CAFFEINE HIT

What are UOW students’ perceived benefits or disadvantages of caffeine related to their academic performance?

As I walk down the path of UOW at 8:30am on a Monday morning, the smell of freshly roasted coffee beans fills my nostrils. Eyelids still half closed, keep cup in hand, I walk like a zombie over to the coffee counter and practically demand my cappuccino. Once I demolish it in one gulp, eyes widen, heart races and I am ready to seize the day. Just like that. How does this little cup do such big things?

My curiosity started one morning just like this one. How many students, just like me, have the same daily routine? Or how many need some kind of caffeine hit (coffee, energy drinks, caffeine tablets) in order to function properly and focus better in class? And, what are the perceived benefits?

My research project will focus on surveying students of UOW and find out how many consume caffeine on a regular basis, and what their personal views are on the benefits or detriments of caffeine related to their academic performance. I have observed thousands of students walking around the campus with a mountain dew in hand, or others sitting down having a coffee with their friends or teachers. It has become embedded in modern culture and think it is so interesting how so many people rely on it to get through the day. I mean, it’s the world’s most largely consumed psychoactive drug, and has been around for almost 200 years.

I am curious to know, because as a daily coffee drinker, sometimes drinking up to two or three a day, I can openly admit that I would struggle to function at my best without it. For me, it improves my concentration and focus in class (particularly earlier ones), my alertness and even my mood. However, at times I find that if I consume too much, my concentration wonders and I struggle to remain focused. I am curious to hear other students’ opinions on what they perceive as the benefits or disadvantages of caffeine.

I will compare and contrast students through qualitative and quantitative research, which will inevitably enable me to come to a conclusion – is caffeine ultimately beneficial for academic performance or not? Some ideas so far are surveys, questionnaires, observations and interviews.

I think this is a great topic because I can research any student (a caffeine consumer or non consumer), so it will be easy to find people to volunteer their time, it is not biased, and it does not offend anybody – it will also perhaps enable students to rethink their caffeine consumption rate.

It is an interesting topic to explore and creates a deeper understanding of my peers and their experience with caffeine and the way they perceive it. It is relatable to anybody and there has been plenty of research and studies on young people and caffeine consumption. For example, I have found three (out of many more) sources that relate to this topic which proves that this is a topic worth researching.

Source 1: Peeling, P. and Dawson, B., 2007. Influence of caffeine ingestion on perceived mood states, concentration, and arousal levels during a 75-min university lecture. Advances in physiology education, 31(4), pp.332-335.

This American study focused on caffeine ingestion on perceived mood states and concentration levels in adolescents. To experiment, they assessed students as they participated in a 75 minute university lecture – some had caffeine and others didn’t. The outcome was that most of the students who had a dose of caffeine reported themselves to be more alert, energetic and clear minded and were able to concentrate during the lecture. All in all, the study investigation showed that behaviour and concentration levels increase with caffeine consumption. This source is extremely relatable to my topic because it explores the functions of young adults (my target age) and the way they respond to a ‘caffeine hit’ and the source includes the students’ own personal voice of how they think it affected them. This suggests that this topic is worth doing and extremely achievable in terms of researching my peers of BCM212.

Source 2: Champlin, S.E., Pasch, K.E. & Perry, C.L. 2016, “Is the Consumption of Energy Drinks Associated With Academic Achievement Among College Students?”, Journal of Primary Prevention, vol. 37, no. 4, pp. 345-359.

This source shows the relationship between energy drink consumption and current GPA’s of undergraduate students in the US. The results, differing to the previous source, found that the consumption of energy drinks were negatively associated with academic achievement. The study also then goes on to explain how they could raise awareness for students who think energy drinks will give them an academic boost and how they can change the stereotype. I think this source is very helpful because the results differ from source 1 , which creates a wider insight into my topic. It proves that there is more to be explored in the topic of caffeine consumption in UOW students and it will now be interesting to find out what BCM212 students think about this and they can unload their personal views on the matter.

Source 3: Beamish, P., Morey, P., Greive, C., Grant, R. and Guest, J., 2016. Caffeine consumption among students attending Christian schools in Australia and its relationship to classroom behaviour and academic performance. TEACH Journal of Christian Education, 10(2), p.10.

This source is a study done in Australia in Christian high schools and how students caffeine consumption was related to classroom behaviour and academic performance (children aged 13-16). The study found that increasing caffeine use was related to lower ratings of classroom behaviour and academic performance. This source was appealing to me because it targets a slightly younger age group than what I will be targeting, hence, it will be interesting to see if the results of this study will differ to my research due to the age differences. As humans grow older, perhaps being able to handle the effects of caffeine improve?

All in all, as proven by the three sources, this topic is well researched and proves that my topic is easily achievable. I am pleased with my research proposal and am excited to dive deeper into the minds of UOW students.