Binge drinking the night before a test does not impact college students' test performance, according to a controlled experiment conducted by researchers from Boston University and Brown University.

Getting slammed does, however, slow participants' attention/reaction times and worsen mood states – impacts that could make driving dangerous and the morning after the partying generally miserable.

A paper detailing the research appears in this month in Addiction.

The team of researchers tested 193 university students, ages 21 to 24, recruited from the Boston area. Over the course of four days – one evening and the next morning, and then a second evening and morning a week later – volunteer participants received either beer or nonalcoholic beer. They received the opposite drink the second time they were tested.

The morning after, participants were given the practice versions of the Graduate Record Exam (GRE), as well as a mock quiz on an academic lecture they received the previous afternoon. Students were monitored overnight by an emergency medical technician.

The study found that participants scored no differently on the GREs, or on the quizzes, whether they had consumed alcoholic or non-alcoholic beer. The scores on the GRE and quizzes were relatively high, showing that the students were taking the tests seriously. The researchers used different versions of the GREs, and quizzes on different lectures, that were comparable in difficulty.

Though it didn't affect test taking, researchers noted that binge drinking could affect other types of academic performance, such as essay-writing and problem-solving requiring higher-order cognitive skills.

"We do not conclude… that excessive drinking is not a risk factor for academic problems," the researchers wrote. "It is possible that a higher alcohol dose would have affected next-day academic test scores. Moreover, test-taking is only one factor in academic success. Study habits, motivation and class attendance also contribute to academic performance; each of these could be affected by intoxication."

While some previous studies, using surveys, have found that students who drink heavily have more academic difficulties than their peers who drink more moderately, this is the first study to examine that association by enrolling students in a controlled experiment.

The study raises interesting questions about the effects of alcohol on specific cognitive skills and reaction/attention behavior – questions that warrant further investigation, the authors say.



Citation: Howland et al., 'The effects of binge drinking on college students' next-day academic test-taking performance and mood state', Addiction, March 2010, 105(4), 655 - 665; doi: 10.1111/j.1360-0443.2009.02880.x