The Correlation of Coffee Consumption and Critical-Thinking Skills of

Grade 12 STEM Strand Students of The University of The East

Caloocan

Submitted by:

Group 5 - STEM 12-9

Bermejo, Rance Rolly C.

Delos Reyes, Kylle Kimson

Lim, John Harold P.

Livioco, Clark Cyrus T.

Naval, Alliah Maxine L.

Salazar, Paul Angelo I.

Sanchez, Angel Lauren T.

March 14, 2022

 The Correlation of Coffee Consumption and Critical-Thinking Skills of
Grade 12 STEM Strand Students of The University of The East
Caloocan
Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

This chapter of the paper presents the problem and its setting. It includes the background

of the study, the statement of the problem, the significance of the study, hypothesis, and the

scope and delimitation of the study.

Introduction

This research paper sheds light on coffee consumption and its associations with different

human anthropology disciplines and physical health, yet an ambiguity concerning critical-

thinking skills. The researchers would unfold the parallelism from coffee consumption towards

the critical thinking of senior high school students of UE – Caloocan SY 2021-2022.

Studies in the past decades shed light on coffee consumption and its relationship with

human behavior and health; it is a step forward to information and discovery that students

drinking coffee could have connections to how students think critically. As DeMers (2017)

digressed, memory and cognitive skills are enhanced with caffeine consumption; this, in turn,

creates a problem that cognitive skills could have a discipline with critical thinking, which is

disputable. The researchers in this paper shall find a way to determine separately from cognitive

skills if coffee consumption correlates with thinking critically of students.

Specific questions need to be inquired into to achieve desirable results with the problem

at hand. Hypotheses affirm the researchers if there is a significant relationship between coffee

consumption and thinking critically of students or not, and average levels of critical thinking and
 The Correlation of Coffee Consumption and Critical-Thinking Skills of
Grade 12 STEM Strand Students of The University of The East
Caloocan
coffee consumed of the students separately to describe and relate both variables. The paper is

inclusively transparent to descriptive data of critical thinking scores and coffee consumed and

their correlation and result of treatment. The research will not tackle factors to consider why

students take coffee, infer causation or impact from statistical effect of the study, and

demographics' diversity that may correlate to desire, need, or influence to coffee intake.

A framework in place would act as a backbone in gathering respondents' data and

preparing questionnaires that must be answered. Finding respondents through random procedures

and answering the questionnaires handed over would be the vital part of gathering data. The

questionnaires mainly focus on the number of daily coffees and critical thinking challenges to

address its scores. The data collected will be analyzed and processed to be treated statistically.

Utilizing treatment, the researchers will finally conclude and recommend outcomes. Ethical

standards are at their finest in inquiring and challenging the respondents as the researchers will

not disclose sensitive information, if any, but in a minimal inquiry of personal information.

Background of the Study

Coffee is a well-known drink in the whole world. A large number of people drink coffee

daily. It is consumed by people of various races, genders, ages, and nationalities. In this research,

we will correlate the coffee intake of students to their Critical Thinking Skills. Caffeine-

containing beverages such as coffee are the most often consumed. Caffeine is a bioactive

component in coffee that has stimulatory effects on the central nervous system and improves

long-term memory (Mejia & Ramirez-Mares, 2014). Even though coffee consumption has

usually been associated with

 The Correlation of Coffee Consumption and Critical-Thinking Skills of
Grade 12 STEM Strand Students of The University of The East
Caloocan
adverse health consequences, the current study indicates that it may be healthy. Caffeine is one

of the factors that contribute to increased productivity. It is a widely used ingredient in a wide

variety of products. Caffeine has consistently been in great demand due to its potential to boost

academic performance and aid in staying awake and focused. Caffeine has several significant

effects on humans, including increasing mental alertness, boosting energy, improving attention,

and decreasing tiredness, which is beneficial to drowsy people. (Narayanan, 2020).

Caffeine can help with cognitive abilities, but it can also affect physical and mental

health. Critical thinking is essential because it develops cognitive skills, which improves task

performance. When taken excessively, it might be harmful to one's mental health (Bühler et al.,

2014). Higher education is a place where students can develop their critical thinking abilities.

Language abilities can be improved through oral and written thinking activities (Marni et al.,

2019; Sumarmi et al., 2020). For students, their ability to comprehend, analyze, infer, and assess

situations in their environment teaches them to develop cognitive maturity. It will assist pupils in

achieving academic achievement in each class. The ability to think critically enables students to

reason their way through issues (Jatmiko et al., 2018).

According to Morata (2013), Extreme consumption is found to cause the following side

effects: anxiety, headache, palpitation, irritability, insomnia, and indigestion. Caffeine is

widespread and is widely used in many drinks such as coffee, tea, and other energy and sports

drinks. It dramatically affects the brain by increasing mental alertness, memory, energy, and

concentration. Moreover, caffeine decreases drowsiness and increases motivation to do work.

