Female Smokers in High School

¶ … Female Smokers in High School and Female Smokers in College

The fact that smoking is widely and scientifically known to be dangerous to one's health, the haunting question remains as to why young people continue to smoke and endanger their health. Not unlike decades past today's teenagers smoke to cope with stress brought about by depression, anxiety and low self-esteem, to control weight, to combat boredom, to appear adult like, and in keeping with peer pressure. Unfortunately today there is no real gender difference between male and female smokers, teens or adults. After nearly 20 years after the launch of the infamous ad campaign directed toward women to get them smoking, "You've Come a Long Way Baby," women are now smoking at almost the same rate as men. In order to unravel the female smoking phenomenon research endeavors must be designed to investigate every possible relationship between women and the act of smoking. To this end the present research investigation sought to determine whether or not there is a statistically significant relationship between high school females who smoke and college females who smoke. The resulting data analysis information provided some necessary insight as to the woman smoking phenomenon and a possible indication wherein strides are to be taken to curb the need for women to smoke.

Results and Discussion. In any research endeavor that is quantitative by design only that which resulted in statistical significance at a pre-determined alpha level can be discussed and a possible explanation levied. That which did not result in statistical significance at a pre-selected alpha level must remain silent as one cannot discuss that which did not happen, only that which did happen. The present research investigation, along with the resulting data analysis, garnered sufficient evidence to draw the following conclusions:

There was no statistically significant mean difference found at the 0.05 confidence level in the number of cigarettes smoked by high school females sampled and college females sampled (t = 0.506, CV = 2.00, df = 58). Although reason cannot be presented as to why there was a failure to reject the null hypothesis it is important to note that differences between the groups were not found. Although reasons for these differences are not definable by the results it is important to realize that sometimes no differences in healthcare issues are as important as those that are statistically significant. Unfortunately, however, in the present situation, and although no statistically significant differences were found between the two groups, there is no way to define the quantity of the number of cigarettes being smoked that made the groups equal. For all the researcher knows the mean number of cigarettes smoke by each group might well have been 1 or 101 cigarettes. Again, for this very reason an explanation for failing to reject the null hypothesis cannot be given.