1

Quantitative Research Paper

On
Drinking and Bars Downtown

By Alcoholics Anonymous:
Aubrie Blackton
Eric Galan
Mai Gozu
Jennie Le
Aaron Reycraft

Table of Contents:
Abstract

Introduction

Survey Research

Data Analysis

Findings

11

Limitations

20

Conclusions & Recommendations

20

References

22

Appendices

22

Abstract:
This quantitative research observes individuals who go to bars to drink alcohol. A
common past time is to frequent downtown Orlando to enjoy the multitude of bars the city has to
offer. Our team wanted to take a better look at how frequent our peers are visiting these places
and their trends on buying alcohol and having a good time at a bar. Our survey included 50
individuals, both males and females with ages ranging from 20 to 65. The survey included
these following vital questions: Are you over twenty-one? Do you prefer beer or liquor? How
often do you go to the bar/club in a month? How would you rate your bar/club experience? How
many beers/shots do you have a night when you go out? Estimate the number of hours you drank
the last time you socialized? How many drinks did you have during that time? Do you get drink
to get drunk? How often do you drink? Do you drink till you feel good, get tipsy, get drunk, or
black out? On what days do you go out? Do you ever drink to get drunk (frequency)? Do you
drink to feel good/to function better? What is your gender? At what age did you start consuming
alcohol? What is your ethnicity? What is your age range? And finally, how motivated are you go
to downtown as opposed to another venue? Our end goal is to use this research to understand and
analyze patterns consumption of alcohol in our geographic area.

Introduction:
Most Americans enjoy drinking on a regular basis. How many beers/shots do you have a
night when you go out? According to the U.S. Department of Justice, more than 75,000 deaths
are attributable to alcohol consumption each year and the economic costs associated with alcohol
problems total more than $184 billion annually. Our group was curious to find out how many
drinks consumers have when they go out. Is age and gender correlated with the number of drinks
they consume? This quantitative research paper provides charts of who drinks, how much, and
how often. Our research was conducted by using a simple random survey.
Survey Research:
After reviewing our results from the qualitative interviews, we decided the most
important points to cover were what drives people to drink, how much people drink, and when
people drink. Throughout the surveys a common response that was brought up was when asked,
what do you do to improve your nights experience? was something along the lines of, I make
sure I keep up with my friends and drink as much as them. We thought this was a beneficial point
in our research and decided to expand upon that question in our quantitative survey. This topic
can be very touchy at times, but in order to capture these results we had to be very straight
forward with our survey questions. We asked questions on our survey pertaining to our
qualitative research such as, Do you drink to get drunk? and Do you drink until you feel
good, get tipsy, get drunk, or black out? This allowed us to dig deeper into how much our
participants drink and at what point they stop drinking.
Survey development started with brainstorming the most important survey topics, as
stated in the paragraph above. After a list of questions was compiled, we went through each

5
question and talked about the pros and cons. If the question seemed to be too personal or on the
other hand, too basic, we would throw it out. Once we had a list of our final questions, we made
sure we made available a fair choice of answers for our respondents.
Our population of interest is anyone who drinks or has drank in the past. To be more
specific most people that chose to do our survey included the ages 20 to 65 years old. Most
people in the 20 to 65 year old bracket have drank, making them able to answer our survey
questions.
The sample size we needed was 50 or more respondents. This gave us ten survey
respondents per group member. In order to conduct our survey quickly and easily we chose a list
of simple survey questions. As individuals, we picked our respondents to answer our survey
questions. We asked family, friends, and anyone we thought would be willing to answer the
questions in a reasonable time frame, since we had a very limited amount of time. In order to
obtain accurate results we decided to survey a wide range of ages to get an unbiased result. We
made all of our respondents aware of our time constraints so this made for fast collection of the
results.
In determining who the sample population would be, we continued to develop not only
our population interest, people who drink, but we expanded our survey results to anyone over the
age of 20 in order to verify that results were accurate. College students and those beyond their
college years consist of the vast majority of the results. Our team chose to create a paper survey
that asked many questions about how much people drink and why. We chose to do this paper
survey because our project was time sensitive. We made the survey consist of twenty simple
questions that could take under five minutes to answer so the respondents wouldnt get bored.

