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Baylor Faith and Character Study: Methods and Preliminary Findings

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Title: Baylor Faith and Character Study: Methods and Preliminary Findings
Language: English
Authors: Dougherty, Kevin D. (ORCID 0000-0002-4925-3311), Glanzer, Perry L. (ORCID 0000-0002-3649-2516), Robinson, Jessica A. (ORCID 0000-0002-1276-7570), Ratchford, Juliette L. (ORCID 0000-0001-5506-8967), Schnitker, Sarah A. (ORCID 0000-0002-2403-9765)
Source: Christian Higher Education. 2022 21(3):168-190.
Availability: Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Peer Reviewed: Y
Page Count: 23
Publication Date: 2022
Document Type: Journal Articles
Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education
Postsecondary Education
Descriptors: Christianity, Religious Colleges, Spiritual Development, Moral Development, Moral Values, Outcomes of Education, Interdisciplinary Approach, Religious Factors, Universities, Case Studies, Student Attitudes, Student Surveys, Alumni, College Seniors, College Freshmen, Measurement
Geographic Terms: Texas
DOI: 10.1080/15363759.2021.1929564
ISSN: 1536-3759
1539-4107
Abstract: For Christian colleges and universities, students' spiritual formation and character development are important outcomes. However, unlike academic outcomes of retention and graduation, systematic efforts to measure outcomes of faith and character are far from ubiquitous. The purpose of this article is to report the efforts of Baylor University to address the gap between mission and measurement. Guided by prevailing theories, an interdisciplinary research team launched the Baylor Faith and Character Study in August 2018. Data collection for the broader project involved surveys and interviews at three points in time: a student's first semester at Baylor, a student's final semester at Baylor, and 10 years after degree completion. Preliminary, cross-sectional findings from survey data reveal that levels of religious belief and practice were nearly equivalent for first-year students, seniors, and alumni, while seniors exhibited stronger character in several areas than first-year students. A discussion of conclusions and implications closes the article.
Abstractor: As Provided
Entry Date: 2022
Accession Number: EJ1352634
Database: ERIC
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  Value: <anid>AN0157137900;j2401may.22;2022May31.07:27;v2.2.500</anid> <title id="AN0157137900-1">Baylor Faith and Character Study: Methods and Preliminary Findings </title> <p>For Christian colleges and universities, students' spiritual formation and character development are important outcomes. However, unlike academic outcomes of retention and graduation, systematic efforts to measure outcomes of faith and character are far from ubiquitous. The purpose of this article is to report the efforts of Baylor University to address the gap between mission and measurement. Guided by prevailing theories, an interdisciplinary research team launched the Baylor Faith and Character Study in August 2018. Data collection for the broader project involved surveys and interviews at three points in time: a student's first semester at Baylor, a student's final semester at Baylor, and 10 years after degree completion. Preliminary, cross-sectional findings from survey data reveal that levels of religious belief and practice were nearly equivalent for first-year students, seniors, and alumni, while seniors exhibited stronger character in several areas than first-year students. A discussion of conclusions and implications closes the article.</p> <p>Many Christian colleges and universities have goals for students' spiritual formation and character development that are either explicitly or implicitly indicated in their mission statement and educational outcomes (Firmin & Gilson, [<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref1">18</reflink>]). Consequently, we might expect that Christian colleges and universities have developed sophisticated ways to measure the spiritual and moral growth of their students. After all, as Park and Peterson ([<reflink idref="bib48" id="ref2">48</reflink>]) observed, "One measures what one values, and one values what one measures" (p. 4). Yet, the reality is that relatively few institutions have undertaken university-wide <emph>longitudinal</emph> efforts to evaluate students' spiritual and moral development during their undergraduate years (Foster & LaForce, [<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref3">20</reflink>]; Hall et al., [<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref4">25</reflink>]).</p> <p>Models of systematic, longitudinal research on student faith exist. Astin et al. ([<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref5">2</reflink>]) conducted a national longitudinal study of college students' religious and spiritual development over time, and Colby et al. ([<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref6">12</reflink>]) conducted a national study of moral development among college students. There also is national longitudinal research on the spiritual lives of all emerging adults, including those not in college (Denton & Flory, [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref7">16</reflink>]; Smith et al., [<reflink idref="bib59" id="ref8">59</reflink>]; Smith & Snell, [<reflink idref="bib60" id="ref9">60</reflink>]). Nevertheless, most Christian colleges and universities have not drawn upon these works to develop longitudinal studies of their students.</p> <p>In light of this reality, we have set out to design a comprehensive, mixed-methods, longitudinal study that examines why and how students' self-assessment of their faith and character changes during college. The purpose of this article is to introduce the Baylor Faith and Character Study.</p> <hd id="AN0157137900-2">Research Setting</hd> <p>Baylor University is the setting for this research. Baylor was founded as a Baptist liberal arts college in 1845. Presently, it is a Christian research university of 19,300 students, including 14,400 undergraduates and 4,900 graduate students. Baylor attempts to maintain its religious identity through a variety of means such as hiring practices (faculty must be either Christian or Jewish), required chapel for first-year students, two required undergraduate religion courses (Christian Scriptures and Christian Heritage), and a co-curricular ethos that prioritizes Christian faith and practice. Neither faculty nor students are required to sign a statement of faith.</p> <p>The origins of this research project came from the Baylor Board of Regent's Student Life Subcommittee. In the Fall of 2017, the subcommittee tasked the Chaplain's Office with investigating the religious development of Baylor students. In December, the Baylor chaplain convened a meeting of faculty members with expertise on faith development and Christian higher education. Over the spring semester, an interdisciplinary team led by scholars in education, sociology, and psychology formalized project goals and began crafting an ambitious longitudinal research design. Survey instruments and interview scripts were reviewed and approved by Baylor IRB. Data collection began in August 2018.</p> <p>In the first wave of data collection, we administered surveys and conducted interviews with over 4,600 students and alumni. We seek to track changes in religious belonging, beliefs, and behaviors, as well as students' development of moral virtues and character strengths. Our methods and preliminary findings are salient not only for leaders at Baylor University, but also for administrators, faculty, and staff at other Christian colleges and universities. In the pages that follow, we provide the theoretical foundation of our study, introduce the research design and quantitative data collection in Year 1, highlight preliminary findings from our surveys, and discuss implications for practice and suggestions for further research.</p> <hd id="AN0157137900-3">Literature Review</hd> <p>Beyond an assessment of Baylor students and alumni, we see this project as a unique opportunity to compare findings from Baylor to other recent findings, both longitudinal and cross-sectional, regarding emerging adults' faith and character (Astin et al., [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref10">1</reflink>]; Clydesdale, [<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref11">10</reflink>]; Colby et al., [<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref12">12</reflink>]; Denton & Flory, [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref13">16</reflink>]; Foster & LaForce, [<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref14">20</reflink>]; Glanzer et al., [<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref15">22</reflink>]; Glanzer & Ream, [<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref16">23</reflink>]; Hall et al., [<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref17">25</reflink>]; Mayhew et al., [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref18">42</reflink>]; Mayhew & Bryant, [<reflink idref="bib38" id="ref19">38</reflink>]; Padilla-Walker, [<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref20">47</reflink>]; Small & Bowman, [<reflink idref="bib58" id="ref21">58</reflink>]; Smith et al., [<reflink idref="bib59" id="ref22">59</reflink>]; Smith & Snell, [<reflink idref="bib60" id="ref23">60</reflink>]). The first part of our literature review will highlight studies that have addressed students' religious belonging, beliefs, and behavior. The second part will summarize related literature on virtue development (i.e., a holistic approach to moral development) in higher education.