The primary purpose of the study was to determine the relationship between craving and marijuana use and how these two variables can affect the academic motivation and academic performance of the college students. The secondary purpose of the study was to explore the relationship between academic achievement and the time the students spend in smoking marijuana, studying as well as academic self-efficacy. The authors hypothesized that craving could determine marijuana use and study time. Higher craving could be related to lower academic motivation and that marijuana use, study time, self-efficacy and marijuana smoking would affect academic performance ( Phillips et al., 2015).
The sample used included 57 college students, 63% were female while 37% being male. The 57 college students in the sample had to be 18 years or older and must have been in the university for at least a semester. A cell phone was used to send a text message to the students. Phone numbers of the students were saved and protected to hide their identity. A baseline appointment that lasted for one hour was scheduled for the students meeting eligibility criteria. The selected students were sent text messages three times in a day for two weeks. A texting schedule was created with an interval of three-time blocks. A total nine questions were used randomly and text to the participants for a period of the fourteen days. The participants were never sent a reminder text message if they failed to reply.
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From the findings, the marijuana frequency for the last thirty days was found to have a mean of 13.95 and a standard deviation of 9.32. The age of first marijuana use among participants had a mean of 24.95 while the average mean of the age of regular marijuana use among participants was at 15.62. The average mean of the EMA minutes smoked daily stood at 14.79. The finding indicates that craving is directly related to academic efforts and motivation. The time spent studying is negatively affected by craving. When craving was higher, the academic motivation was adversely reduced. Academic self-efficacy positively predict GPA, while the minutes spent smoking marijuana were negatively related. The more time a student spent smoking, the lesser time that student will spend studying. The authors assumed that the participants would be open and frank in their response to the question yet this might not be the case. There could be some level of biases.
The sample was diverse and well inclusive based on the culture. The sample had both representatives from different ethnic groups and culture. For example, the sample had two African American, one Asian, and six Hispanic. The sample, therefore, had all the different ethnic groups represented. Gender was also well represented as there were both men and women in the sample. Smoking habits differ based on gender and thus having both genders will eliminate any variance. However, the proportion of the ethnic representation was biased. Other cultural and ethnic groups were more in the sample than others. In the sample, Caucasian (majority) were highly represented at 66% as compared to other groups (minority). Given that the rate of marijuana use differs depending on the cultural background, this could have an impact on the outcome of the findings.
The authors were ethical in protecting the confidentiality of the participants. For the authors to protect the participants, only first names were used all through as the study was being conducted. Participants’ contacts and other details for the EMA portion were saved in a password-protected web-based text messaging service. These numbers were deleted upon completion of the experiment. Any other documents used which could have been containing the numbers of the participants were immediately destroyed after the study. The other papers were kept in a secure place with only the ID numbers of the participants to hide their identity. The authors adhered to all these ethical requirements to ensure the private information of the participants did not leak to the public.
In the first limitation, the study used a sample of participants purported to be heavy marijuana users. The relationship between marijuana and craving are thus viewed within that context; thus findings may not generalize specifically to the college-aged users of marijuana. Also, while the EMA was a useful methodology for question answering, other variables could be affecting the relationships and were not taken into consideration. The research also use one element to assess craving and academic motivation yet it could have been more useful to include the event contingent assessments so that it can give more information about the use of marijuana. The other limitation that the authors did not mention is the biases that the participants might have while answering the questions. Other participants may choose to lie while answering specific questions intentionally. Also, some participants could choose to ignore replying the text messages sent not them and not necessarily forgetting. Such limitations can also affect the conclusions made from the findings and ought to be taken into consideration by the authors.
The method appropriately tested the research question. The sample was taken from the college students who had reported continuous of marijuana almost daily. The questions that the participant was text to answer were well made about the topic of the study. The questions on craving, minutes spent smoking, minutes spent studying and academic motivation are enough to enable the author get the answer to the question of the research. At the end of the research, the authors were able to get answers to the questions about craving rate and how it affects study time as well as motivation. The study method was therefore appropriate in getting the answer to the research questions.
The conclusions made by the author were supported by the results of their findings. From the research findings, it was found that increased craving reduces study time and subsequently impact on the academic efforts and motivation. The more the craving, the lesser the time spent studying and the more it negatively affect the academic efforts and motivation. These were the conclusions made by the authors. However, other alternative conclusions can be made from the research. One can conclude that craving can increase the rate of marijuana smoking among college student.
The authors suggested that future research is done to test the self-regulatory cognitive resource model through the use of reactivity. It will enable an understanding of whether craving has a direct influence on the academic behavior. An example in this is how the craving for cigarette smoking and its effect on academic concentration. Such study will give an understanding of whether there exists a direct relationship between the two variables. Another future study that should be researched is whether there exists a direct relationship between craving for the cigarette and the academic completion. Can craving for cigarette have a direct impact on the student's school drop out? This will give an insight into why college students who use drugs drop out of school.
This study is important as it will benefit the high-risk group of college students who could fail to complete their studies or perform poorly due to marijuana. Such group of students could gain from the tailored intervention directed towards addressing academic issues, problematic substance use as well as psychological needs. It will also help college students to understand the negative impacts of substance abuse and how to come out of it.
Reference
Phillips, K. T., Phillips, M. M., Lalonde, T. L., & Tormohlen, K. N. (2015). Marijuana use, craving, and academic motivation and performance among college students: An in-the-moment study. Addictive behaviors , 47 , 42-47.