Data Analysis:
After we collected our survey results, we tabulated the survey results. We used cross
tabulation in our analysis because it is simple to understand and is a powerful analytical tool.
First, we made a one-way frequency table to show the number of respondents choosing each
answer to a survey question. Next, we made a bivariate cross tabulation, which broke down the
different categories into percentages to help compare and contrast the results. The two factors
used in the bivariate cross tabulation were gender (female/ male), and age range (20, 21-24, 2530, 31-35, 35 and older). We broke down the three questions by the two factors to look at the
different responses and see if there was a correlation.
The first cross tabulation for the question: Do you prefer Beer or Liquor? 56% of the
28 respondents were men, while 44% of the 22 respondents were female. Of the respondents that
answered beer for the question, 75% were male with the remaining 25% of female gender. Of the
30 respondents that answered Liquor, 43% were male, while the remaining 57% were female.
The age ranges that answered beer consisted of 62% of 21-24 year olds, 17% of 25-30 year olds,
and 21% of 35 and older. The age range that answered liquor were 4% of 20 year olds, 58% of
21-24 year olds, 23% of 25-30 year olds, and 15% of 35 and older. (See below)
Do you prefer Beer or Liquor?

What is your
gender?

20

Beer
15
75%
5
25%
20
100%
0

21-24

15

Male
Female
Total

What is your
age range?

Liquor
13
43%
17
57%
30
100%
1
4%
15

Total
28
56%
22
44%
50
100%
1
2%
30

25-30
31-35
35 and older
Total

62%
4
17%
0

58%
6
23%
0

5
21%
24
100%

4
15%
26
100%

60%
10
20%
0
0%
9
18%
50
100%

The second cross tabulation for the question: How many beers/shots do you have a night
when you go out? 56% of the 28 respondents were men, while 44% of the 22 respondents were
female. Of the 10 respondents, 30% that answered this question with 1-2 beer/shots were men,
while 70% were female. Of the 14 respondents, 57% that answered this question with 3-4
beer/shots were men, while 43% were female. Of the 17 respondents, 59% that answered this
question with 5-6 beer/shots were men, while 41% were female. Of the 5 respondents, 80% that
answered this question with 7-8 beer/shots were men, while 20% were female. Of the 4
respondents, 75% that answered this question with more than 9 beer/shots were men, while 25%
were female.
The age ranges that answered 0 beer/shots consisted of 100% of 21-24 year olds. The age
range that answered 1-2 beer/shots were 11% of 20 year olds, 56% of 21-24 year olds, 22% of
25-30 year olds, and 11% of 35 and older. The age range that answered 3-4 beer/shots were 45%
of 21-24 year olds, 27% of 25-30 year olds, and 27% of 35 and older. The age range that
answered 5-6 beer/shots were, 62% of 21-24 year olds, 19% of 25-30 year olds, and 19% of 35
and older. The age range that answered 7-8 beer/shots were 50% of 21-24 year olds, 25% of 2530 year olds, and 25% of 35 and older. The age range that answered more than 9 beer/shots was
100% of 21-24 year olds. (See below)

8
How many beers/shots do you have a night when you go
out?

What is your
gender?

What is your
age range?

1-2

3-4

5-6

7-8

Male

3
30%

8
57%

10
59%

4
80%

3
75%

28
56%

Female

Total

0
100%

7
70%
10
100%

6
43%
14
100%

7
41%
17
100%

1
20%
5
100%

1
25%
4
100%

22
44%
50
100%

20

1
11%

1
2%

21-24
25-30

3
100%
0
0

5
45%
3
27%
0

10
62%
3
19%
0

4
50%
2
25%
0

3
100%
0

31-35

5
56%
2
22%
0

35 and
older
Total

1
11%
9
100%

3
27%
11
100%

3
19%
16
100%

2
25%
8
100%

30
60%
10
20%
0
0%
9
18%
50
100%

3
100%

More
than 9

3
100%

Total

The third cross tabulation for the question: Do you drink to get drunk? 56% of the 28
respondents were men, while 44% of the 22 respondents were female. Of the respondents that
answered yes for the question, 57% were male with the remaining 43% of female gender. Of the
respondents that answered no, 53% were male, while the remaining 57% were female. The age
ranges that answered yes consisted of 78% of 21-24 year olds, and 22% of 25-30 year olds. The
age range that answered no was 5% of 20 year olds, 28% of 21-24 year olds, 17% of 25-30 year
olds, and 50% of 35 and older. (See below)

9
Do you ever drink to get drunk?

What is your
gender?