</p> <hd id="AN0157137900-4">Collegiate Religious Belonging, Belief, and Behavior</hd> <p>It is widely noted that current college-age Americans appear noticeably less religious than the broader U.S. population in terms of religious affiliation, orthodoxy of religious beliefs, and religious participation (Bengston, [<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref24">4</reflink>]; Smith & Snell, [<reflink idref="bib60" id="ref25">60</reflink>]; Twenge, [<reflink idref="bib64" id="ref26">64</reflink>]). Today's emerging adults are guided by convictions that prize individualism and tolerance largely absent of any shared moral framework (Smith et al., [<reflink idref="bib59" id="ref27">59</reflink>]). Our interest is what happens to students religiously and morally within a Christian university. We concentrate our analysis of religion on three components: (a) religious belonging; (b) religious belief; and (c) religious behavior. We will review literature related to these three components with an emphasis on studies of college students, although we will also refer at times to studies of young emerging adults (aged 18-23) that include non-college students.</p> <hd id="AN0157137900-5">Religious Belonging</hd> <p>There are two common ways that scholars typically measure religious belonging or identity for college students. First, a number of studies focus on whether students identify as religious, spiritual, or neither/secular (Astin et al., [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref28">2</reflink>]; Hall et al., [<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref29">25</reflink>]; Mayhew et al., [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref30">42</reflink>]). These categories are not necessarily exclusive, as shown by a recent study that found 41.2% of students identified as both religious and spiritual, 26.4% as simply spiritual, 9.8% as religious, and 22.4% as neither (Mayhew et al., [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref31">42</reflink>]). Thus, we employ the second type of measure that locates individuals within a denomination or larger faith tradition, such as Baptist, Hindu, Muslim, and Roman Catholic, as well as secular categories such as agnostic and atheist. This approach is applied in the 2019 CIRP Freshman Survey and other studies of college students (Mayhew et al., [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref32">39</reflink>]; Stolzenberg et al., [<reflink idref="bib62" id="ref33">62</reflink>]). A limitation of this approach is the restricted number of religious groups provided to respondents. To accurately record religious belonging among students at a Christian university, a longer list of options is needed. We used a question of religious affiliation from the Baylor Religion Survey that included 43 response options spanning a wide array of Christian and non-Christian groups (Baylor University, [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref34">3</reflink>]). We are not aware of higher education scholars who have used this variable to track changes in students' religious or nonreligious identity.</p> <hd id="AN0157137900-6">Religious Belief</hd> <p>Most national studies of college students' religious beliefs have centered on general beliefs about religion or spirituality (Mayhew et al., [<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref35">37</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref36">42</reflink>]), beliefs related to inter-faith interaction (Mayhew et al., [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref37">39</reflink>]), or multi-item scales that conflate religious beliefs and behaviors (Koenig & Bussing, [<reflink idref="bib33" id="ref38">33</reflink>]; Plante & Boccaccini, [<reflink idref="bib52" id="ref39">52</reflink>]). Because we were measuring religious beliefs at a Christian university, we desired a measure of core Christian beliefs separate from any correlated religious practices. One previous longitudinal study at an evangelical college used the 38-item Shepherd Scale to determine adherence to general Christian beliefs (Foster & LaForce, [<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref40">20</reflink>]). The study found no decline in faith commitment using this scale. For parsimony, we chose the six-item Christian Orthodoxy Scale developed by Hunsberger ([<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref41">30</reflink>]). The scale has a long history in sociological research on religion, and it previously has been used with alumni at two Christian colleges (Cook et al., [<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref42">13</reflink>]) and students at a public university (Cummings et al., [<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref43">14</reflink>]). We are not aware of a previous study that has used the scale to track longitudinal change in college students' religious beliefs.</p> <hd id="AN0157137900-7">Religious Behavior</hd> <p>Various studies have gauged the religious participation of college students with variables such as religious service attendance, private prayer, or involvement in other religious activities (Astin et al., [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref44">2</reflink>]; Glanzer et al., [<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref45">22</reflink>]). Astin et al. ([<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref46">2</reflink>]) found that religious engagement, most notably attendance at religious services, declined for students during college. In addition, a longitudinal study at an evangelical college found that students' participation in prayer/meditation, watching religious programs, or reading religious literature decreased over time (Hall et al., [<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref47">25</reflink>]). In contrast, national longitudinal survey data from the National Study of Youth and Religion suggest that evangelical colleges and universities enhance the religious behavior of students (Hill, [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref48">29</reflink>]). These studies demonstrate that there are different ways in which students may be religious. Similar to the need to keep religious beliefs and religious behaviors as separate variables in an analysis of students' religiosity, a study of religiosity within a Christian university needs to distinguish alternative forms of religious behavior.</p> <hd id="AN0157137900-8">Moral Development in Higher Education</hd> <p>The tricky task of measuring students' moral development during college has received significant attention in the literature (Colby, [<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref49">11</reflink>]; Colby et al., [<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref50">12</reflink>]; Mayhew et al., [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref51">39</reflink>]), but that attention is often rather one-sided when one considers general definitions of moral or character education. A common definition of character education usually centers on how students come to understand the good, love the good, and do the good (Lickona, [<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref52">35</reflink>]). For example, Colby ([<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref53">11</reflink>]) identified three similar areas of moral development that universities target: moral understanding, moral motivation and identity, and moral action. Others add the domain of moral emotion (Padilla-Walker, [<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref54">47</reflink>]), although moral education can be understood as an element of motivation.</p> <p>When it comes to empirical research, the domain of moral understanding or reasoning receives the most attention by higher education scholars (see the chapter summarizing higher education research in moral development in Mayhew et al., [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref55">39</reflink>]). Mayhew et al. ([<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref56">39</reflink>]) admitted:</p> <p>the preponderance of evidence from the 2000<sups>s</sups> emerged from scholars who adopted Kohlbergian and neo‐Kohlbergian frames for understanding moral reasoning development and its relationship to college-going....the Kohlbergian and neo‐Kohlbergian understandings of morality and its subsequent measurement dominate the research landscape with regard to college and its impact on students. (p. 332)</p> <p>Oddly, even the definition of moral development offered in the recent <emph>How College Affects Students</emph> describes moral development in simply cognitive terms as "the process whereby people form a progressive sense of what is right and wrong, proper and improper" (Mayhew et al., [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref57">39</reflink>], p. 332). No mention is made of the fact that moral development encompasses the good life as a whole and not simply right and wrong or that it involves issues related to moral emotion, motivation, or moral action. Later, these scholars confessed, "Most of the research reviewed for this volume examined moral reasoning development and its relationship to participation in higher education" (p. 336). As a result, the research on moral development in Christian higher education has largely focused on cognitive moral development, as can be seen in various longitudinal studies of students' moral reasoning at Christian colleges and universities (McNeel, [<reflink idref="bib44" id="ref58">44</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib45" id="ref59">45</reflink>]; Shaver, [<reflink idref="bib57" id="ref60">57</reflink>]; see also the reported reanalysis of McNeel in Pascarella & Terenzini, [<reflink idref="bib50" id="ref61">50</reflink>], pp. 351-352). This inordinate focus on moral understanding in higher education is rather surprising considering that moral psychologists have expanded the field far beyond that one domain (Padilla-Walker, [<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref62">47</reflink>]).