Marijuana has become one of the most discussed topics when it comes to students and their abilities to succeed in school. The reason behind it is that marijuana is the most commonly used drug in the U.S. Thus, giving these Authors the assumption that cravings of marijuana did not benefit students positively when it came to being motivated or putting effort into school. According to the article, fifty-seven students attending college at a mid-sized University in Colorado were recruited by their science and psychology classes. All the students being recruited however used marijuana in their daily lives. More than half of the participants that were being studied were female leaving the rest to be males. These students ages ranged from eighteen to twenty-five. The materials used in this experiment were text messages which were being sent out three times a day for two weeks. These messages were sent out at random times to determine the substance use of each student and how it would affect them. In these messages, they were asked to not only include the number of times this person had smoked or craved marijuana but also the minutes this person spent smoking, studying, and the amount of motivation this person had. This study resulted in the reassurance that a lack of academic success was caused by marijuana and the effect was having no academic effort as well as having little or no motivation. For example, when the student craved marijuana they spend more time smoking that they did studying.
Prior to the procedures and results, the Author made serval hypotheses and took several ideas into consideration. However, One hypothesis was that cravings and marijuana use were the reason students did not have the motivation nor have the effort to succeed in college. Although it probably isn’t the only reason students are not academically succeeding I do believe the assumptions were appropriate stating that as the student's cravings of the substance were increased the lack of motivation increased steadily with it.
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Overall, with a wide span of diversity that colleges tend to have this study did include different races and ethnicities. However, they were all categorized by their race, age, gender, school schedules, their major, and the number of years attended at the university. The most important thing overall was that the identities and the information of the students that participated were greatly protected. With only the use of the first name they were given ID numbers and as for the phone numbers they were also protected with a text messaging service that was password protected and deleted all information after this study was completed. The fact that these researchers kept all the information that was collected hidden and unreachable to everyone was very professional. One limitation that was not beneficial to this research study was that the group of people chosen was organized for a purpose. They were only studying the students who most likely used marijuana in their everyday lives and have been for a while. As if they were to study the ones who probably only use it occasionally, the results would not have been equally the same. However, one thing that was not acknowledged was that there could be people who use marijuana because it benefits them in a positive way. In this case, anything from anxiety, seizures, pain, anorexia, and even muscle spasms.
The way the method tested the research question could have been improved. If students tested positive for marijuana and met all the requirements they were eligible for participation. In participating the student would be receiving a text message that contained nine different questions for the participant to answer. This message was sent up to three times throughout the day. Each message, however, had three-time blocks, if the student were to not reply within that time block they were not reminded and would proceed to send the next message within the next few hours. In conclusion, the findings of this study truly supported that heavy marijuana users would crave marijuana often and would be affected in their academic effort and their motivation. Some alternative interpretations that would be possible for this study would be to use other elements to determine the positive or negative effect of any substance used other than just marijuana. One casual conclusion that was found inappropriate was the fact that not only was the use of marijuana an explanation to a low or different GPA compared to other students. But, also their race/ethnicity seemed to be something they factored in that would affect their GPA. Although this type of research was used to see the relativity of marijuana use, cravings, motivation, and performances. There was a suggestion called cue-reactivity to be used in the near future to better the results currently found. Using the suggested method would help the researcher visually see the learned responses of people, which are observed in individuals with addiction. These people are presented with a stimulus that then begins to rate their craving in order to determine if their cravings directly impact their behaviors.
In addition to this, this study was unsure if the craving for marijuana and use were even related. If cravings and the use of marijuana were at the least associated with each other just a little, the relativity would be very low. This study also did not include academic variables. On the other hand, The use of marijuana is overpowering the minds of students and is shown to not be beneficial to those who are trying to succeed. Students who heavily use marijuana are at risk of having problematic substance use and would benefit if they were to communicate or get treatment to help with the cravings of marijuana.
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