Male
Female
Total

What is your
age range?

20
21-24

Yes
20
57%
15
43%
35
100%
0

31-35

25
78%
7
22%
0

35 and older

Total

32
100%

25-30

No
8
53%
7
47%
15
100%
1
5%
5
28%
3
17%
0
9
50%
18
100%

Total
28
56%
22
44%
50
100%
1
2%
30
60%
10
20%
0
0%
9
18%
50
100%

The fourth cross tabulation for the question: Do you drink till you____? 56% of the 28
respondents were men, while 44% of the 22 respondents were female. Of the 19 respondents,
32% that answered this question with feel good were men, while 68% were female. Of the 19
respondents, 47% that answered this question with get tipsy were men, while 53% were female.
Of the 9 respondents, 56% that answered this question with get drunk were men, while 44% were
female. Of the 3 respondents, 100% that answered this question with black out were men, while
none were female.
The age ranges that answered feel good consisted of 5% of 20 year old, 50% of 21-24
year olds, 35% of 25-30 year olds, and 10% of 35 and older. The age range that answered get
tipsy was 63% of 21-24 year olds, 11% of 25-30 year olds, and 26% of 35 and older. The age
range that answered get drunk were 63% of 21-24 year olds, 13% of 25-30 year olds, and 24% of
35 and older. The age range that answered black out, 100% of 21-24 year olds. (See below)

Do you drink till you __________?

What is your
gender?

Male
Female
Total

What is your
age range?

20
21-24
25-30
31-35
35 and
older
Total

Feel
good
6
32%
13
68%
19
100
%
1
5%
10
50%
7
35%
0

Get
Tipsy
9
47%
10
53%
19
100%

Get
Drunk
5
56%
4
44%
9
100%

Black
Out
3
100%
0

12
63%
2
11%
0

5
63%
1
13%
0

3
100%
0

2
10%
20
100
%

5
26%
19
100%

2
24%
8
100%

3
100%

3
100%

Total
28
56%
22
44%
50
100%
1
2%
30
60%
10
20%
0
0%
9
18%
50
100%

10

11

Findings:

Are you over 21?

yes
no

Our research consisted of fifty survey respondents.

We started our survey with a screening question to identify qualified respondents. Our first
question: Are you over 21? majority of the 49 respondents answered yes (98%), while 1
respondent answer no (2%). (See left for figure) The results from the second question, Do you
prefer beer of liquor? 40% of the respondents answered beer (20 respondents) and 60%
respondents answered liquor (30 respondents) (see below left for figure.) Question number three
How often do you go to the bar/club in a month? had a wide variety of answers. 6 respondents
(12%) chose none, 3 respondents (6%) chose once a month, 14 respondents (28%) chose twice a
month, 17 respondents (34%) chose every weekend, 9 respondents (18%) chose more than twice
a week/month; while 1 respondent (2%) chose once a month. (See bottom right)

12

Do you prefer Beer or Liquor

How often do you go to the bar/club in a month?

Beer Liquor

How often do you go to the bar/club in a month?

17
14
9

14%

6
3
86%

13

How many beers/shots do you have a night when you go out?

20
15

Number of People

10
5
0

How would you rate your bar/club experience?