</p> <p>In the area of cognitive moral development, substantial evidence exists that attending post-secondary education is strongly and positively related to advances in moral reasoning (Rest, [<reflink idref="bib53" id="ref63">53</reflink>]) and that students at church-affiliated colleges demonstrated higher scores on moral reasoning assessments than students at other types of colleges and universities (Buier et al., [<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref64">7</reflink>]; Foster & LaForce, [<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref65">20</reflink>]; Glanzer & Ream, [<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref66">23</reflink>]). However, it is not clear that higher education specifically helps adults understand various moral traditions of thought and employ them. For example, a national study of young emerging adults by Smith et al. ([<reflink idref="bib59" id="ref67">59</reflink>]) found, "much of life seems to them to be a neutral zone, in which moral goods and bads are absent or irrelevant" (p. 65). The authors argued that adults—including educators at colleges and universities—have failed to adequately socialize today's youth in moral formation. Overall, they summarized that what college and university students need are, "some better moral maps and better-equipped guides to show them the way around. The question is, do those maps and guides exist, and can they be put into use?" (p. 69).</p> <p>Some scholars believe these cognitive maps and guides exist and can be provided (Colby, [<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref68">11</reflink>]; Colby et al., [<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref69">12</reflink>]). In the most comprehensive overview of moral education in higher education, Colby et al. ([<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref70">12</reflink>]) identified three primary thematic ways that institutions concerned with moral education attempt to accomplish these ends. First, some universities use what Colby et al. termed the community connections approach, which emphasizes service to the local neighborhoods or city. The second method, the moral and civic virtues approach, involves helping undergraduate students learn how to foster particular moral virtues. The third method, the social justice or systematic social responsibility approach, emphasizes the need to change social structures and address public policy in order to create a more moral society. Colby et al. recommended that institutions seek to integrate all three of these approaches into their moral development curricula. We contend that these three themes all function as different parts of the virtue approach to ethics delineated, defended, and studied by virtue theorists (e.g., Hauerwas & Wells, [<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref71">26</reflink>]; MacIntyre, [<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref72">36</reflink>]; Miller, [<reflink idref="bib46" id="ref73">46</reflink>]; Snow, [<reflink idref="bib61" id="ref74">61</reflink>]) and positive psychologists (Fleeson et al., [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref75">19</reflink>]; Padilla-Walker, [<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref76">47</reflink>]; Peterson & Seligman, [<reflink idref="bib51" id="ref77">51</reflink>]; Schnitker et al., [<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref78">55</reflink>]).</p> <p>Thus, in our longitudinal study, we avoided the over-studied domain of moral cognition and instead examined the role that students believe the institution plays in changing their moral identity and action with regard to a broad range of virtues. We also sought to learn what mechanisms the students or alumni believed helped stimulate the change. As mentioned earlier, we are lacking longitudinal studies of college students' virtue development as related to moral identity and action. Some studies using validated measures of character do exist in areas such as intellectual humility (Krumrei-Mancuso & Rouse, [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref79">34</reflink>]), gratitude (McCullough et al., [<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref80">43</reflink>]), patience (Schnitker, [<reflink idref="bib54" id="ref81">54</reflink>]), and forgiveness (Berry et al., [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref82">5</reflink>]; Thompson et al., [<reflink idref="bib63" id="ref83">63</reflink>]), but these only measure one quality in students and not a range of qualities. One study has measured students' views of a range of virtues, but it did not measure their self-evaluation (Karris & Craighead, [<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref84">32</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0157137900-9">Method</hd> <p>The Baylor Faith and Character Study employs a mixed-methods research design. The research plan and data collection instruments were approved by Baylor IRB in July 2018. Although the larger project encompasses both quantitative and qualitative data, the purpose of this article is to present our survey items and preliminary quantitative findings.</p> <hd id="AN0157137900-10">Participants</hd> <p>Upon receiving IRB approval, a total of 4,610 students and alumni participated in our first year of data collection. We administered surveys to three different samples: first-year students (<emph>n</emph> = 3,369), seniors (<emph>n</emph> = 970), and alumni (<emph>n</emph> = 271). Demographic information on these three groups is provided in Table 1.</p> <p>Table 1. Demographic information on participants from wave 1 data collection.</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead><tr><td>Demographic</td><td>First-Year Students</td><td>Seniors</td><td>Alumni</td><td>Total</td></tr><tr><td /><td><italic>n</italic></td><td>%</td><td><italic>n</italic></td><td>%</td><td><italic>n</italic></td><td>%</td><td><italic>n</italic></td><td>%</td></tr></thead><tbody valign="top"><tr><td>Gender</td><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td> Female</td><td>2,119</td><td>62.9%</td><td>639</td><td>65.9%</td><td>141</td><td>52.0%</td><td>2,899</td><td>62.9%</td></tr><tr><td> Male</td><td>1,249</td><td>37.1%</td><td>330</td><td>34.0%</td><td>105</td><td>38.7%</td><td>1,684</td><td>36.5%</td></tr><tr><td> Missing</td><td>1</td><td>0.0%</td><td>1</td><td>0.1%</td><td>25</td><td>9.2%</td><td>27</td><td>0.6%</td></tr><tr><td>U.S. Citizenship</td><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td> Yes</td><td>3,181</td><td>94.4%</td><td>948</td><td>97.7%</td><td>–</td><td>–</td><td>4,129</td><td>89.6%</td></tr><tr><td> No</td><td>187</td><td>5.6%</td><td>21</td><td>2.2%</td><td>–</td><td>–</td><td>208</td><td>4.5%</td></tr><tr><td> Missing</td><td>1</td><td>0.0%</td><td>1</td><td>0.1%</td><td>271</td><td>100.0%</td><td>273</td><td>5.9%</td></tr><tr><td>Socioeconomic Status</td><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td> Lower Class</td><td>48</td><td>1.4%</td><td>19</td><td>2.0%</td><td>0</td><td>0.0%</td><td>67</td><td>1.5%</td></tr><tr><td> Working Class</td><td>297</td><td>8.8%</td><td>111</td><td>11.4%</td><td>19</td><td>7.0%</td><td>427</td><td>9.3%</td></tr><tr><td> Middle Class</td><td>2,239</td><td>66.5%</td><td>609</td><td>62.8%</td><td>179</td><td>62.7%</td><td>3,018</td><td>65.5%</td></tr><tr><td> Upper Class</td><td>671</td><td>19.9%</td><td>152</td><td>15.7%</td><td>44</td><td>16.2%</td><td>867</td><td>18.8%</td></tr><tr><td> Missing</td><td>114</td><td>3.4%</td><td>79</td><td>8.1%</td><td>38</td><td>14.0%</td><td>231</td><td>5.0%</td></tr><tr><td>Political Leaning</td><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td> Extremely Conservative</td><td>140</td><td>4.2%</td><td>39</td><td>4.0%</td><td>5</td><td>1.8%</td><td>184</td><td>4.0%</td></tr><tr><td> Conservative</td><td>930</td><td>27.6%</td><td>201</td><td>20.7%</td><td>64</td><td>23.6%</td><td>1,195</td><td>25.9%</td></tr><tr><td> Leaning Conservative</td><td>615</td><td>18.3%</td><td>159</td><td>16.4%</td><td>41</td><td>15.1%</td><td>815</td><td>17.7%</td></tr><tr><td> Moderate</td><td>900</td><td>26.7%</td><td>201</td><td>20.7%</td><td>53</td><td>19.6%</td><td>1,154</td><td>25.0%</td></tr><tr><td> Leaning Liberal</td><td>362</td><td>10.7%</td><td>142</td><td>14.6%</td><td>31</td><td>11.4%</td><td>535</td><td>11.6%</td></tr><tr><td> Liberal</td><td>269</td><td>8.0%</td><td>122</td><td>12.6%</td><td>30</td><td>11.1%</td><td>421</td><td>9.1%</td></tr><tr><td> Extremely