Contextual Factors Influencing U.S. College Students' Decisions to Drink Responsibly

This mixed-methods study qualitatively (n = 13—convenience) explored contextual factors influencing decisions to drink responsibly, and quantitatively (n = 729—random) assessed the prevalence of these factors and whether they varied as a function of sex and binge-drinking status. Data were collected in 2007 among Texas college students. The constant comparison model was used to analyze the qualitative data, while one-way ANOVAs and logistic regression were employed to assess the quantitative data. Effect sizes are reported for all significant ANOVA interactions. Psychometric properties are supplied for all quantitative scales. Implication and limitations are noted, and future research directions discussed.

While it is possible for students to transition out of their excessive drinking behaviors after college, it is imperative that college students avoid succumbing to the harmful alcohol-related consequences associated with their drinking patterns during college. In fact, college students themselves recognize the need for such educational/interventional programming aimed at reducing negative alcohol-related consequences. For instance, after conducting a qualitative investigation into the methods college students employ to minimize alcohol consumption-related harm to both themselves and others, Howard, Griffin, Boekeloo, Lake, and Bellows (2007) concluded, "In terms of informational and behavioral needs, students expressed both frustration at being taught only to abstain from drinking and genuine interest in acquiring specific kinds of knowledge and skills. Salient among their concerns was knowing how to drink responsibly [emphasis added]. . . " (p. 252).
While researchers have attempted to include responsible drinking as a behavioral outcome in their interventions, so far these attempts have suffered from serious methodological limitations. Specifically, researchers are "consistently inconsistent" in their efforts to identify explicit characteristics of responsible drinking (Barry & Goodson, 2010, p. 301). To date, there is a dearth of both evidence-based and theoretically derived research identifying specific, empirical, responsible drinking characteristics (Barry & Goodson, 2010). Thus, attempting to 1172 FACTORS INFLUENCING RESPONSIBLE DRINKING 1173 instruct college students (or anyone else) in specific responsible drinking practices becomes equivalent to building a house on sand: the foundation is not securely anchored, the ground shifts repeatedly, and the structure lacks stability. Put simply, prior to developing responsible drinking interventional and/or education programming, it is important to first establish the contextual factors which may influence one's responsible drinking practices. Once established, these factors will provide researchers and practitioners with valuable insight into (a) the factors that facilitate responsible drinking and (b) the barriers inhibiting responsible drinking practices.
Although an initial investigation into the specific beliefs and behaviors college students associate with responsible drinking has been conducted (Barry & Goodson, 2011a), to date, there is no substantive research establishing the various contextual factors that may influence the practice of these beliefs. Consequently, this article seeks to expand the currently limited body of evidence associated with responsible drinking by reporting (a) the contextual factors influencing one's decision to drink responsibly, (b) the prevalence of these factors within a sample of Texas college students, and (c) whether the prevalence of these factors varies as a function of sex and/or binge drinking status.
As a caveat, we wish to point out that this study does not address "moderate drinking" (Dufour, 1999;Green, Polen, Janoff, Castleton, & Perrin, 2007), a construct sometimes associated with responsible drinking. Instead, exclusive focus was devoted to responsible drinking and the contextual factors that influence its practice. Some might argue that responsible drinking closely relates to moderate drinking, but we contend that systematic examination of responsible drinking must take place before it can be subsumed within an already defined construct [up to one drink per day for women and two drinks per day for men (USDHHS & USDA, 2000)]. Furthermore, previous investigations into the beliefs and behaviors college students associate with responsible drinking document moderate drinking as only one of the many themes associated with responsible drinking; thus, moderate drinking is not the overarching construct enveloping the conceptualization and practice of responsible drinking (Barry & Goodson, 2011a).

METHODS
This study employed a partially mixed sequential dominant status design (Leech & Onwuegbuzie, 2009), or a mixed methods design unfolding in two phases. This design (usually denoted by the abbreviation "qual → QUAN") organizes the study in two sequentially occurring phases, with an emphasis being placed on the latter, quantitative phase. Creswell, Plano Clark, Gutmann, and Hanson (2003) contend that this strategy is best suited for exploring a phenomenon in which there is no guiding framework/theory. Considering the limited scope of the published literature associated with responsible drinking, this methodology is appropriate. Procedures for both phases of this investigation were vetted, and approved, by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) where the samples were recruited.