How would you rate your bar/club experience?
17
12

11

1
unsatisfied 1 2

4 5 very satisfied

The fourth question we used the

scale response question to capture the intensity of the respondents feeling. How would you rate
your bar/club experience? (1=unsatisfied, 5= satisfied), resulted in 1 respondents, (2%) that
answered 1 (unsatisfied), 12 respondents (24%) 2, 11 respondents (22%) 3, 14 respondents
34(%), and lastly 9 respondents (18%) 5 (very satisfied). (See above for figure) Number fifth

14
asked the question How many beers/shots do you have a night when you go out? It resulted in
the mean value of 1-2 beers/shot a night when you go out with 20%, 3-4 beers/shot a night when
you go out with 28%, 5-6 beers/shot a night when you go out with 36%, 7-8 beers/shot a night
when you go out with 8%, and more than 9 beers/shots a night when you go out with 8%. Out of
fifty respondents, resulted with a mode of 5-6, and medium 5-6 beers/shots do you have a night
when you go out? Our sixth question we asked, Estimate the number of hours you drank the
last time you socialized? resulted in 1 person (2%) answered none, 10 people (20%) answered
one hour, 15 people (30%) answered 2-3 hours, 18 people (36%) answered 4- 5 hours and 6
people (12%) answered more than 5 hours. (See below for figure)

Estimate the number of hours you drank the last time you socialized?
Estimate the number of hours you drank the last time you socialized?
18
15

10
6

1
None

One hour

2-3 hours

4-5 hours more than 5 hours

15

How many drinks did you have during that time?

How many drinks did you have during that time?
15
14
10
6

1-2

3-4

5-6

7-9 more than 9

The result from the seventh

question How many drinks did you have during that time? From the simple two-dimensional
bar chart, we summarized that mean, median and mode was 5-6 drinks. 14 responded (28%) 1-2
drinks, 10 responded (20%) 3-4 drinks, 15 responded (30%) 5-6 drinks, 6 responded (12%) 7-9
drinks, and 5 responded (10%) more than 9 drinks. (See above for figure)
Our eighth question, Do you ever drink to get drunk? was answered yes by 70 percent
of our respondents. The other 30 percent answered no, they do not drink to get drunk (see figure
below).

16
Our ninth question, How often do you drink? had a wide variety of answers. Seventeen
respondents (34%) answered that they
only drink on weekends, thirteen
respondents (26%) answered that they
drink 3-5 times per week, eleven
respondents (22%) answered that they
drink only on special occasions, 7
respondents (14%) answered that they
drink once a week, and 2 respondents
(4%) answered that they drink every day.
(See right for figure.)

Our tenth question, Do you

drink until you______. shows
us the level of intoxication our
respondents usually drink until.
The answer choices were feel
good, get tipsy, get drunk, or
black out. An even number of
respondents answered that they
drink until they feel good (38%) and they drink until they get tipsy (38%). Nine respondents
(18%) answered that they drink until they get drunk, and 5 respondents (10%) answered that they
drink until they black out. (See above for figure.)

17
Our eleventh
question asked, On
what days you go out?,
and all the days of the
week were given as
choices. Friday and
Saturday was the most
popular answer, each
with 37 respondents.
Following behind was Sunday with 15 respondents, Wednesday with 11 respondents, Thursday
with 7 respondents, Tuesday with 6 respondents, and Monday with 4 respondents. (See above for
figure.)
Our twelfth question: Do you ever drink to get drunk? had six answers to choose from
to determine the level of intoxication: 2 respondents (4%) chose Always, 7 respondents (14%)
chose Very Frequently, 20 respondents (40%) chose Occasionally, 5 respondents (10%) chose
Rarely, 11 respondents (22%) chose Very Rarely, and 5 respondents (10%) chose Never. (See
below for figure.)

18

Do you ever drink to get drunk?

Do you ever drink to get drunk?
20
11
7

2
Always

Very Frequently Occasionally

Rarely

Very Rarely

Never

Our thirteenth question: Do you drink to feel good/function better? also had the same
six options to choose from as fifteen and had very similar results as above: 1 respondents (2%)
chose Always, 6 respondents (12%) chose Very Frequently, 20 respondents (40%) chose
Occasionally, 6 respondents (12%) chose Rarely, 12 respondents (24%) chose Very Rarely,
and 5 respondents (10%) chose Never. (See above for figure)

Do you drink to feel good/to function better?

Do you drink to feel good/to function better?
20
12
6

1
Always

Very Frequently Occasionally

Rarely

Very Rarely

Never

19

What is your gender?