Liberal</td><td>34</td><td>1.0%</td><td>27</td><td>2.8%</td><td>9</td><td>3.3%</td><td>70</td><td>1.5%</td></tr><tr><td> Missing</td><td>119</td><td>3.5%</td><td>79</td><td>8.1%</td><td>38</td><td>14.0%</td><td>236</td><td>5.1%</td></tr><tr><td>Mother's Education</td><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td> 8th grade or less</td><td>24</td><td>0.7%</td><td>–</td><td>–</td><td>–</td><td>–</td><td>24</td><td>0.5%</td></tr><tr><td> 9th-12th grade</td><td>31</td><td>0.9%</td><td>–</td><td>–</td><td>–</td><td>–</td><td>31</td><td>0.7%</td></tr><tr><td> High school graduate</td><td>351</td><td>10.4%</td><td>–</td><td>–</td><td>–</td><td>–</td><td>351</td><td>7.6%</td></tr><tr><td> Some college</td><td>486</td><td>14.4%</td><td>–</td><td>–</td><td>–</td><td>–</td><td>486</td><td>10.5%</td></tr><tr><td> Trade/technical/vocational training</td><td>76</td><td>2.3%</td><td>–</td><td>–</td><td>–</td><td>–</td><td>76</td><td>1.6%</td></tr><tr><td> College graduate</td><td>1,485</td><td>44.1%</td><td>–</td><td>–</td><td>–</td><td>–</td><td>1,485</td><td>32.2%</td></tr><tr><td> Postgraduate work/degree</td><td>783</td><td>23.2%</td><td>–</td><td>–</td><td>–</td><td>–</td><td>783</td><td>17.0%</td></tr><tr><td> Missing</td><td>133</td><td>3.9%</td><td>970</td><td>100.0%</td><td>271</td><td>100.0%</td><td>1,374</td><td>29.8%</td></tr><tr><td>Father's Education</td><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td> 8th grade or less</td><td>33</td><td>1.0%</td><td>–</td><td>–</td><td>–</td><td>–</td><td>33</td><td>0.7%</td></tr><tr><td> 9th-12th grade</td><td>75</td><td>2.2%</td><td>–</td><td>–</td><td>–</td><td>–</td><td>75</td><td>1.6%</td></tr><tr><td> High school graduate</td><td>259</td><td>7.7%</td><td>–</td><td>–</td><td>–</td><td>–</td><td>259</td><td>5.6%</td></tr><tr><td> Some college</td><td>376</td><td>11.2%</td><td>–</td><td>–</td><td>–</td><td>–</td><td>376</td><td>8.2%</td></tr><tr><td> Trade/technical/vocational training</td><td>104</td><td>3.1%</td><td>–</td><td>–</td><td>–</td><td>–</td><td>104</td><td>2.3%</td></tr><tr><td> College graduate</td><td>1,258</td><td>37.3%</td><td>–</td><td>–</td><td>–</td><td>–</td><td>1,258</td><td>27.3%</td></tr><tr><td> Postgraduate work/degree</td><td>1,099</td><td>32.6%</td><td>–</td><td>–</td><td>–</td><td>–</td><td>1,099</td><td>23.8%</td></tr><tr><td> Missing</td><td>165</td><td>4.9%</td><td>970</td><td>100.0%</td><td>271</td><td>100.0%</td><td>1,406</td><td>30.5%</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <hd id="AN0157137900-11">Procedure</hd> <p>Data in the present report were collected in the 2018-2019 academic year, representing baseline data. We will continue to administer first-year, senior, and alumni surveys in the coming years with the ability to link present data and future data for each respondent. This research design will generate longitudinal data that will permit us to track the faith formation and character development of individuals over time. We describe our quantitative data collection efforts in the paragraphs that follow.</p> <hd id="AN0157137900-12">Surveys</hd> <p>The surveys were separated into two questionnaires: a religion survey and a character survey. Both surveys were administered to first-year students and seniors. To simplify data collection with alumni, a single survey instrument was administered that combined religion items with a short battery of character items. All surveys are available online in an Open Science Framework (OSF) repository.[<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref85">1</reflink>]</p> <hd id="AN0157137900-13">First-Year Students</hd> <p>The religion survey was administered to first-year students during chapel services on August 20, 2018, the first day of the fall semester. At Baylor, two semesters of chapel are required of all undergraduates in order to graduate. The vast majority of students "take chapel" in their first year. First-year students received an email message from the Office of Institutional Research and Testing (IRT) with a link to the online survey instrument and were given time in chapel to complete the survey. To maximize response rates, the survey contained only 27 questions that could be finished in eight to ten minutes. In subsequent weeks, two email reminders followed. Out of 3,718 new undergraduate students entering Baylor in the Fall of 2018 (3,366 first-time freshman and 352 new transfer students; 62% women and 38% men), 3,369 completed the survey, yielding a 91% response rate. A final question on the religion survey asked students to provide their name and email address if they were interested in participating in a longer survey about character and virtue. The first 500 to complete the survey were compensated with a $5 gift card to Amazon. A total of 1,388 first-year students provided their contact information. We administered the online character survey to these students in October and November 2018. The character survey had 218 items from validated scales to measure virtues (e.g., humility, love, altruism, and hope) and vices (e.g., depression, anxiety, stress, Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy). A total of 543 students completed the character survey.</p> <hd id="AN0157137900-14">Seniors</hd> <p>The religion survey was emailed to graduating seniors in March 2019 by IRT. Three email reminders followed. Out of 2,444 graduating seniors in May 2019 (61% women and 39% men), 970 students completed the senior survey, yielding a response rate of 40%. Similar to the first-year survey, a final question asked students to provide their name and email address if they were interested in participating in a longer survey about character and virtue. Seniors who participated in the second part of the survey were also compensated with a $5 Amazon gift card. A total of 611 seniors completed the secondary character survey.</p> <hd id="AN0157137900-15">Alumni</hd> <p>The IRT team administered the religion survey to alumni who graduated in 2008 and emailed all 2008 alumni a link to the online survey with a message from Baylor University President Linda Livingstone in November 2018. The correspondence was timed to align with Baylor's homecoming festivities. Data collection continued until early December with several email reminders. In May 2008, 1,531 students graduated from Baylor (63% women and 37% men). Our alumni sample consisted of 271 respondents, for a response rate of 18%. No compensation was provided to alumni, which likely accounts for the lower response numbers.</p> <hd id="AN0157137900-16">Measures</hd> <p>A benefit of the Baylor Faith and Character Study is the use of established measures of religion and character. Next, we describe the items and scales comprising our survey instruments. They include religion measures, character virtue measures, character vice measures, and demographic measures.</p> <hd id="AN0157137900-17">Religion Measures</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0157137900-18">Religious Affiliation</hd> <p>Religious affiliation was assessed with the item, "With what religious family, if any, do you most closely identify?" Participants selected from a list of 43 choices, all drawn from the Baylor Religion Survey (Baylor University, [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref86">3</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0157137900-19">Christian Orthodoxy</hd> <p>Christian orthodoxy was assessed with the six-item Christian Orthodoxy Scale Short Version (Hunsberger, [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref87">30</reflink>]). Items included, "Jesus was the divine Son of God." Item responses ranged from 1 = <emph>strongly disagree</emph> to 7 = <emph>strongly agree</emph>. We tested the scale's internal consistency using omega (ω), a reliability statistic that is becoming a preferred alternative to Cronbach's alpha (Dunn et al., [<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref88">17</reflink>]). Reliability was good (ω =.83). First-year students, seniors, and alumni completed these items.</p> <hd id="AN0157137900-20">Bible Reading</hd> <p>Bible reading was assessed with the item, "How often do you read the Bible?" This item was drawn from Glanzer et al.'s ([<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref89">24</reflink>]) national survey of students at schools affiliated with the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities (hereafter, CCCU Student Survey). Item responses ranged from 1 = <emph>never</emph> to 8 = <emph>daily</emph>.</p> <hd id="AN0157137900-21">Church Attendance</hd> <p>Church attendance was assessed with the item, "How often do you attend religious services at a church, mosque, synagogue, or other place of worship?" This item was drawn from the Baylor Religion Survey (Baylor University, [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref90">3</reflink>]). Item responses ranged from 1 = <emph>never</emph> to 9 = <emph>several times a week</emph>.</p> <hd id="AN0157137900-22">Religious Activity Attendance</hd> <p>Religious activity attendance was assessed with the item, "How often do you attend worship meetings, Bible studies, or other activities with a para-church organization, like Young Life, Fellowship of Christian Athletes, etc.?" This item was drawn from the CCCU Student Survey (Glanzer et al., [<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref91">24</reflink>]). Item responses ranged from 1 = <emph>never</emph> to 9 = <emph>several times a week</emph>.