Phase One-Qualitative
The initial phase of this investigation sought to qualitatively explore the contextual factors influencing one's responsible drinking practices. Due to the dearth of systematic, published investigations into responsible drinking, this phase encompassed a series of less structured focus group sessions. Less structured groups are an ideal choice when researchers do not have prior knowledge/insight into the topic they are investigating (Morgan, 1998). An "emergent design" approach also guided the data collection process (Lincoln & Guba, 1985).
Participants. Participants were recruited from several health promotion core-content courses offered at a large, four-year public university in Texas. The first author visited randomly chosen class sessions to provide information regarding the purpose and overall objectives of the study. Once informed about the objectives, students could indicate their interest in participating in the study, by providing (on an index card) their name, e-mail address, and the most convenient day(s) and time(s) for meeting with a focus group. The final sample size comprised 13 individuals, two men and 11 women. The majority of the sample was Caucasian (n = 11), with nominal representation of African-Americans (n = 1; female), and Hispanics (n = 1; male).
Data Collection. Prior to beginning each focus group session, participants reviewed and signed an IRBapproved informed consent form. As outlined in the consent document, each session was audio-taped. In total, four focus group sessions and three individual interviews (necessary in order to accommodate participants' scheduling conflicts) were conducted. The first author facilitated each focus group session and conducted each interview. During focus group or interview sessions, participants were asked to discuss the contextual factors influencing their responsible drinking behaviors. Specifically, participants were asked a series of questions including, but not limited to, "Can you think of any barriers and/or obstacles that would prevent you or your peers from drinking responsibly?", "What types of situations would impact your ability to drink responsibly?", "Can you think of a situation in which it would be impossible for you or someone else to drink responsibly?", and "Can you provide some examples of how you could drink in a more responsible manner?" During discussions, participants were probed to provide specific norms, attitudes, and/or beliefs associated with their contributions. All identifying characteristics or personal descriptions (i.e., name, age, etc.) were removed from the typed transcripts as well as from any presented or published accounts of the sessions, to ensure confidentiality.
Data Analysis. At the conclusion of each session, typed transcripts were developed from the audio-recordings. Using the constant comparison model (Lincoln & Guba, 1985) to sort and classify recurrent or significant themes within participants' responses, we identified (highlighted the text) and extricated (placed the text into an unconnected document) each distinct idea/thought from all transcripts. Each idea/thought unit was then grouped with similar ones, and each group of similar ideas formed a category and received a label. Each labeled category became an overarching theme. This particular method of thematic analysis has also been referred to as a general inductive approach (Thomas, 2006 Elaborating on the importance of one's drinking environment, and those in it, multiple female participants highlighted the dangers of leaving a drink unattended: "Watch your drink. Do not set them down because people could always put something in them." Multiple female participants were wary of other individuals and fearful of being dosed with a "date rape drug." These admissions clearly point to a gender-related concern, as none of the males in the current sample discussed or alluded to consequences associated with leaving a drink unattended. (4) Drinking Games. The current sample also identified participation in drinking games as precluding drinking in a responsible manner. Borsari (2004)  A subtheme associated with the influence others exert on responsible drinking behavior emerged in the concept of a "designated caretaker." Participants in our study defined this drinking "buddy-system," as having another individual, whom the drinker trusts, make decisions for the drinker while he/she is intoxicated. This practice was identified as a method not only to ensure the drinker's safety, but also to accomplish responsible drinking. As one participant explained, a caretaker is "there to watch out for you and make sure that you are going to have a safe way to get home and that no one can take advantage of you." At its core, this theme centered on the concept of having a known, trusted friend who could "make wise choices about any situation that may arise that night." A participant-provided analogy equated a designated caretaker to "a sort of mother hen." Phase Two--Quantitative At the conclusion of Phase One, the aforementioned themes were used as the foundation for the development of two quantitative scales. In other words, based upon the participant-provided contributions, a set of items was developed to address the contextual themes emerging from Phase One. Once developed, these scales allowed for the second phase of this study to be completed. Specifically, we (a) assessed the prevalence of the contextual factors among a sample of college students attending a large, Texas, public institution, and (b) determined whether the prevalence of these factors varied as a function of both sex and alcohol consumption.   (Buhi, Goodson, & Neliands, 2008). Consequently, incomplete surveys were retained for data analysis and missing data were deleted (listwise) from the analysis.
Utilizing the Predictive Analytics SoftWare (PASW) (version 18.0), basic descriptive statistics (Mean ± SD) were generated for each item on the two included scales. Sex-and consumption-based differences for each scale were calculated using one-way ANOVA. Cohen Cohen (1988) supplies the following categorizations: small (.20), moderate (.50), and large (.80). While these designations have been criticized, these categories do provide insight into the degree to which the null hypothesis is false, ANOVAs were also conducted to determine whether factors facilitating or impeding responsible drinking varied as a function of one's alcohol consumption (i.e., binge drinking status). Respondents were asked to respond to the following question "Think back over the last two weeks. How many times, if any, have you had five or more alcohol drinks at a sitting?" Participant responses ranged from none (65.2%), to one time (13.2%), two times (8.0%), three times (5.5%), four times (3.3%), five times (1.6%), six times (1.9%), seven times (0.3%), eight times (0.1%), and nine or more times (0.9%). In order to group respondents based upon binge drinking status, responses were dummy coded as "0" for no times within the past two weeks, and "1" for one or more times within the past two weeks. After grouping respondents based upon their binge drinking behaviors, the majority of the items for both the motivations and barriers scales now violated Levene's statistic (an underlying assumption of homogeneity of variance). Consequently, we employed Brown-Forsythe's robust test of equality of means to account for the statistically significant Levene's statistic. Thus, the p-values outlined in both Tables 3 and 4 are based upon the Brown-Forsythe test. Those who had consumed five or more drinks in one sitting at least once within the past two weeks also exhibited significantly different motivators to responsible drinking. Specifically, binge drinkers nearly universally reported each of the specified factors would be less of a motive for drinking responsibly than nonbinge drinkers. In other words, nonbinge drinkers acknowledged more motives to drink responsibly than binge drinkers. Of the 21 items included in the scale, there was a statistically significant group difference for 16 of them. Effect size relationships ranged from 0.21 (small-When I drink responsibly one of my motive is because I have to look out for one of my friends) to 0.83 (large--When I drink responsibly one of my motive is because I do not want to get drunk). See Table 3

