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College Student Observation Essay

Coffee is something we learn about as soon as we become an adult and see it grows to be a part of our life. College students coffee intake is at this time an ongoing experiment being studied. The information collected from the articles provided us to conclude to create an observation study from the studies conducted relating to coffee intake. The purpose of this study is to observe students purchase coffee in the Starbucks located at T. A. M. I. U campus. Coffee has become even more popular because of the variety of coffee flavor beverages offered today and it’s behind the reason it’s being consumed even more now.

The hypothesis is that coffee intake will be high among college students. The operational definition of this studied will be partially determined with the different observations conducted which investigated coffee consumption among college students. The observational study will consist of an hour in the morning, afternoon, and twice in the evening to see if there was a difference in coffee intake. The students observed will be at random of those who come into the Starbucks to purchase any type of coffee. A checklist created before hand to check off the status, gender, coffee, and size of beverage.

The information collected from the study will verify if the hypothesis is supported by the data collected. Keywords: College students; Coffee consumption; Young adults; Caffeine Coffee intake among college students Coffee is a beverage commonly known to be consumed by adults. The intake of coffee has increased intensely over time in college students and it has caused an increased amount of caffeine consumption (Mcllvain, Noland, & Bickel, 2011). In the current paper, the coffee consumption amongst the crowd of students at the college campus is examined.

It is important because currently coffee consumption has increased at an unhealthy rate and it contains caffeine. Research conducted previously has mostly concentrated on experimental designs, on the other hand, naturalistic observations has only been studied partially. I hypothesized that coffee ingestion will be high among college students. The next paragraphs attempt to support and validate this hypothesis. The manufacture of a variety of offered coffee choices like plain black, latte, regular, cappuccino, mocha, and etc. among college students was studied by Hsu et al. 2005) and Shields, Corrales, and Metallinos-Katsaras (2004).

Currently there is a variety of coffee drinks being produced and cheap versions of it for those who can’t afford the expensive type. Shields et al. (2004), conducted a study to figure the frequency of gourmet coffee beverage intake at Simmons College with 165 female students, which had to answer a questionnaire on food and drinks. About 41 participants had to write a 3-day diary of what they consumed and 21 out 40 consumed coffees (Shields et al. , 2004). While Hsu et al. 2005), study involved the consumption of packed coffee of different flavors; the sample size was of 279 students of both genders from six universities in Taiwan metropolitan areas. According to Hsu et al. (2005), about 76 % of all the subjects consumed packed coffee at least once, a week and about 40% of fresh coffee drinkers drank about three packets of coffee weekly.

These studies are biased because the samples chosen are from certain areas and not at random. The intake of coffee by students was to help them get through their day. About 56% of offee-drinking students specified that the foremost impulse to drink coffee beverages was to stay awake (Hsu et al. , 2005). The consumption of coffee will be measured starting from an 8 oz. to 31 oz. cup purchase of coffee flavors. While the intake of different coffee beverages was studied above, they didn’t go into the effects of consuming so much of it. Wardana et al. (2014), conducted this study to see the effect coffee had on alertness, on a sample of 27 male students from ages of 18-22 for about a week. They were split into three groups’ one drank mineral water, light coffee, and heavy coffee drinking.

According to Wardana et al. (2014), the results concluded that there was impairment in reaction time for those who consumed coffee with 85mg of caffeine after 35 minutes of drinking; while the others showed no sign of impairment on their reaction time. The psychoactive ingredient in coffee is caffeine (Perlaki, Orsi, Kovacs, Schwarcz, Pap, Kalmar,… Janszky, 2011). The next study displays how coffee affects the hippocampus in a sample of 45 women ranging from ages of 19 to 30 split into three groups, light, medium, and heavy caffeine drinkers (Perlaki et al. , 2011). According to Perlaki et al. 2011), the results displayed that subjects that consumed high and low levels of coffee connected to a bigger hippocampus. Some of the issues surrounding these studies would be the samples were dominant gender, male or female. We decided to include both genders, ages 8-25, and student status in our naturalistic observation in order to compare. Finally, Mcllvain et al. (2011) and Norton et al. (2011) studied the patterns of coffee intake by college students.