</p> <hd id="AN0157137900-23">Change in Religious Beliefs/Convictions</hd> <p>Change in religious beliefs or convictions was assessed with the survey question: "Compared with when you first started college, how would you now describe the following qualities?" "Religious beliefs/convictions" was one of the qualities listed. Item responses ranged from 1 = <emph>much weaker</emph> to 5 = <emph>much stronger</emph>. We recoded the variable into 1 = <emph>weaker</emph>, 2 = <emph>no change</emph>, and 3 = <emph>stronger</emph>. Seniors and alumni completed this item.</p> <hd id="AN0157137900-24">Religious Influences</hd> <p>Religious influences were assessed with 14 items from the CCCU Student Survey (Glanzer et al., [<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref92">24</reflink>]). Participants were asked, "Please explain to what degree the following college experiences changed or did not change your religious and/or spiritual beliefs." College experiences included, "Involvement with campus Christian group" and "Relationship with my roommate." Item responses were 0 = <emph>not applicable</emph>, 1 = <emph>weakened</emph>, 2 = <emph>no change</emph>, and 3 = <emph>strengthened</emph>. Seniors and alumni completed these items.</p> <hd id="AN0157137900-25">Character Virtue Measures</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0157137900-26">Intellectual Humility</hd> <p>Participants completed the 22-item Comprehensive Intellectual Humility Scale (Krumrei-Mancuso & Rouse, [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref93">34</reflink>]), which separated intellectual humility into four subscales: independence of intellect and ego (e.g., "When someone contradicts my most important beliefs, it feels like a personal attack."), openness to revising one's viewpoint (e.g., "I am willing to change my opinions on the basis of compelling reasons."), respect for other's viewpoints (e.g., "Even when I disagree with others, I can recognize that they have sound points."), and lack of intellectual overconfidence (e.g., "On important topics, I am not likely to be swayed by the viewpoints of others."). Item responses ranged from 1 = <emph>strongly disagree</emph> to 5 = <emph>strongly agree</emph>. Internal reliability across all subscales was good (ωs ranged from.75 to.91). All subscales were scored in such a way that higher scores indicate higher intellectual humility. First-year students and seniors completed these items.</p> <hd id="AN0157137900-27">Agape Love</hd> <p>Agape love was assessed with the Agape subscale of the Love Attitudes Scale (Hendrick & Hendrick, [<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref94">27</reflink>]). Items included, "I try to always help my lover through difficult times." Item responses ranged from 1 = <emph>strongly disagree</emph> to 5 = <emph>strongly agree</emph>. Internal reliability was good (ω =.80). First-year students and seniors completed these items.</p> <hd id="AN0157137900-28">Altruism</hd> <p>Altruism was assessed with the 7-item Generative Altruism Scale (Büssing et al., [<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref95">9</reflink>]). Items included, "I help others, even when there is no direct benefit to me." Item responses ranged from 0 = <emph>never</emph> to 3 = <emph>very often</emph>. Internal reliability was good (ω =.81). First-year students and seniors completed these items.</p> <hd id="AN0157137900-29">Eschatological Hope</hd> <p>Eschatological hope was assessed with the Christian Hope Scale (Burns et al., [<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref96">8</reflink>]). Items included, "Things will get better because of Jesus' resurrection." Item responses ranged from 1 = <emph>strongly disagree</emph> to 6 = <emph>strongly agree</emph>. Internal reliability was good (ω =.88). First-year students, seniors, and alumni completed this questionnaire.</p> <hd id="AN0157137900-30">Character Influences</hd> <p>Character influences were assessed with 14 items from the CCCU Student Survey geared toward determining how college affected participants' character development (Glanzer et al., [<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref97">24</reflink>]). Participants were asked, "Please explain to what degree the following college experiences changed or did not change your moral character." College experiences included, "Involvement with campus Christian group" and "Relationship with my roommate." Item responses were 0 = <emph>not applicable</emph>, 1 = <emph>weakened</emph>, 2 = <emph>no change</emph>, and 3 = <emph>strengthened</emph>. Only alumni completed these items.</p> <hd id="AN0157137900-31">Character Vice Measures</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0157137900-32">Depression Anxiety Stress Scale</hd> <p>Participants completed the 21-item Depression Anxiety Stress Scales Short-Form (Henry & Crawford, [<reflink idref="bib28" id="ref98">28</reflink>]), which separates into three subscales: depression (e.g., "Over the past week, I felt I wasn't worth much as a person."), anxiety (e.g., "Over the past week, I was worried about situations in which I might panic and make a fool of myself."), and stress (e.g., "Over the past week, I felt that I was using a lot of nervous energy."). Item responses ranged from 0 = <emph>did not apply to me at all</emph> to 3 = <emph>applied to me very much or most of the time</emph>. Internal reliability across all subscales was good (ωs ranged from.82 to.90). First-year students and seniors completed these items.</p> <hd id="AN0157137900-33">Short Dark Triad</hd> <p>Participants completed the 27-item Short Dark Triad (Jones & Paulhus, [<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref99">31</reflink>]) which separates into three subscales: Machiavellianism (e.g., "Avoid direct conflict with others because they may be useful in the future."), narcissism (e.g., "I insist on getting the respect I deserve."), and psychopathy (e.g., "I like to get revenge on authorities."). Item responses ranged from 1 = <emph>strongly disagree</emph> to 5 = <emph>strongly agree</emph>. Internal reliability for Machiavellianism (ω =.73) and psychopathy (ω =.71) was good, but subpar for narcissism (ω =.61). First-year students and seniors completed these items.</p> <hd id="AN0157137900-34">Demographic Measures</hd> <p>IRT data as well as items on our survey gave us useful demographic information about participants. Demographic variables included gender, U.S. citizenship, socioeconomic status, political views, and parents' education.</p> <hd id="AN0157137900-35">Results</hd> <p>Table 1 provides demographic information on the three groups and the full sample. Our cross-sectional surveys at Wave 1 allow us to make only broad comparisons for first-year students, seniors, and alumni. We make these comparisons cautiously due to differences in sample size and response rate for each group. The results we share below are from selected survey items. This overview is an introduction to the Baylor Faith and Character Study's methods and preliminary results, rather than an exhaustive report. Consequently, our analysis is largely descriptive. We report percentages and bivariate tests of significance, using <emph>t</emph>-test and analysis of variance (ANOVA) <emph>F</emph>-test statistics. More rigorous, multivariate statistical models as well as analysis of our interview data will follow in future publications.</p> <hd id="AN0157137900-36">Findings from the Religion Survey</hd> <p>From the religion survey, we find that the majority of first-year students, seniors, and alumni were devout in terms of Christian beliefs and behaviors. As displayed in Figure 1, 9 out of 10 students identified with a religion. Baptist, non-denominational, and Catholic were the most prominent traditions among Baylor first-year students, seniors, and alumni.</p> <p>PHOTO (COLOR): Figure 1. Religious affiliation of first-year students, seniors, and alumni.</p> <p>All three groups held fairly orthodox Christian beliefs. For example, over 80% in each group believed in the resurrection of Jesus, which is an item on the Christian Orthodoxy Scale. Seniors and alumni scored slightly higher on the orthodoxy scale than did first-year students (ANOVA <emph>F</emph> = 11.91, <emph>p</emph> <.001). First-year students had a score of 4.46, seniors had a score of 4.56, and alumni had a score of 4.59.</p> <p>Figure 2 depicts weekly church attendance and weekly Bible reading. The graph compares Baylor first-year students, seniors, and alumni to nationally representative data from the 2017 Baylor Religion Survey. There was no significant difference for first-year students, seniors, and alumni with regard to church attendance. Half of participants in all three groups said that they attend religious services weekly or more. By comparison, only 30% of American adults attend religious services at this same rate. Although not shown in Figure 2, fewer than 1 in 10 first-year students or seniors reported never attending religious services, and 12% of alumni indicated they never attend these types of gatherings. More than a quarter of American adults never attend religious services.</p> <p>PHOTO (COLOR): Figure 2. Religious behaviors of Baylor students, alumni, and U.S. adults.</p> <p>When it comes to reading the Bible, significant differences rapidly emerge across the three groups in our sample. First-year students read the Bible with less frequency than seniors or alumni (ANOVA <emph>F</emph> = 14.85, <emph>p</emph> <.001), and seniors and alumni also engaged with the Bible more often than U.S. adults.