Validation of the Color of Drinking Survey instrument: A mixed methods study measuring the secondhand impacts of high-risk drinking in college settings. (Preprint)

Abstract

The “Color of Drinking” is an influential study in the alcohol consumption field that looks at secondhand harms of high-risk drinking on college students of color (microaggressions, fear of safety, harms in the classroom, and decreased belonging), and studies the connection between alcohol use and the campus racial climate. Since the release of the study findings in 2018, the Color of Drinking has received a lot of attention from other college settings, media coverage, and many requests of the research team to replicate the study around the country. As this instrument gained prominence, we decided to validate the Color of Drinking instrument.

This study aims to describe the development of the most recent version of the Color of Drinking Questionnaire and to assess its reliability and validity in a sample of undergraduate students attending UW-Madison.

Observational, analytic study that included both qualitative and quantitative approaches. We conducted in-depth cognitive interviews with students to evaluate comprehensibility and acceptability. Then, internal consistency, test-retest reliability and construct validity were assessed in a sample of UW-Madison undergraduate students. The revised version of the questionnaire was administered on two occasions. Internal consistency was evaluated for sets of items using data from the first administration. Test-retest reliability was evaluated by comparing the responses to the questionnaire administered at the beginning of the study and between 3 and 4 weeks later. Construct validity was assessed using data administrated at the beginning and other validated instruments administered at baseline.

A total of 181 students completed the first administration of the questionnaire between June and November 2022. Of those, 177 responses were included for the analysis of internal consistency, 115 for test-retest reliability assessment and 98 for construct validity. The four dimensions evaluated, “impact of alcohol consumption on academics”, “impact of microaggressions”, “witnessing of microaggressions” and “alcohol intoxication and Bystanders’ interventions on alcohol intoxication” presented good internal consistency, with Cronbach’s Alpha coefficients ranging from 0.723 to 0.898. For the test-retest, the sections “Alcohol use”, “Areas avoided”, “Impact of by other students' alcohol consumption” and most items on the section “Alcohol culture and academics” showed moderate to substantial reliability. “Experiencing, witnessing and bystander intervention of microaggressions and alcohol intoxications” and most of the items from the section “Impact on health and sense of belonging” also showed moderate to substantial test-retest reliability. For the construct validity, correlations between the number of drinking days, the maximum number of drinks in a day and the Audit score as a continuous variable were moderate to high, r=0.630 (95% CI 0.533, 0.719) and r=0.647(95% CI 0.548, 0.741) respectively.

The tool was found to be valid and reliable in most dimensions. The three areas that were found to have lower reliability and validity were Alcohol and academics, Bystander intervention and Health impacts.

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