Mcllvain et al. (2011), conducted research on both genders, all races, ages ranging from 18 to 20 years old, and the sample consisted of 300 freshmen students. According to Mcllvain et al. 2011), college students consumed large amounts of caffeine; about 83% reported having had indicators of caffeine intoxication. While Norton et al. (2011), studied 685 male student that answered a questionnaire. About 98 % of students reported consuming coffee and 89% reported coffee drinking a month ago (Norton et al. , 2011). The issues surrounding theses studies were gender dominance on the study. Maybe using counter balancing and random sampling could help improve these studies. We decided to conduct the study for an hour in the morning, afternoon, and twice in the evening to see if there was a difference in coffee intake.

This study is to observe students consume coffee on campus; it is important because currently coffee consumption has increase at an unhealthy rate and can cause health issues. According to Norton et al. (2011), the consuming of caffeine can cause anxiety, headaches, sleep disturbances, and etc. Research conducted previously has mostly concentrated on experimental designs, on the other hand, naturalistic observations has been thoroughly studied. The hypothesis of this study is that coffee intake will be high among college students.

In this observation study, coffee consumption is measured from the purchase of an 8 oz. up of coffee to 31 oz. It can be plain black, latte, regular, cappuccino, mocha, and etc. Coffee is being consumed more often and its being use to help boost peoples energy to get through their day has them hook on it. It has become a necessity to drink coffee to complete a task, which is why it’s important that this study be conducted. In conducting this naturalistic observation study, positive and negative relationships could be found with coffee consumption among college campuses. We can inform the public of the results if coffee is beneficial or harmful and should cease consumption.

Method The purpose of this study is to see if college students consume coffee. The predicted hypothesis is that coffee ingestion will be high among college students. Participants In this study, two hundred participants were observed in their natural habit. The total percentage of females was 61. 5% and 38. 5 % were male. Participant’s age range from 18-25years old since the study was conducted with college students. The ethnicity of most participants consisted of Hispanic ethnicity because most of the community is Hispanic. The study was conducted in Texas A&M International University in Laredo, Texas.

Research Design The research study conducted was a systematic observation done at TAMIU Starbucks. The variable of interest for this systematic observation was coffee consumption. Coffee drinking will be measured by the purchase of a 8, 12, 16, 20, 24, and 31 oz. cup, and it could be plain coffee to a espresso shot as long as its considered coffee through out the naturalistic observation. Measures The materials used to record this study were a cell phone, laptop, journal, and a pen. We created a checklist that consisted of the status, gender, drink, size, and time.

All the information recorded in the journal was transferred into the laptop to set up a percentage of coffee intake. Procedure We decided to conduct the study for two days Wednesday and Thursday. Wednesday we conducted the observation at 12pm to 1pm and at 7:15pm to 8:15pm. Thursday, we conducted the study at 10:30 am to 11:30 am and at 6:48 pm to 7:48. The two group members sat on different sides of the Starbucks; one sat near the cash register, while the other person sat near the call out of the orders and each checked off the checklist.

We decided to have a variety of time for the study to see, if there was a difference with coffee consumption. Results The hypothesis is that coffee consumption will be high among college students. In the afternoon observation, there were 17 female coffee consumers and 18 male coffee consumers. In the evening observation, there were 18 female coffee drinkers and 10 male coffee drinkers. In the morning observation, there were 35 female consumers and 17 male consumers. In the evening observation, there were 13 female drinkers and 11 male drinkers.

In total there were 200 participants throughout the study, 123 were female and 77 were male. Out of 123 females, only 83 drank coffee and out of 77 males, only 56 drank coffee. 139out of 200 people drank coffee, so 60% were college female students and 40% were males. The most purchase coffee was 12 oz cup. The hypothesis is to some extent supported according to the results presented. Discussion The results concluded that there is high coffee consumption among college students, but most coffee drinkers were female college students.

I found that there was more coffee intake by females because there was a higher rate of females going to Starbucks. It isn’t what we predicted, but partially is supported because it was 60% female to 40% male. There were more female coffee drinkers then males. Our finding fit in with previous literature because college students did consume coffee during different hours. Coffee was consumed between both genders and varieties of drinks were bought through the study. The external validity wasn’t very open it only consists of TAMIU students and not from other colleges.

It was a systematic observation, so it was random participants. The issue is that we only studied TAMIU students who purchased at Starbucks and not the cafeteria. The measures were problematic because there were many cup sizes from 8, 12, 16, 20, 24, and 31 oz. If | conducted another study, I add different locations, bigger samples, times, more members, and measures. Additional tips are having everything possible to record your measures, checklist, and find everything you can before doing the actual observing or conduct a trial study.

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