</p> <p>Consistent with prior research on college-aged emerging adults (Bryant, [<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref100">6</reflink>]; Smith & Snell, [<reflink idref="bib60" id="ref101">60</reflink>]; Uecker et al., [<reflink idref="bib66" id="ref102">66</reflink>]), Baylor women described themselves as more religious than Baylor men. Although this finding was true for first-year students and seniors, the gender gap in religiosity largely disappeared for alumni. With regard to the Christian orthodoxy, church attendance, and Bible reading measures, there was no significant difference for male alumni and female alumni.</p> <p>Two other interesting findings stood out from our religion survey. Among first-year students, international students were significantly less religious than their domestic student counterparts. International students were less orthodox in their beliefs (<emph>t</emph> = 5.66, <emph>p</emph> <.001), attended religious services less often (<emph>t</emph> = 2.81, <emph>p</emph> <.001), and read the Bible less frequently <emph>(t</emph> = 4.42, <emph>p</emph> <.001). For example, 36% of first-year international students claimed no religious affiliation, and 56% reported attending religious services several times a year or less. We did not have enough international students in our senior or alumni samples to make comparisons. The initial survey also asked about participation in intercollegiate athletics. Among seniors, student-athletes were no different religiously than non-athletes on any religion variable. Baylor student-athletes held religious beliefs, attended religious services, and read the Bible in ways that generally matched their classmates.</p> <p>Seniors and alumni perceived that their religious beliefs had grown during their time at Baylor. More than two-thirds (70%) of seniors reported that their religious beliefs were stronger than when they first started college, while 13% felt they were weaker, and 17% perceived no change. Similarly, 66% of alumni believed that their religious beliefs grew stronger during their time in college, 13% believed they became weaker, and 21% remembered no change in these domains.</p> <p>The most influential sources of religious development, according to seniors and alumni, are documented in Figure 3. From a list of 13 potential influences, relationships with friends followed by involvement with church stood out as most influential on religious beliefs, with more than 50% of seniors and alumni endorsing these sources of growth. Required religion courses, relationships with faculty, attending chapel, and involvement with student groups functioned as other contributing factors to stronger religious beliefs for seniors and alumni.</p> <p>PHOTO (COLOR): Figure 3. Sources that strengthened religious beliefs.</p> <p>Of the 13 influences on the survey, chapel had the highest percentage of students reporting that it weakened their religious beliefs (see Figure 4). Required religion courses, living off-campus, and relationship with a roommate were other sources of weakened religious beliefs identified by a sizeable minority of both seniors and alumni. None of the percentages in Figure 4 are very large, but the consistency of ranked items for seniors and alumni highlight these aspects of a Baylor education as possible weak points for faith formation.</p> <p>PHOTO (COLOR): Figure 4. Sources that weakened religious beliefs.</p> <hd id="AN0157137900-37">Findings from the Character Survey</hd> <p>From the character survey, the general pattern that appeared was stronger character for seniors, although this finding was not consistent across all measured constructs. For instance, Figure 5 presents mean scores for first-year students and seniors on four dimensions of intellectual humility. Seniors scored significantly higher on independence of intellect and ego (<emph>t</emph> = 3.56, <emph>p</emph> <.001), openness to revising one's viewpoint (<emph>t</emph> = 6.72, <emph>p</emph> <.001), and respect for other's viewpoints (<emph>t</emph> = 4.44, p <.001). However, first-year students and seniors were not significantly different on other virtue scales, such as lack of intellectual overconfidence humility (as seen in Figure 5), agape love, altruism, and eschatological hope.</p> <p>PHOTO (COLOR): Figure 5. Humility of first-year students and seniors.</p> <p>Our character survey also inquired about constructs associated with languishing. Again, differences appeared between first-year students and seniors. For example, seniors scored lower on depression (<emph>t</emph> = 2.44, <emph>p</emph> <.05) and anxiety (<emph>t</emph> = 3.13, <emph>p</emph> <.01) than first-year students. As seen in Figure 6, seniors scored lower than first-year students on Machiavellianism (<emph>t</emph> = 4.42, <emph>p</emph> <.001) and psychopathy (<emph>t</emph> = 2.25, <emph>p</emph> <.05). The two groups were not noticeably different on narcissism. Overall, our analysis of virtues and vices suggests that seniors possess more virtue and less vice when they leave Baylor than first-year students when they arrive; however, it is important to note that the present findings are cross-sectional, not longitudinal. Other explanations may include cohort differences wherein newer cohorts of students (e.g., first-years) demonstrate more narcissism, such as the trend seen in Twenge et al.'s ([<reflink idref="bib65" id="ref103">65</reflink>]) cross-temporal meta-analysis of narcissism.</p> <p>PHOTO (COLOR): Figure 6. The Dark Triad adverse personality traits of first-year students and seniors.</p> <p>The positive influences identified for character development overlapped with the positive influences on participants' religious development. The questions about influences and growth in character were only asked on the alumni survey. Relationships with friends ranked as the most commonly cited influence. Two-thirds of alumni (68%) reported that relationship with friends strengthened their character. Relationships with faculty (49%), involvement with church (47%), courses in a respondent's major (46%), and relationship with a roommate (41%) were other positive influences on alumni's character development.</p> <p>According to alumni, sources that weakened their moral character included: living off campus (10%), relationship with a roommate (8%), and chapel (7%). A small minority of alumni reported that living on campus (5%) was detrimental to their character development. Once again, these percentages are very low. Nonetheless, the same sources perceived as weakening religious beliefs by seniors and alumni were identified by alumni as weakening character.</p> <hd id="AN0157137900-38">Summary of Findings</hd> <p>Early (nonlongitudinal) findings give reason for optimism about students' religious and moral development while attending Baylor University. Self-reports from students and alumni suggest that positive developments in faith and character are occurring during their time at Baylor. For example, if the results for seniors are consistent in four years, Baylor curricular and co-curricular experiences may deepen students' interest in, commitment to, and practice of reading the Bible. Furthermore, in light of research that indicates how students' religious beliefs and religious participation decline during college (Astin et al., [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref104">1</reflink>]; Smith et al., [<reflink idref="bib59" id="ref105">59</reflink>]), our cross-sectional examination of Baylor students and alumni offers counterevidence. Church attendance was remarkably consistent for first-year students, seniors, and alumni; Christian orthodoxy appeared slightly higher for seniors and alumni. We discovered similar patterns for character development. Seniors exhibited more humility and less depression, anxiety, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy than first-year students.</p> <hd id="AN0157137900-39">Discussion</hd> <p>Our findings go further than describing faith and character for students and alumni. Already from these data, we gain insights into the sources of religious and moral development associated with a Baylor education. None are more important than relationships. From seniors and alumni, relationships with friends emerged as the strongest positive influence on religious beliefs and character. Relationships with faculty were likewise influential in strengthening religious beliefs for both groups. These findings align with the work of Schreiner ([<reflink idref="bib56" id="ref106">56</reflink>]) who convincingly connects a student's involvement with supportive others (i.e., social connectedness) with their propensity to thrive in higher education.</p> <p>A key ingredient to faith formation in Christian higher education is access to spiritual mentors (Davignon & Thomson, [<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref107">15</reflink>]). Although secular universities have Christian students, perhaps even in fairly large numbers, and may have at least a few Christian faculty members, it is the intentionality at Christian universities to create an integrated, immersive atmosphere of faith that may make these settings uniquely transformative (see Glanzer et al., [<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref108">22</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref109">21</reflink>]). Involvement with church and student groups as well as living on campus remain other important sources of students' religious and character development evident in our findings. Baylor has no campus church, but students are encouraged to attend a place of worship in the surrounding community. An annual church fair acquaints students with local congregations. In addition, Baylor has over 300 student organizations and a one-year campus residency requirement. Local churches, student organizations, and residence halls all function as contexts for relationship-building. For more than a quarter of Baylor students, these relational contexts inspire spiritual or moral growth.