DISCUSSION
The initial phase of this investigation qualitatively explored the contextual factors influencing the practice of responsible drinking. As a whole, the participants clearly articulated several motivating and inhibiting factors influencing one's ability to drink responsibly. Due to the college student-status of the participants, a number of these factors seemed uniquely tied to their collegiate status and/or experiences. For instance, school-related obligations, such as class and/or a test, emerged as a predominant aspect of their lives (e.g., "When I drink responsibly, one of my motives is because I need to study for a test or complete my school work"--See Table 3). As such, it is conceivable that in a similar fashion, work-related responsibilities would emerge as a factor in research examining younger and older adults not enrolled in a college or university. Nevertheless, an increasing number of studies document the positive influence next-day responsibilities (e.g., class, test, etc.) have on the drinking levels of college students (Correia, Benson, & Carey, 2005;Skidmore & Murphy, 2011;Wood, Sher, & Rutledge, 2007). For example, even after controlling for GPA and high school alcohol consumption, college students who do not have Friday morning classes drink two times as much alcohol on Thursday evenings than those students who do have Friday morning classes (Sher & Rutledge, 2007). Classes prior to 10:00 am Friday morning were found to have the greatest influence on prior night drinking. In other words, "Next-day day classes or tests can be viewed as either an alternative reinforcer or as an indirect means of increasing the real cost of drinking" (Skidmore & Murphy, 2011, p. 65). Results from the current investigation (both qualitative and quantitative) echo the protective effect schoolrelated responsibilities can have on the drinking behaviors of college students.
The impact of the collegiate experience on responsible drinking also emerged in the form of drinking games (i.e., drinking competitions). While previous research clearly indicate that drinking games significantly contribute to heavy drinking (Borsari, 2004), the growing literature base associated with drinking games exclusively examines the college population. As indicated in their titles, these games foster a sense of competition among participants. Therefore, not only does competition foster drinking at an increased rate, but it also encourages consuming a greater amount of alcohol in an effort not to be one-upped by another person. Johnson & Sheets (2004) conclude "available evidence suggests that drinking games are associated with greater or more rapid consumption of alcohol than in other contexts" (p. 91). As evident in the contributions of participants, responsible drinking would be difficult to accomplish if one found him/herself in a drinking competition or situation that called for consuming large amounts of alcohol in order to demonstrate dominance. Moreover, our quantitative results document being challenged to a drinking contest and/or participating in a drinking game as highly significant barriers to responsible drinking practices (See Table 4).
Among the current sample, financial considerations were also found to influence the practice of responsible drinking behavior. In addition to preventing excessive consumption by only allocating a set amount of money for the purchase of drinks, limiting money spent on alcoholic beverages was a significant motivator for responsible drinking. These findings parallel previous research documenting the influential role of the costs of alcohol on drinking quantity. Specifically, drinking level decreases among college students as the price of alcohol increases (Kuo, Wechsler, Greenberg, & Lee, 2003;Murphy & MacKillop, 2006;Skidmore & Murphy, 2011). Moreover, even nominal increases in the price of alcohol at on-premise establishments have been associated with decreases in patron intoxication level when leaving a bar (O'Mara et al., 2009). Thus, stricter regulation on the price and discounting of alcohol may also lead to increased practice of responsible drinking practices.
Peer pressure also emerged as a dominant force on one's responsible drinking behaviors. This theme was not surprising, given that scholarly reports consistently note the indelible influence peers have on the development and maintenance of drinking behaviors among college students (Borsari & Carey, 2001). For example, researchers note peer drinking as a significant predictor of alcohol misuse among adolescents (Tyler, Stone, & Bersani, 2006) and identify perceived peer norms as correlating greatly with alcohol consumption rates (Olds & Thombs, 2001). Overall, the "prevalence of alcohol-based social opportunities on campus contributes to the potency of peer influence on individual attitudes and behaviors" (Borsari & Carey, 2001, p. 392). Both the direct (e.g., "The next time I drink alcohol I would not be able to drink responsibly if an attractive person wanted to buy me a drink") and indirect (e.g., "The next time I drink alcohol I would not be able to drink responsibly if everyone else was getting drunk") pressures articulated by participants coincide with research findings noting the significant role of alcohol on the college campus and overall college culture due to the presence of alcoholic beverages at most social gatherings and functions during peer interactions (Thombs, 1999).
A final subtheme emerging from the qualitative phase worth noting is that of a designated caretaker, or "mother hen" to look after inebriated peers. While previous research has documented how college students care for their drunk peers [e.g., "carried home, given a garbage can to throw up in, or extracted from a sexually threatening situation" (Lederman & Stewart, 2005, p. 16)], to date (and to the best of our knowledge), none of the scientific literature associated with collegiate alcohol use/abuse addresses the notion of entrusting one's decision-making to another person while under the influence of alcohol. Consequently, further research into the concept and practice of a designated caretaker, and how students identify that person, may prove beneficial in understanding the alcohol consumption-related practices of college students.
While previous investigations have documented that males believe responsible drinking behaviors must occur with significantly less frequency when compared to their female counterparts (Barry & Goodson, 2011a), the quantitative findings from this investigation revealed that they also have less responsible drinking motives and more responsible drinking barriers. These findings coincide with the fact that male college students regularly exceed their female counterparts with regard to the frequency and quantity of alcohol consumption, occurrence of excessive alcohol use, and experienced alcohol consumption-related consequences . As with the documented gender differences, directional effects from this investigation, which classify binge drinkers as having less facilitating factors and more obstacles to drinking responsibly, parallel previous investigations examining one's alcohol consumption in a social setting. Specifically, our findings mirror those of other studies where individuals who consumed a higher number of drinks the last time they were in a social setting (e.g., party, dinner, etc.) had less motivators for, and perceived significantly more barriers to, responsible drinking (Barry & Goodson, 2011b).

