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Article Excerpt
Student perspectives on the transmission of integration in integrative programs were examined through a qualitative study. Participants in the study were 595 graduate and undergraduate students (305 women and 247 men) drawn from four Evangelical Christian institutions of higher education. Participants provided written data in response to three open-ended questions, inquiring about the exemplary and helpful aspects of their educational experiences with respect to integration. Post-hoc content analyses informed by grounded theory analytic processes were used to analyze the data, resulting in two overarching themes: Facilitating Integration, and Concepts of Integration, which respectively address how students learn integration, and how students conceptualize integration. The implications for the conceptualization of integration and for the pedagogy of facilitating integration are explored.
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In 1997, Sorenson pointed out that although programs in psychology emphasizing the integration of theology and psychology had existed for over 30 years, no empirical study had examined how such integration actually occurred. With that article, Sorenson launched what would be the first programmatic research in the educational communication of integration. The final report in that series (Sorenson, Derflinger, Bufford, & McMinn, 2004) concluded that all students learn integration the same way, and that this learning occurs "through relational attachments with mentors who model that integration for students personally" (p. 363).
The current study built on Sorensen's work on the influence of professors on the learning of integration. In his work, " integration," or more accurately, integration learning, was operationalized as "how exemplary and helpful the professor was for the student's own integration pilgrimage" (Sorensen, 1997, p. 8). These two characteristics, exemplary and helpful, were derived from student focus groups on how they evaluated faculty. The open-ended survey questions in the current study built on Sorensen's work in two ways. First, by leaving the questions open-ended rather than focusing on faculty, the questions allowed the researchers to discover whether students found factors other than the personal characteristics of the professors helpful to the learning of integration. Secondly, the questions helped to flesh out what students found "exemplary" and "helpful," both in the professors, and in other influences on learning integration.
METHOD
Participants
Participants in the study were 595 graduate and undergraduate students drawn fro, four Evangelical Christian institutions of higher education. participants consisted of 305 women and 247 men. Median age was in the 26-35 age range with almost half the participants in the 18-25 age range. The sample was largely homogenous ethnically; 72.6% identified themselves as Caucasian, 8.7% as African-American, 5.9%, as Asian American, 3% as Hispanic, >1% as Native American, and 1.5%, Other The majority of students, 88%, were full-time graduate students and 95% were on-campus as opposed to distance-learning students. Totals do not add to 100% due to some non-response to items. Disciplines represented include Law (37.5%), Counseling and psychology (25.5%), Communication (4.7%), Theology (2.4%), Business (1.8%), and Education (1.8%).
Religious affiliation of the students was varied with the highest number identifying as some type of Baptist (25.5%), followed by those that indicated they were non-denominational (22.2%), Evangelical (8.7%), Methodist (4.4%), Assembly of God (4.2%), and Pentecostal (4%), The remaining identities listed varied with less than 10 per group. There were only two people who indicated a religion other than Christian: one Hindu and one Mormon. Median church attendance fort the sample was weekly with 75% attending church weekly or more than once a week. Eighty percent of the sample indicated that they attend university chapels either "never" or "a few times a year." Fifty-one percent of the sample attends a small group (Bible study, prayer group, etc.) at least twice a month. Only 6% of those small groups were organized by their University. The mean score on the Religious Commitment Inventory was 38. 05 (9.28%) which is higher than the norm for public university students, 23.70 (11.05) (Ripley, Garzon, Hall, Mangis & Murphy, 2009).
Procedures
At one graduate institution, the data were collected on paper questionnaires in 10% of the courses offered that semester. The other institutions collected data through online email lists. At one institution only graduate students in psychology or counseling were sampled due to difficulties collecting from other students. At another institution 10% of the graduate student body was invited by email to participate. At the fourth institution both the graduate and undergraduate students were invited to participate. While the method of data collection was not identical between the four institutions, the sample is large (595) and therefore robust enough to compensate for the differences in data collection. However, the fact that there were restrictions on the types of students (graduate vs. undergraduate) and majors at the data. All data were collected anonymously.
Instrumentation
The questions for the study were based on Sorenson et al. 's (1997; 2004) previous research in an attempt to both replicate the findings on attachment to individual mentors, and extend the original research to relevant institution-wide practices. Quantitative data were gathered for a companion study (see Ripley et al., 2009, present issue). In addition, the students provided data in response to three open-ended questions, which were used for the present study: "In my experience, the best example of integration I have seen was (describe what you saw)"; "What do you most appreciate about the way integration is done in your school?".; and: What would you like to see improved about the way integration is done in your school?" Post-hoc content analyses informed by grounded theory analytic processes were used (Strauss & Corbin, 1998).
Data Analysis
Content analysis was used as the theoretical framework. In this approach, the presence, meanings, and relationships of concepts in a text are quantified and analyzed in order to derive the meanings implicit in those texts. In order to conduct content analysis on the responses to the open-ended survey questions, the text was coded into discrete categories, then analyzed in order to determine the relationships between those categories.
The coding was informed by grounded theory coding strategies. Grounded theory analysis proceeds through open, axial, and selective coding strategies. Utilizing constant comparison, the accounts were first grouped into categories in open coding (e.g., "professor," "course content," "devotionals"). The second stage, coding involved the integration of categories with their properties (e.g., nothing what was actually appreciated about the devotionals: their content, heartfeltness, or how they provided glimpses into the professors' lives--all properties of the " devotional" category), and the connection of categories (e.g., nothing how categories tended to co-occur). This resulted in theoretical saturation, in which no new categories or properties of categories appeared. Given the method of data collection (mass questionnaires, rather than interviews), saturation occurred well before all the content was coded. The final stage of selective coding led to the selection of two related central codes, Facilitating Integration, and Concepts of Integration.
While the concept of internal validity can be problematic when applied to qualitative studies (Seale, 1999), several strategies were utilized to ensure the quality of the research. Students from different geo-graphical areas, institutions, and denominations participated in the study, achieving within-method data triangulation (Denzin, 1978); data triangulation occurs when instances of a phenomenon in several different settings result in richer descriptions of phenomena. All theoretical statements were grounded in data (Strauss & Corbin, 1998), which Seale (1999) considers an indicator of quality when theoretical statements become convincing because of their link to data. Theoretical saturation, which was reached during analysis, also provides some degree of confidence in the categories utilized for analysis.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The first question in the survey addressed the "exemplary" factor, asking students to complete the stem, "In my experience, the best example of integration I have seen was (describe what you saw)." The second and third questions addressed the "helpfulness" factor from both positive and negative angles, asking students, "What do you most appreciate about the way integration is done in your school?" and "What would you like to see improved about the way integration is done in your school?" The data were organized around the two broad themes mentioned above, Facilitating Integration, and Concepts of Integration, which respectively address how students learn integration, that is, what they find helpful, and how students conceptualize integration through their descriptions of exemplary integration. There was often overlap between the responses to the questions; what students found exemplary, they also tended to find helpful.
While frequencies are provided for each category, it should be noted that these frequencies do not represent numbers of students who endorsed this category. Some students provided more...
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