Also, caffeine is used to restore mental alertness or wakefulness during fatigue. Caffeine

maintains a person to be up even late at night because it mimics adenosine, a hormone that lets a

person
 The Correlation of Coffee Consumption and Critical-Thinking Skills of
Grade 12 STEM Strand Students of The University of The East
Caloocan
sleep. In a study conducted by Clingan (2020), caffeine can help with cognitive skills yet could

hinder the employee’s physical and mental health when overused. Thus, causing issues of sleep,

ill-behavior, cardiovascular system, glucose metabolism, bone and calcium balance, reproductive

and development effects, and carcinogenesis.

The researchers wanted to know if there is a relationship between coffee consumption

and critical thinking skills. The results will impact data collected from senior high school

students about coffee consumption, critical thinking, and the relationship between the two

variables, which can also be used as a reference for future studies. Knowing the relationship

between the two variables will be helpful and contribute to the field of science and knowledge.

Statement of the Problem

Coffee is a widely loved and popular beverage that contains caffeine. It is believed that it

increases mental alertness, memory, the concentration of the mind, and energy. People indulge in

coffee in times of exhaustion to think that it can improve their work performance and lessen

drowsiness. This study aims to evaluate whether there is a correlation between coffee

consumption and students' critical thinking abilities through the use of a brief quantitative survey

administered via an online questionnaire. This study aims to find the average levels of coffee

intake, average critical thinking skills of students, and their correlation to one another. The

research seeks to answer the following:

1. What are the average levels of coffee intake of the students?

2. What are the average levels of critical thinking of the students of the students?
 The Correlation of Coffee Consumption and Critical-Thinking Skills of
Grade 12 STEM Strand Students of The University of The East
Caloocan
3. What is the relationship between the consumption levels of coffee of students to their

critical-thinking skills?

Hypotheses

Our study aims to learn about the substantial relation between the effects of coffee on a

student's critical thinking skills. We hypothesized that the 100 students would know that coffee

affects their critical thinking skills and that it positively affects them by showing improvement.

Scope and Limitation

The general intent of this study is to see if there is a relationship between coffee

consumption and critical-thinking skills among Grade 12 STEM Strand students of the

University of the East Caloocan Campus.

The study focuses on the 100 grade 12 STEM students of the University of the East

Caloocan Campus selected using stratified random sampling. Furthermore, this research only

covers the results from the questionnaires distributed online using google forms as a platform

needed to gather data. The research will be conducted during the second semester of the

University of the East Caloocan Campus school year 2021-2022. Moreover, the study will be

carried out at the researchers' and participants' respective homes.

The limitations of the study involve factors regarding circumstances in pandemic times.

The analyses and literature linked to this study notably focus on the effects of caffeine

consumption in other topics such as cognitive performance and health rather than critical-

thinking skills. The

 The Correlation of Coffee Consumption and Critical-Thinking Skills of
Grade 12 STEM Strand Students of The University of The East
Caloocan
researchers are only allowed to find resources online and not in physical libraries, making the

available related literature and studies limited. The study is also only to be conducted online and

for a limited time.

Significance of the Study

This study determines the effects of coffee on the student's critical thinking skills. This research

will benefit the following:

To students, as they are under constant work and study hours, knowing the results may help

them improve their overall performance. This study will help the student to see the impact on the

said study.

To health professionals, more information can help them create programs and resources that

will help us better understand the impact of coffee in our lives.

To society as it gives knowledge on how coffee consumption affects critical-thinking skills.

To future researchers as they can use this study as a reference for their research. This research

study will enable the searchers to look for more evidence to improve their research skills.

Resources

Bühler, Erika & Lachenmeier, Dirk & Schlegel, Katharina & Winkler, Gertrud. (2014).

Development of a tool to assess the caffeine intake among teenagers and young adults.

Ernahrungsumschau. 61. 58-63. 10.4455/eu.2014.011.

 The Correlation of Coffee Consumption and Critical-Thinking Skills of
Grade 12 STEM Strand Students of The University of The East
Caloocan
Clingan, P. D. (2020). Caffeine Impacts the Critical Thinking Skills in Employees A

Practice and Limited Quantitative Descriptive Comparative Research Study. Journal of

Medical Biomedical and Applied Sciences. https://doi.org/10.15520/jmbas.v8i5.227

Marni, S., Aliman, M., Suyono, Roekhan, Harsiati, T. (2020). Students’ Critical Thinking Skills

Based on Gender and Knowledge Group. 4(17)

https://www.tused.org/index.php/tused/article/view/1246

Mejia, E. G. D., & Ramirez-Mares, M. V. (2014). Impact of caffeine and coffee on our health.

Trends in Endocrinology & Metabolism, 25(10), 489–492.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tem.2014.07.003

Narayanan, A., Gill, M., Leem, C., Li, C., Mein Smith, F., Shepherd, B., Ting, S., van Bart, K.,

Green, J. A., Samaranayaka, A., Ergler, C., & Macmillan, A. (2021). Students’ use of

caffeine, alcohol, dietary supplements, and illegal substances for improving academic

performance in a New Zealand university. Health Psychology and Behavioral Medicine,

9(1), 917–932. https://doi.org/10.1080/21642850.2021.1990763

Thonney, T., & Montgomery, J. C. (2019). Defining Critical Thinking Across Disciplines: An

Analysis of Community College Faculty Perspectives. College Teaching, 67(3), 169–176.

https://doi.org/10.1080/87567555.2019.1579700