Male
Female

Our fourteenth
question: What is your gender? We tried to survey an even amount of both male and female
respondents. Our result was we surveyed 28 male respondents (56%) and 22 female respondents
(44%). Most male participants were more open to being survey about alcohol whereas the
female participants were a bit reluctant. (See above for figure.)

At what age did you start consuming alcohol?

20
15
Number of People 10
5
0
14.0

15.0

16.0

17.0

18.0

19.0

20.0

Our fifteenth question: At what age did you start consuming alcohol? Show us the
range in which our respondents started drinking alcohol. Our respondents started drinking from
the ages of 14 to 20. 3 respondents (6%) started drinking at the age of 14, 8 respondents (16%)
started drinking at the age of 15, 15 respondents (30%) started drinking at the age of 16, 10
respondents (20%) started drinking at the age of 17, 7 respondents (14%) started drinking at the

20
age of 18, 5 respondents (10%) started drinking at the age of 19, and 2 respondents (4%) started
drinking at the age of 20. (See above for figure.)
Our sixteenth question was a general sorting question to see the ethnicity of our survey
participants with the question What is your Ethnicity? Out of the fifty participants eight (16%)
were African American, five (10%) were Asian, twenty-three (46%) were Caucasian, 10 (20%)
were Hispanic/Latino, and 4 (8%) stated other. (

Question nineteen was What is your age range? One (2%) of our participants were 20
years old, Thirty (60%) were between the ages of 21 and 24, ten (20%) were 25 to 30, and four
(8%) were 35 and older.

21

Our last question was How motivated are you to go to Downtown opposed to other
venues? We used a scale of 1=not motivated to 5 being very motivated. Eleven surveys (22%)
stated they were (1)
not motivated to go
downtown, seven
(14%) were (2) slightly
motivated, Twelve
(24%) were equally
motivated as
unmotivated, Twelve
(24%) were motivated and eight (16%) were very motivated to go downtown. (See above for
figure)

22
Limitations:
Developing our research came with quite a few challenges. Our group was limited by the
condensed workload of our summer courses, as well as scheduling time to meet with one another
to develop our research strategy, as well as, our research quantitative questionnaire. We also had
a short amount to time to distribute our surveys and collect the data. Another challenge was our
separate busy schedules between our jobs, our school work, and our everyday busy lives we
found it hard to meet up to prepare for our research, analysis, and completion of our quantitative
research paper. It was also a challenge in convincing participants in discussing a topic such as
alcohol and recreational activities pertaining to. Most participants were weary of answering
questions pertaining to their alcohol habits, history, and trends. Most, if not all, participants
wanted to remain anonymous. As we explained the use for the survey further and as they
completed the survey, they became more comfortable, but still wanted to maintain the need for
anonymity.
Conclusions and Recommendations:
Based on our research and cross tabulations performed we can conclude that many tend
to drink more than woman in any given night with several more men saying they would drink 7
to 8 or more beers/shots in a night. The overall population (86%) enjoys drinking beer more than
liquor, so it would be in a bars interest to put better specials on beers than liquor to bring in more
crowd.
Many of our survey participants did enjoy going to bars and clubs with 17 being every
weekend (34%). At the same rate 17 participants enjoyed their bars experience on a 4 out 5
rating. The mode of amount of drinks participants bought when going out was 5-6 drinks with
36% of our audience.

23
Our participants had several different motives for drinking when going out, between
trying to feel good, get tipsy, get drunk and black out the majority was a tie between feeling good
and getting tipsy with 76%, but the other 24% were trying to get drunk or black out. Most
participants went out on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, which is expected as it is the weekend.
Almost all of our respondents claimed they had started drinking at an illegal age, the
majority (30%) started when they were sixteen. It is clear that underage drinking was a problem
then and will still be a problem now.
On our last question we saw how many participants enjoyed the downtown scene as
opposed to others, while 22% were not into downtown, 40% were on the more motivated side of
the spectrum, with 24% in the middle.
Our most important recommendations from our research is for the downtown bar owners
to be aware of the crowd they are aiming to bring in and what kind of advertising they need to
supply to acquire customers. Many of which in Orlando are between 21 and 24 years old. It is
rare to see advertisements for bars unless you are at the bar or getting a terrible flyer stuck to
your windshield (not a good way to bring in customers). So bars should be more proactive with
social media advertising such as Facebook. Another recommendation is for a bar to appeal to a
certain audience since there are many different types of people. Or even do themed nights for
music and clothing types to drive up business. Many people want to go out; they are just looking
for the right place to spend their night.

