Review of Related Literature

Given that delay of onset of drinking and heavy drinking are related to better outcomes for teens during
their adult years ( Dawson et al., 2008;Grant & Dawson, 1997;Hingson & Zha, 2009), efforts to engage
parents and teens in changing teens' behaviors and attitudes towards alcohol use should produce
beneficial health outcomes in the future. Not only are health benefits important reasons for delaying
and reducing alcohol use among teens, but other social benefits (e.g., jobs, school achievements) may
also be expected to improve with the delay in alcohol use and decrease in heavy drinking (Balsa,
Giuliano, & French, 2011).

Indeed, drinking at high school and college has been negatively related to educational attainment (
Williams et al., 2003;Chatterji, 2006;Koch and Mc Geary, 2005;Balsa et al., 2011).

Alcohol consumption is among the unhealthy behavior among the high school students that may affects
their academic performance.

Alcohol consumption is associated with behavioral problems such as poor academic performance.

Many researches have been conducted to show the effects of alcohol consumption on academic
performance among high school students,(Pullen,1994).

There are no controlled studies on the effects of alcohol on academic performance. This is because it is
illegal to provide alcohol to minors. Research done on adults revealed that alcohol consumption disrupts
learning on adults and their ability to remember. However, the effects may be for a short period of time
and their severity depends on the frequency of the drinking and the amount of alcohol consumed.
(Pullen,1994).

In addition the few correlation studies that have been conducted to find out the relationship between
alcohol consumption and academic performance among the high school students has produced results
that are inconsistent. (Pullen,1994).

On one side of a national survey conducted , it revealed that heavy alcohol drinkers had a high likelihood
of missing classes, having reduced responsibility on class work and also having poor performance on the
tests done and the class projects than non heavy drinkers of alcohol. Other surveys have also revealed
that alcohol consumption led to reduced grades in the class work as the students committed few hours
on the class. (Pullen, 1994).

On the other hand of the survey which was conducted between 3 different learning institutions, they
produced varying results. Two of these studies credited that alcohol consumption and academic
performance was as a result of differences among the students.

There was a strong correlation of 0.32 of students who involved in alcohol consumption and the
subsequent academic performance among the 444 in mid western university. However, this correlation
was not significant when controlling for school rank, academic aptitude and other variables. (Pullen,
1994).
In the second study, it was revealed study, it was revealed that the students involved themselves in
heavy drinking but this did not affect the school performance. Centrally, the third study found a negative
association between alcohol consumption and poor academic performance among the 754 students in
the North Eastern liberal College.