Conclusions

Both student researchers have been in many situations where firearms were being shot without the use of hearing protection. A study from 2009 on the habits of waterfowl hunters in the United States revealed that around 80% of the hunters they surveyed reported that they never use hearing protection when hunting, and less than 40% reported wearing hearing protection devices on a regular basis (Stewart, et al., 2009). There are several other studies out there that confirm these findings, that in certain situations and with encouragement, shooters will wear the appropriate hearing protection, but in reality when shooters are in a more comfortable or familiar environment they are less likely to wear hearing protection. The participants in our study overwhelmingly reported that they wear hearing protection and would wear hearing protection even if not told to do so, with the exception of 4 of the 73 participants. We are not sure why the participants in our study seem to be so different from other previous studies, but we do have a couple of theories. One theory being that the majority of our participants are in the age range of 18-40 years old (56 of 73 participants). Is it possible that this age range is more likely to wear hearing protection than other age groups? Of the two other age groups in our study, 41-60 years old and 61+ years old there were still only a handful of participants that reported that they would not wear hearing protection if not told to do so. One possible bias in our participants is that due to the nature of survey distribution, email and Facebook, the limited reach of influence on Facebook that the student researchers may have, combined with the fact that one of the student researchers has many friends on Facebook that shoot in competitions and at gun ranges where they are required to wear hearing protection devices and may be more educated on the dangers of shooting to their hearing. This could have led to a concentrated group of participants that were already more apt to wear hearing protection than other sample groups.

One area in which our study could be improved upon is the number of participants. In the original plan for the study pre-COVID, the researchers were to go in person to the Indiana State Shoot where thousands of shooters would be present of all ages and there would be more opportunity to recruit participants that would definitely be shooters. Future studies should try to attend one of these larger competition shoots where there will be a large number of people present that could meet the inclusion criteria.

Another downfall of our study is that the majority of participants were age 18 to 40 years old (56 of 73 participants), with 13 participants being age 41 to 60, and 4 participants being age 61 and older. Future studies should try to recruit more participants from the 41 to 60 years old and 61 years and older groups to be able to better compare differences in attitudes of shooters of different ages. Future studies could also attempt to include a younger age group, say age 13 to 17, in order to compare youth shooter attitudes with those of adults.