The Salience Of Friday The 13th For College Students - Statistical Data Included

College Student Journal, June, 2001 by Jerry M. Lewis, Timothy J. Gallagher

Results

We asked our students to indicate their level of agreement with four statements concerning Friday the 13th:

1. I think Friday the 13th is just a normal day where good and bad things can happen.

2. My friends and I usually talk about the fact that it is Friday the 13th.

3. I usually look at the calendar and circle Friday the 13th.

4. I would prefer not to take a sociology test on Friday the 13th.

The responses to these questions were in the form of a 4 point Likert scale ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree.

In regard to the first statement about being a normal day, 15 percent of the sample either disagreed (10.9%) or strongly disagreed (4.1%) with the statement indicating that a substantial number of our students, 132 of the 881 in the sample, may alter their normal daily activities on a Friday the 13th (Table 1). This is the same percentage of Americans in general who fear Friday the 13th and would rather stay home on that day (Porter, 1999). Regarding the statement on talking about the fact that it is Friday the 13th, a majority of students (55%) expressed some level of agreement with it, indicating the popular appeal of this usually once a year event. On the other hand only 8.1 percent of students agreed or strongly agreed with the statement that they circle Friday the 13th on the calendar. The fourth statement is probably of most interest to instructors because it deals with Friday the 13th and testing. Our data shows that almost 31 percent of our students (or 271 of the 881 responding to the survey) agreed (22.4%) or strongly agreed (8.4%) that they would prefer not to take a test on Friday the 13th. For example, in a single jumbo introductory sociology class with an enrollment of 400, this would mean that 123 students would be uncomfortable about taking a test on Friday the 13th. Based on these responses to the four statements about Friday the 13th, we must conclude that many students not only show a strong awareness and interest in Friday the 13th, but a significant proportion of them may alter their typical daily and educational activities as well.

Table 1
Distribution of Responses to Friday the 13th Statements

Friday the 13th            Strongly         Agree
Statement                    Agree

It's just a normal
day                       244 (27.7%)    505 (57.3%)

My friends and I
usually talk about it      69 (7.8%)     416 (47.2%)

I circle it on
the calendar               14 (1.6%)      57 (6.5%)

I prefer to not take a
test on that day           74 (8.4%)     197 (22.4%)

Friday the 13th            Disagree       Strongly
Statement                                 Disagree

It's just a normal
day                       96 (10.9%)      36 (4.1%)

My friends and I
usually talk about it     212 (24.1%)    184 (20.9%)

I circle it on
the calendar              278 (31.6%)    532 (60.4%)

I prefer to not take a
test on that day          349 (39.6%)    261 (29.6%)

We will now address our second research question: What are the demographic and educational performance characteristics of those students who do and do not show interest in Friday the 13th? To answer this question we conducted a series of bivariate comparisons between each of the four statements about Friday the 13th and gender, race, G.P.A., and expected grade for the class. We examined the crosstabulations between the Friday the 13th variables and demographic and educational performance variables and determined strength of association using the chi-square value -- an overall measure of difference between observed cell frequencies and cell frequencies expected under the hypothesis of no association. When the chi-square value was large, we also examined the individual cell measures of discrepancy between the observed value and the expected value for each cell. These measures are expressed as z-scores. Z-scores that approach either positive or negative 2.0 indicate substantial differences between the observed value and the value expected under the condition of no association. Thus, a z-score of 2.0, for example, would indicate that two variables are related, while a z-score of 0 would indicate the absence of any association.