a growing experience - Student Services - University of Melbourne

HEALTH AND WELL-BEING OF INTERNATIONAL STUDENTSTable 62Perceptions of alcohol consumptionItems Mean SD 0Not at allB25. I drink more alcohol since I began myuniversity studies here. (n=974)D10. My consumption of alcohol is a problem forme. (n=977)Percentage ratings1To somedegree2To aconsiderable degree3Verymuch0.4 0.8 74.3 14.3 7.1 4.30.1 0.4 93.7 4.3 1.5 0.5There is a diversity of drinking patterns amongst the 20 students who believe they dohave a problem with alcohol consumption (ratings of 2 or 3 on item D10). Theserange in terms of number of drinks per occasion, from none to 5 to 8 drinks, and interms of frequency, from never to every day. This provides a useful reminder thatobservable behaviour (here, the number of drinks and frequency of drinking) is notnecessarily aligned with perceptions of situations. An unexpected group of sixstudents who are non-drinkers indicated their consumption of alcohol to be a problem– perhaps an indication that being a non-drinker creates difficulties for them, or thatthey would prefer an alcohol-free society, or that they are non-drinkers because of aproblem with alcohol.The four items concerning alcohol consumption constitute a scale, the Perceptions ofAlcohol Use scale, with a mean of 0.11 (n=954), a range of 0 to 2.8, and a standarddeviation of .33.Cultural differences seem to be the focus of variables that differentiate students withhigh and low scores on this scale. Students from English-speaking and Europeanbackgrounds tend to have higher scores than those from countries with Islamic andAsian cultures.• There is a main effect for country category 294 , with students from the Middle Eastand North Africa, Indonesia and Other African countries having the lowest scoresand students from UK/USA/Canada and European countries having the highestscores. Many pair-wise comparisons of the latter two country categories withothers are statistically significant. Asian countries are located between these twoends of the continuum, many with significantly lower scores than the two highestscoring categories.• Students from non-Asian countries have significantly higher scores on thePerceptions of Alcohol Use scale than students from Asian countries 295 .• Students who spoke some English when growing up have significantly higherscale scores than those who did not 296 .• Students who do not speak a LOTE off campus have significantly higher scoreson the scale than students who do 297 .• The longer students have been enrolled, the higher the scale score 298 .294 F(13,921)=10.43, p