</p> <p>Despite these positive findings, not all aspects of a Baylor education benefit students' religiosity and character. Students and alumni had decidedly mixed reviews on the impact of Baylor requirements to attend chapel and take two religion courses. Nearly a quarter of seniors reported that chapel had weakened their religious beliefs. From our interviews with seniors, reasons for their dissatisfaction included: (a) "not related to Christianity" ("it didn't even seem as if God and religion was really integrated with chapel"), (b) "waste of time" or boring ("It was not chapel, it was '<emph>Nap</emph>-al'"), (c) too political ("my idea of chapel is that it shouldn't be a place to like preach a political statement"), (d) not student led, and (e) lacked unity ("I think we've just got too many voices that are going in too many different directions at the same time"). These criticisms may be amplified because of the required nature of chapel. In contrast, a smaller minority of seniors and alumni identified required religion courses as harming beliefs. Living off campus and relationships with roommates were the other recurring items on the list of influences that weakened faith or character.</p> <hd id="AN0157137900-40">Limitations</hd> <p>Before turning to implications and suggestions, we want to be clear about the limitations inherent in these preliminary findings. The major limitation is our inability to test causation. Our findings for first-year students, seniors, and alumni do not compare the same group over time, nor are the samples from Wave 1 fully representative for all groups. More definitive comparisons must wait until we have panel data from the same individuals, such as seniors in the class of 2022 for whom we have data from their first year at Baylor.</p> <p>A related limitation in our current data with ramifications for continued data collection is the low response rate of alumni. Attrition is a sizable detriment to longitudinal research. Although we can take solace in the high response rate of our first-year sample, it will be imperative to secure as much participation as possible from the same students in their final semester at Baylor and after they graduate to ensure the long-term success of this project. One option under consideration for seniors is to make the survey part of an exit list of tasks that students must complete in order to participate in commencement. Securing participation from alumni will require similar strategic thinking. Administering the alumni survey in conjunction with homecoming activities did not work as well as we had hoped. We are actively working with the IRT team and Baylor administrators to enhance our outreach to alumni.</p> <hd id="AN0157137900-41">Implications for Practice</hd> <p>We see great potential in the Baylor Faith and Character Study for Baylor as well as other Christian colleges and universities. Our preliminary findings lead us to several practical suggestions for Christian college administrators.</p> <p> <bold>1. Expand peer and adult mentoring opportunities for students.</bold> The practices of living together, eating together, and socializing in student organizations, activities, and intramurals create a rich web of relational bonds. A wealth of research supports the positive outcomes for students associated with these relational bonds (e.g., Mayhew et al., [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref110">39</reflink>]; Parks, [<reflink idref="bib49" id="ref111">49</reflink>]; Schreiner, [<reflink idref="bib56" id="ref112">56</reflink>]). There are a multitude of ways that colleges and universities can expand the social networks of their students. Living on campus is one prominent mechanism. We are encouraging Baylor to extend its campus residency requirement from one year to two years. Faculty-in-residence programs are another means to connect students and faculty in meaningful relationships. Baylor has a thriving faculty-in-residence program. Faculty members (and often their families) live alongside students in campus residence halls and eat with them in the dining halls; it is a remarkable blurring of student life and academics. For other Christian colleges and universities, adding on-campus housing or adding faculty to campus housing may not be viable options. Creativity may be needed to pioneer other ways of connecting students and faculty or students with other students. Such creativity is worth pursuing. Good things happen for faith and character when students are meaningfully connected with others at their college or university.</p> <p> <bold>2. Reevaluate the curricular and co-curricular requirements regarding religion and character.</bold> Chapel is a source of discontent for a sizable minority of students at Baylor. Required chapel likely has critics at other Christian colleges and universities, as well. Part of the backlash is the requirement itself, but that does not mean the discontent should be dismissed outright. Required religion courses at Baylor have more mixed reviews, as they may at other Christian colleges and universities, as well. We support chapel and religion courses within Christian higher education, and we are not prone to suggest that chapel become optional or that religion is eliminated from the core curriculum. Rather, our recommendation is a careful scrutiny of the structure and administration of such requirements. At Baylor, we are learning from our study that students' exposure to the Bible may no longer be adequate to prepare them for the rigors of our academic Christian Scriptures course. For a growing segment of our incoming students, they may need a basic course in biblical knowledge. These discussions are already under way at Baylor, particularly with regard to chapel. The chaplain's office has experimented with break-out chapels targeted to specific audiences, such as Faith in the Healing Professions for pre-med students and Faith and Sports for student-athletes. The early feedback on these alternative chapels has been positive. We encourage similar conversations at other Christian colleges about the requirements intended to build faith and character.</p> <p> <bold>3. Involve local congregations more.</bold> A recurring finding in our study is the importance of local congregations. Seniors and alumni cite church involvement as influential in strengthening their religious beliefs and moral character. Something transformative happens when students invest themselves off-campus in a local church. To elevate the moral education occurring on campus, Christian colleges and universities should put focused effort into building bridges with local clergy and congregations to get more students active in worship and church-based small groups. Congregations represent another source of positive relational bonds for students. Furthermore, participating in a congregation during the college years is a type of spiritual discipleship that will pay dividends throughout life.</p> <hd id="AN0157137900-42">Suggestions for Further Research</hd> <p>Data collection for the Baylor Faith and Character Study continues. We invite others to join us. Our survey instruments and interview script are freely available on the OSF website (see footnote 1). We also have suggestions for those seeking to implement a similar research project at their campus. Regarding survey design, our initial religion questionnaire did not ask sufficient questions about the Bible. We asked frequency of Bible reading and one indirect question about the Bible's authorship. The latter question indicated that 40% of first-year students doubted or were ambivalent about the divine inspiration of scripture, compared to 31% of seniors and 26% of alumni. Unfortunately, question wording complicates the interpretation of this result. Better questions about biblical interpretation and biblical authority are a necessary improvement in subsequent data collection. Likewise, we have cut questions from the character survey to more expeditiously assess character strengths and virtues.</p> <p>Regarding data collection, required chapel is an ideal setting. Our response rate for first-year students was excellent. Because Baylor has no required gathering for all seniors or alumni, response rates were far lower for these groups, as we acknowledged earlier. A critical task for others launching a similar research project will be to find ways to elevate participation among students and alumni. Strong response rates become even more essential when trying to collect high quality, longitudinal data. Furthermore, it may take some careful coordination to ensure research on alumni is not perceived as a threat to the development office or alumni association. Reaching alumni should be a team effort, not a competition. We also realize that waiting four years to collect data from our first-year students may be too long. Plans to survey students after two years are now in place. This additional point in time will give us three waves of data from each student before they graduate, allowing us to assess when the biggest changes in faith and character occur during a student's undergraduate career.