activities students might be involved in both during the week and on weekends. Because a great deal of social activity in college is centered around drinking (ÒAlkie,Ó ÒFrat Brother,Ó and ÒJockÓ: Perceived Types of College Students and Stereotypes About Drinking), we can make a correlation between the findings in our research and the predicted social activities of students on the Miami campus.

Overall, our research covers several main categories: academic performance, emotional patterns of students, social facilitation, and stereotypes of various student groups. Academic performance studies in relationship to alcohol and substance abuse suggest that substance abuse may be used by students ÒÉas a way to cope with their anxiety over academic failureÓ (Academic Performance and Substance Use). We do not intend to imply that non-honors students are in poor academic standing. However, in comparison to honors students, who are more highly motivated by nature (Miami Honors and Scholars Webpage), social activities that interfere with academics in the same way that alcohol use would might be more prevalent among non-honors students.

Emotional patterns of students at the college level deal mainly with depression, anxiety and stress. One article, Perfectionism, Stress, and Social (Dis)Connection: A Short-Term Study of Hopelessness, Depression, and Academic Adjustment Among Honors Students, suggests that high achieving students who feel must work towards perfectionism are more likely to be stressed and depressed. One sign and effect of depression is a lack of desire to be around others, which, if depression is in fact prevalent amongst Miami honors students, could create a lack of social activity of honors students in our study. Also an emotional factor we discovered in our research is the Ôimposter phenomenonÕ, which is defined as an instance in which a highly achieving student does not feel their success is warranted and that future success is unlikely despite previous achievements. These students fear being called intellectual imposters by their teachers, family, and classmates, and this phenomenon also contributes to emotional stress and even depression, once again influencing social life.

Social facilitation explains the social networking of both honors and non-honors students. In college, proximity in dorms often has an overbearing influence on the social groups of students. At Miami University, this means that honors students in Emerson and Tappan will be most connected socially, while being less connected with non-honors students in other dorms. Two articles, ÒAre Social Norms the Best Predictor of Outcomes Among Heavy-Drinking College Students?Ó and ÒSocial Distance, Perceived Drinking by Peers, and Alcohol Use by College StudentsÓ go into depth about the social norms and how they influence studentsÕ perceptions of one another. The expectations created by different groups of students will influence other students in that group. Therefore, norms established amongst students in honors dorms, we can predict from our research, will have an effect on honors students, while different expectations will be seen amongst non-honors students.

One study we looked at dealt specifically with college students and their stereotypes about other students. Once again, this study focused on which groups are perceived as heavy versus light drinkers, but we can ascertain this information and apply it to social activities related to, but not necessarily involving, alcohol consumption. Stereotypes range from academically-centered students (nerds, bookworms, intellectualsÉ) to socially-centered students (frat boy, sorority girl, slutÉ). We plan to ask our participants their own stereotypes of honors and non-honors students, which is why this study is so pertinent to our project.
From our background research, we are able to put together a thorough and appropriate survey for our participants. We can also now support our hypothesis with information that correlates to our initial ideas, as well as expands upon and introduces new concepts that will be of help in our project.

Specific Research Design:
We will be investigating the different nightly activities between honors and non-honors students. This investigation is aimed to prove that more non-honors students go out to bars or off-campus houses than honors students do. This investigation will
be conducted using two surveys over two consecutive weeks. The first survey will be handed out randomly on a Sunday afternoon throughout four residence hall dorms, including two honors dorms (Emerson and Tappan) and two non-honors dorms (Dodds and McKee).

Ten people from each dorm will be asked to complete the survey and be asked to provide their email for a follow up survey. In addition to the forty people surveyed from the selected dorms, ten people will be selected at Shriver center. They will be given a
survey and asked to complete it. The survey includes three introductory questions that ask about stereotypes between non-honors and honors students. Following, there are directions and a sample chart to show the volunteers how to fill out the table. They are asked to label the times that they were at various places over the course of the previous week. The last question asks if we will be allowed to contact them for a follow up survey through email. The follow up survey will merely be the same chart from the previous survey. The students will be asked to fill out the chart for their previous week. Once all of the data is collected, it will be organized to an hourly total for each person surveyed. The mean will then be calculated for all of the honors students and non-honors students separately. A standard deviation will be performed, along with significance tests. Using the mean and standard deviation, we will be able to tell if there is a significant difference between the amounts of time an honors student or a non-honors student spends outside the residence hall. This will allow us to reject or fail to reject our hypothesis that non-honors students are outside the residence hall more often than an honors student. Materials and Methods: Statistical calculations such as mean and standard deviation will be used to organize and begin to understand the results from the survey analysis. Our survey and volunteers will be other materials included in the study. It will be necessary to gather volunteers as soon as possible in order to have enough time to gather additional data if needed. The following will be the survey handed out: Presurvey: 1. Are you currently enrolled in the honors program? Yes No 2. What is your image of the typical honors student? (Stereotypes included) 3. What is your image of the typical non-honors student? Directions: For each day of the week, indicate the hours that you spent doing the following activities. Example: Please do this to the best of your capability. [There will be a chart here but this program won't allow me to copy and paste it so use your imagination.] Thank you for your participation. We would like to do a follow up to see how your activities have changed from last week. Could we email you a follow up survey? Yes No, Thank You

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