In a few weeks, groups of students will sit down to discuss how the University's drug and alcohol policies should be affected by two surveys administered last fall.
Focus groups are being formed within the next few weeks to analyze the data from the surveys, conducted by Health Services and the Office of Institutional Research. The data from the Freshman First Week Experience Survey and the Alcohol and Drug Use Survey were released last spring.
Senior Jin Woo Kim, an intern at Health Services' Alcohol and Other Drug Program, is organizing the focus groups. Kim said participants would be divided by organizations to analyze sections of the surveys.
"We want to get different opinions from different groups on campus," Kim said.
The focus groups will eventually make policy suggestions to the University based on their response to the data.
Another goal of the focus groups will be to discover how to effectively get messages about alcohol safety across to students, according to Director of Drug and Alcohol Education Services Margot Abels.
The surveys asked students about their habits and history of drug and alcohol use, and how they view the issues on campus.
The Freshmen First Week Survey was sent to 1,275 freshmen, and 47.1 percent responded. The Alcohol and Drug Use Survey was sent to 4,884 undergraduates, and 39.3 percent responded. Responses for both surveys were anonymous.
Abels said the surveys show Tufts is like most schools when it comes to drug and alcohol use on campus. This will prevent policy changes from being based on exaggerated assumptions of the usage of dangerous drugs, she said.
"This will balance our efforts based on reality," she said. The results of the surveys fit the standard for private, northeastern schools near a city.
Abels said the response rates were encouraging as a starting point for policy decisions. "If you look at most surveys, a 47 percent response rate is unbelievable," she said. "We think it's significant, but absolutely acknowledge [that] it doesn't represent the whole University."
The gender and ethnic diversity of the respondents was representative of the student body, Kim said. "There is enough of a response that we don't have to worry too much about bias," he said.
The Freshmen First Week Survey was conducted during the first year fraternities were not allowed to have parties during orientation, which Abels said may have affected students' responses to the question about where they drank.
"If we do it next year it might look different," she said. "But it means we don't have to single out fraternities as a source of all problematic drinking on campus."
After the data were collected last year, Kim, Abels and then-senior Tiara Winn brainstormed ways to analyze the data. They wrote questions that will help guide the focus groups.
According to Kim, these questions include: "Do you think heavy drinking is a given?" and "Do you think the University's handling of drugs and alcohol on campus is realistic?"
The questions are being modified and finalized by the Office of Institutional Research.
Kim said he would like to see the focus groups encourage students to start thinking about these issues more seriously.
The data from the Alcohol and Drug Use Survey said 28.7 percent of students were worried about someone's alcohol use, but only 21.4 percent of students thought alcohol use was a problem at Tufts.
Kim wants to find out how students can justify this and other discrepancies.
The drug statistics line up differently - 15.7 percent think drug use is a problem on campus and 13.9 percent of students are worried about a friend's drug use.
The surveys were designed by a committee made up of Abels, Lisa O' Leary, a research analyst at the Office of Institutional Research, Director of Health Services Michelle Bowdler and a group of sociology and community health professors and students.
Abels said similar surveys could be administered next year. "It is worthwhile to track trends over time," she said.
She added that there are ways in which last year's surveys could be improved. "We would have liked to have gotten more specific," she said. There were general questions on substance use at pre-orientation programs at Tufts, but they did not ask at which pre-orientation programs substance abuse was most likely.
Kim's said she wanted to lead the focus group project to learn about drug and alcohol issues on campus so the University can make policy changes.
"Should something like that be a given? Should we be accepting?" Kim asked about alcohol and drug abuse on campus. "Or should we work to reduce the problem?"
