IMRaD

Smoking on Campus- University of Louisville

Should smoking on campus be punishable?

 

Abstract

“Should smoking on campus be punishable?” Is an important question to ask due to the amount of harm smoking can cause non-smokers and effects it could have on campus life. For this research I created a survey that asked six multiple choice questions and sent the link to the website to classmates and others that I knew on campus. Total responses numbered to 30 and from the results that were found indicated that more women than men thought that smoking on campus should be a punishable act. Also, the results shown that the smokers disagreed while the non-smokers agreed on punishment. The findings also changed the perspective upon the study, in the sense that I began to acknowledge that smokers and non-smokers and men and women would have bias opinions and answers.  

 

Introduction

“It seems very consistent with the university’s mission that we would be making strong statement that since we know that 80% of lung cancers are caused by either smoking directly or second-hand smoke that we would come out very strongly and say this is not something we think is good for people.” Smoking is not only an effect on the person that is smoking but also an effect on the people who are around the smoker. As a University with underage students that attend classes and live on campus day-to-day, under- age drinking is widely acknowledged as a punishable act due to the amount of danger it can put in one’s life, therefore smoking on campus can be seen to cause just as much damage, if not more than alcohol. Although, it is known that the legal age to purchase cigarettes is three years lower than the age to purchase alcohol, they both give individual medical issues.

 

Method

Participants:

20 women and 10 men participated in this survey. The survey was created on SurveyMonkey.com and then sent to classmates and other pupils of the student body that attend the University of Louisville.

The survey results were checked periodically through a couple of days and the numbers only increased Then, the numbers began to show and then were written down to see if there were any correlations between questions.

 

Results

Table one acknowledges more women than agree that smoking on campus should be a punishable act. Also, table one shows that it is probable that non-smokers agree to have a real smoke-free campus due to them being non-smokers. On the other hand, smokers would not want to be punished for smoking because it is their choice to do so.

 

Gender	Smoker	Non-Smoker	Aware of Smoke Free Campus	Punishable?
Female	6	14	15	YES: 13 NO:7
Male	5	5	6	YES: 1   NO:9

 

Discussion

The most important part of this study is the amount of people that believe that smoking on campus should be a punishable act. For example, maybe giving a fine to those seen smoking a campus, many lives could sheltered from the health problems that second-hand smoke causes. This example could possible make many improvements in the lives of those students who live on The University of Louisville’s campus. The problem with this study is that the study honestly depended on what the participants felt about smoking and what they knew of the effects of second hand smoking. A more effective way to get better results would have been submitting the survey with background information written first. The study showed the many bias opinions and also acknowledged the opinions very similar opinions of men/women and smokers/non-smokers.