LIMITATIONS
There are important limitations that must be considered in unison with the contributions of this investigation. Specific to the qualitative phase, the lack of gender/ethnic diversity among participants and the small sample size are of particular concern. While transcripts indicate saturation was reached [later focus group sessions support early concepts/ideas and do not provide unique contributions (Lincoln & Guba, 1985)], a more diverse sample could have provided a broader range of insights and perspectives. Furthermore, lack of gender and ethnic diversity could have biased our findings in favor of the perspectives of the majority of participants-Caucasian women.
The most prominent limitation from the quantitative phase was the low survey response rate. Such a low response rate raises questions of the sample's representation. While the demographic distribution of the sample parallels the population from which it was drawn (with regard to both gender and ethnicity), this does not ensure the absence of selection biases. Nevertheless, low response rates with online, electronic surveys of young adults and professionals, has not been uncommon (Chen & Goodson, 2010).

CONCLUSION
Overall, this research builds upon and enhances previous investigations outlining the behavioral beliefs college students have about responsible drinking (Barry & Goodson, 2011a). To date, this is the first empirical study to determine the various contextual factors that serve to facilitate or impede the responsible drinking practices of college students. Because these factors were examined within a mixed methods framework, findings allow researchers and practitioners to have a more complete understanding of the context in which responsible drinking is practiced and how these practices are influenced. Consequently, this investigation expands and strengthens the limited evidence base associated with responsible drinking. It is important to note, however, that participants did not personally provide insight into what they considered to be responsible drinking. Instead, findings from the qualitative phase of this investigation guided the conceptualization and scope of our responsible drinking construct. Even though systematic steps were taken to develop this construct, it is completely possible that respondents for the quantitative phase had not accounted for interpretations of responsible drinking. Therefore, we are unable to determine how individual differences in terms of defining responsible