Throughout our research on the impact that college has on an individual’s religious participation and involvement, we were able to make many connections to previous research and themes. When analyzing other researcher’s work and data we were able to see that respondents felt the same that ours here on Western’s campus did. Many felt as if there college and peers weren’t supporting them and endorsing their practices which is parallel to the data we gathered. Religion anywhere in the world is important because it is a way that people can identify and express their culture. Most colleges claim to be very diverse and accepted but students often say they don’t provide what is needed for these religious groups. Unlike the research, we analyzed we conducted surveys in order to gain a better understanding of why the answers we received really mattered.
In the article, Maintaining The Faith During College: A Study of Campus Religious Group Participation written by Gary E. Madsen and Glenn M. Vernon the two explore the question of religious participation on a college campus. They examined students closely to get a better understanding of the impact of college on a student’s religious involvement which is what we were aiming to do too. Through their surveys, the two concluded that there is a decline in involvement/participation within a religious body once coming to college. There is a multitude of factors that come with this conclusion but it gave us some ground to stand on. Our research was actually very connected to this exact research, but we had different methodology because we included interviews to further our research and come to a solid conclusion. Many researchers want to find what it is exactly that draws students away from their religious activities and through further research, this can be achieved, but it varies.
In the article, Faith and Understanding: Specifying the Impact of Higher Education on Religious Belief written by Jonathan P. Hill, he wants to examine the impact of educational enrollment and attainment on several measures of religious belief using nationally representative panel data. He studied social influence, previous surveys/studies, and looked at both religiously affiliated and non-affiliated schools. The results show that some higher educations, not all, effect peoples religious standings and tend to stay the same throughout different kinds of colleges as well. We expect to see a change in students involvement when coming to colleges and we also expect that some individuals won’t experience the same amount of change or any at all depending on college foundation factors (Christian College, Private College, etc.) The question is more different from ours because it focuses more on social factors but it gave us a better understanding of different angles we could go at and it gave us more ideas on how to survey even though we stuck to the general survey style.
In the article Religion, College Grades, and Satisfaction among Students at Elite Colleges and Universities by Margarita Mooney she surveyed students from various colleges asking how college impacts their social lives (religion being a part of this.) She conducted surveys like most researchers, which can limit the results you get and can actually limit your understanding of why students are saying what they are. This again was another angle of researcher we went off of when conducting our researcher and made sure to include questions that related to this topic because social lives (private lives) are greatly influenced by peers and institutions.
In this article, The Effects on Involvement in Campus Religious Communities on College Student Adjustment written by Alyssa N. Bryant, she wanted to see the statistical number of religious students that experienced a change in their faith while attending college. Furthermore, she wanted to try and discover if there are any patterns or common threads throughout the students in the religious body. The author chose to use identical survey across multiple campuses so she would be able to lay the data side by side and dissect the information and coming to a conclusion if that there are common patterns to the numbers she recorded. It was good that she conducted this survey on many campuses because of the factors that could influence different students because of their environments. It allows for the research to lead to a more exact conclusion as to why people are experiencing a change in their involvement.
In the article Changes in Religion Among College Students written by Philip K. Hastings and R. Hoge the research was conducted to pinpoint exactly how college and social norms impact individuals perusal of religion. Like all the rest they only conducted surveys and didn’t include interviews within their research which proves to be limiting. Through this, they found that social influences had the most impact on someone’s involvement, things such as get-together, parties, etc. It’s really important to keep environmental and social factors in mind when gathering data because you can see trends and patterns depending on those exact factors.
In all of this research that has been conducted, none have included interviews in their work. Interviews really strengthen your findings and give you a better understanding as to why these answers are relevant. Everyone generally had the question of college impact of individual beliefs. Making sure to include reason in your thinking is critical and keeps those environmental and social factors so you can understand the results you are receiving.