24
References:
www.udetc.org/documents/Drinking_in_America.pdf

Appendices:
Survey Questions and Coding
1. Are you Over 21?
#
1
2

Answer
Yes
No

2. Do you prefer beer or liquor?

#
1
2

Answer
beer
liquor

3. How often do you go the bar/club in a month?

#
1
2
3
4
5
6

Answer
none
Once a week
Twice a month
Every weekend
More than twice a
week
Once a month

4. How would you rate your bar/club experience? (1=unsatisfied, 5 = very satisfied)
#
1
2
3
4
5

Answer
1
2
3
4
5

25

5. How many beer/shots do you have a night when you go out?

#
1
2
3
4
5
6

Answer
0
1-2
3-4
5-6
7-8
<9

6. Estimate the number of hours you drank the last time you socialized?
#
1
2
3
4
5

Answer
0
1
2-3
4-5
<5

7. How many drinks did you have during that time?

#
1
2
3
4
5
6

Answer
0
1-2
3-4
5-6
7-9
<9

8. Do you ever drink to get drunk?

#
1
2

Answer
Yes
No

9. How often do you drink?

26
#
1
2
3
4
5

Answer
everyday
3-5 times a
week
Once a week
Only on
weekends
On special
occasions

10. Do you drink till you _____?

#
1
2
3
4

Answer
Feel good
Feel tipsy
Get drunk
Black out

11. On what days do you go out?

#
1
2
3
4
5
6
7

Answer
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday

12. Do you ever drink to get drunk?

#
1
2
3
4
5
6

Answer
Always
Very
frequently
Occasionally
Rarely
Very rarely
Never

13. Do you drink to feel good/ to function better?

27
#
1
2
3
4
5
6

Answer
Always
Very
frequently
Occasionally
Rarely
Very rarely
Never

14. What is your gender?

#
1
2

Answer
Male
Female

15. At what age did you start consuming alcohol?

#
1
2
3
4
5
6
7

Answer
14
15
16
17
18
19
20

16. What is your ethnicity?

#
1
2
3
4
5

Answer
African
American
Asian
Caucasian
Hispanic/Lati
no
Other

17. What is your age range?

28
#
1
2
3
4
5

Answer
20
21-24
25-30
31-35
35 and older

18. How motivated are you to go to downtown opposed to other venues? (1=not motivated, 5
= very motivated)
#
1
2
3
4
5

Answer
1
2
3
4
5

Cross Tabulation Graphs

Gender

29

How many beer/shots do you have a night when you go out?

80%
70%
60%
50%
40%0

1-2

3-4

5-6

7-8

30%
20%
10%
0%
Male
Female

Age Group:

More than 9

30

How many beer/shots do you have a night when you go out?

100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
Axis Title

40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
20

21-24

25-30

31-35

35 and older

Gender

Do you ever drink to get drunk?

60
50

Yes

40

No

30
20
10
0
Male
Female

Age Group

31

Do you evr drink to get drunk?

80%
70%
60%
50%

Yes

40%

Series 2

30%
20%
10%
0%
20

21-24

25-30

31-35

35 and over

Gender

Do you prefer beer or liquor?

80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%

Beer
Liquor

Male
Female

32
Age Group

Do you prefer beer or liquor?

70%
60%
50%
Beer

40%

Liquor

30%
20%
10%
0%
20

21-24

25-30

31-35

35 and over

Gender

Do you drink till you ____?

70%
60%
Feel Good

50%

Get Ttipsy
Get Drunk

40%

Black out

30%
20%
10%
0%

Age Range

Male

Female

33

Do you drink till ____?

100%
90%
80%
Feel Good

70%

Get Ttipsy

60%

Get Drunk

50%

Black out

40%
30%
20%
10%
0%

20

21-24

25-30

31-35

35 and over