</p> <p>Finally, an unexpected benefit of this project has been the opportunity to integrate research and teaching. Graduate students in education conducted interviews with first-year students and seniors. Graduate students in psychology cleaned data, constructed scales, and performed validity and reliability checks. Students are now engaged in analysis and writing. During fall 2020, undergraduates and graduate students from several departments worked in teams to write publishable papers using data collected thus far. We advocate this collaborative model for others.</p> <p>This project is bigger than Baylor University. Our larger goal is to create a set of best practices for assessing religiosity and character development in Christian higher education, and it is an opportune time to do so. While we were writing this article, the coronavirus pandemic closed our campus and pushed all instruction online. Our findings raise pressing questions for contemporary Christian colleges and universities. Most notably, how can online platforms and other emerging forms of educational delivery foster the relational bonds crucial to students' spiritual and moral development? Answering such questions demand careful data collection and analysis. Baylor's mission as a Christian university depends on it, as might the future of Christian higher education.</p> <hd id="AN0157137900-43">Acknowledgements</hd> <p>This project was made possible by generous support from Baylor University Chaplain's Office, Institute for Faith and Learning, and the Vice President for Student Life. We also appreciate the valued input from scholars in the Institute for Studies of Religion and George W. Truett Theological Seminary. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2019 Baylor Symposium on Faith and Culture in Waco, Texas.</p> <ref id="AN0157137900-44"> <title> References </title> <blist> <bibl id="bib1" idref="ref10" type="bt">1</bibl> <bibtext> Astin, A. W., Astin, H. S., & Lindholm, J. A. (2011a). Assessing students' spiritual and religious qualities. 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Items – Name: Title
  Label: Title
  Group: Ti
  Data: Baylor Faith and Character Study: Methods and Preliminary Findings
– Name: Language
  Label: Language
  Group: Lang
  Data: English
– Name: Author
  Label: Authors
  Group: Au
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Dougherty%2C+Kevin+D%2E%22">Dougherty, Kevin D.</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4925-3311">0000-0002-4925-3311</externalLink>)<br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Glanzer%2C+Perry+L%2E%22">Glanzer, Perry L.</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3649-2516">0000-0002-3649-2516</externalLink>)<br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Robinson%2C+Jessica+A%2E%22">Robinson, Jessica A.</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1276-7570">0000-0002-1276-7570</externalLink>)<br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Ratchford%2C+Juliette+L%2E%22">Ratchford, Juliette L.</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5506-8967">0000-0001-5506-8967</externalLink>)<br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Schnitker%2C+Sarah+A%2E%22">Schnitker, Sarah A.</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2403-9765">0000-0002-2403-9765</externalLink>)
– Name: TitleSource
  Label: Source
  Group: Src
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="SO" term="%22Christian+Higher+Education%22"><i>Christian Higher Education</i></searchLink>. 2022 21(3):168-190.
– Name: Avail
  Label: Availability
  Group: Avail
  Data: Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
– Name: PeerReviewed
  Label: Peer Reviewed
  Group: SrcInfo
  Data: Y
– Name: Pages
  Label: Page Count
  Group: Src
  Data: 23
– Name: DatePubCY
  Label: Publication Date
  Group: Date
  Data: 2022
– Name: TypeDocument
  Label: Document Type
  Group: TypDoc
  Data: Journal Articles<br />Reports - Research
– Name: Audience
  Label: Education Level
  Group: Audnce
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22Higher+Education%22">Higher Education</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22Postsecondary+Education%22">Postsecondary Education</searchLink>
– Name: Subject
  Label: Descriptors
  Group: Su
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Christianity%22">Christianity</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Religious+Colleges%22">Religious Colleges</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Spiritual+Development%22">Spiritual Development</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Moral+Development%22">Moral Development</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Moral+Values%22">Moral Values</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Outcomes+of+Education%22">Outcomes of Education</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Interdisciplinary+Approach%22">Interdisciplinary Approach</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Religious+Factors%22">Religious Factors</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Universities%22">Universities</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Case+Studies%22">Case Studies</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Student+Attitudes%22">Student Attitudes</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Student+Surveys%22">Student Surveys</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Alumni%22">Alumni</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22College+Seniors%22">College Seniors</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22College+Freshmen%22">College Freshmen</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Measurement%22">Measurement</searchLink>
– Name: Subject
  Label: Geographic Terms
  Group: Su
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Texas%22">Texas</searchLink>
– Name: DOI
  Label: DOI
  Group: ID
  Data: 10.1080/15363759.2021.1929564
– Name: ISSN
  Label: ISSN
  Group: ISSN
  Data: 1536-3759<br />1539-4107
– Name: Abstract
  Label: Abstract
  Group: Ab
  Data: For Christian colleges and universities, students' spiritual formation and character development are important outcomes. However, unlike academic outcomes of retention and graduation, systematic efforts to measure outcomes of faith and character are far from ubiquitous. The purpose of this article is to report the efforts of Baylor University to address the gap between mission and measurement. Guided by prevailing theories, an interdisciplinary research team launched the Baylor Faith and Character Study in August 2018. Data collection for the broader project involved surveys and interviews at three points in time: a student's first semester at Baylor, a student's final semester at Baylor, and 10 years after degree completion. Preliminary, cross-sectional findings from survey data reveal that levels of religious belief and practice were nearly equivalent for first-year students, seniors, and alumni, while seniors exhibited stronger character in several areas than first-year students. A discussion of conclusions and implications closes the article.
– Name: AbstractInfo
  Label: Abstractor
  Group: Ab
  Data: As Provided
– Name: DateEntry
  Label: Entry Date
  Group: Date
  Data: 2022
– Name: AN
  Label: Accession Number
  Group: ID
  Data: EJ1352634
PLink https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=eric&AN=EJ1352634
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      – Type: doi
        Value: 10.1080/15363759.2021.1929564
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      – Text: English
    PhysicalDescription:
      Pagination:
        PageCount: 23
        StartPage: 168
    Subjects:
      – SubjectFull: Christianity
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Religious Colleges
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Spiritual Development
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Moral Development
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Moral Values
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      – SubjectFull: Outcomes of Education
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      – SubjectFull: Interdisciplinary Approach
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      – SubjectFull: Student Attitudes
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      – SubjectFull: Student Surveys
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      – SubjectFull: Alumni
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: College Seniors
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: College Freshmen
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Measurement
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Texas
        Type: general
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      – TitleFull: Baylor Faith and Character Study: Methods and Preliminary Findings
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            NameFull: Schnitker, Sarah A.
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              Type: published
              Y: 2022
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              Value: 1536-3759
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