Faith Development in Graduating Christian College Seniors

Abstract

This qualitative study involved conducting semistructured interviews with 12 students attending a Christian liberal arts college. The study sought to identify how students' Christian faith changes over the course of time they are attending college. The factors identified as potentially influencing changes in faith within students attending a Christian liberal arts college include: relationships with mentors and peers, gender differences, and active searching by the student. Results of this study found several areas that influenced the participants' development of faith while attending college. Three main themes were found to be the most salient aspects of the participants' development of faith: (a) discovering self and an authentic connection with self, (b) discovering others and an authentic connection with others, and (c) discovering God and an authentic connection with God. Several applications of the results of this research are discussed, including implications for churches as well as universities.College is a time when students are able to experience a variety of new people, ideas, and beliefs. The experience of college affects the person as a whole. Classroom learning, dormitory life, outside activities, and interactions with peers all add to the experience. Education includes not only academic subjects but emotional, spiritual, and cognitive growth as well. There is a transformation occurring in all areas of development for the young adult. Spiritual development and faith identity are two areas of development occurring at this time.While searching for their identity, college students also often search out a system of faith. The college environment provides an optimal environment for the exploration of beliefs related to faith for young adults (Parks, 2000). The college student is trying to reconcile both the social forces that were all-consuming during adolescence, and a new sense of self that brings responsibility and knowledge. During this struggle, the emergence of faith is caught between these two worlds as well. Students strive toward making faith personal while still understanding its relational qualities.For college students who are examining faith at this stage, ownership of their beliefs becomes a central aspect of development. This time of life has begun to be referred to as emerging adulthood. The emerging adult will take new information found in classrooms, along with new experiences outside the classroom, into the process of developing a faith structure. In emerging adulthood, the young adult forms a differentiated faith, one that includes a reciprocal relationship with God

Christian Colleges and Universities as Moral Communities: The Effects of Institutional Characteristics on Student Religiosity

“…In addition to religious homogeneity and pluralism, other institutional characteristics may help to create moral communities. Conservative Protestant colleges and universities take pride in maintaining their Christian identity through the integration of faith and learning and the provision of spiritual mentorship and Christian community (Swezey and Ross 2012; Sinclair et al 2012; Woodrow 2006). Through these efforts, Christian colleges and universities hope to encourage the faith formation and religious practice of their students.…”

“…Survey results indicate that this emphasis on encouraging faith formation is one characteristic that attracts students to faith-based colleges and universities (Gonyea and Kuh 2006; Ma 2003). Many evangelical and Bible colleges encourage religiosity and moral behavior by requiring their students to sign statements of faith, maintaining certain standards of behavior, and attending campus chapel (Hill 2009; Sinclair et al 2012). Nevertheless, changes in religiosity throughout college differ by institution, suggesting that some institutions are more effective facilitators of faith formation than others.…”

The spiritual development of emerging adults over the college years: A 4-year longitudinal investigation.

“…Third, to the extent that declining spiritual scores on self-report measures do represent a deconstruction-reconstruction process as we have suggested, it would be useful to use qualitative and mixed-method designs (e.g., Powell, Tisdale, Willingham, Bustrum, & Allan, 2012) to examine RS among EAs in order to corroborate this and articulate what this process looks like. We expect that if seniors are indeed generally more spiritually mature than freshman, they will talk about their spirituality differently than freshman, and in ways that reveal a more developmentally mature faith.…”

A Model for Biblical Worldview Development in Evangelical Christian Emerging Adults

“…Emerging adulthood is a period of significant transition, personal formation, and exploration of possibilities (Arnett, 2007), and much research has focused on individuals in this life stage. However, for the concept of Biblical worldview formation, the results of the research have yielded either disappointing, inadequate, or incomplete conclusions: disappointing, in that many emerging adults are rejecting Christianity, or do not possess a Biblical worldview (Ham et al, 2012); inadequate, in that a reliable measure of a person's worldview has not yet been developed (Schultz & Swezey, 2013); and incomplete, in that many studies regarding emerging adults focus on only limited aspects of worldview development (King, Clardy, & Ramos, 2014;Nather, 2013;Powell, Tisdale, Willingham, Bustrum, & Allan, 2012).…”