{"id":791,"date":"2021-04-27T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-04-27T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.calbaptist.edu\/cshb\/?p=791"},"modified":"2021-04-21T22:16:15","modified_gmt":"2021-04-21T22:16:15","slug":"research-in-faith-integration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.calbaptist.edu\/cshb\/2021\/04\/27\/research-in-faith-integration\/","title":{"rendered":"Research in Faith Integration"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sophia Mun & Russ Bermejo<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo by Dom Fou<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This is my second year at CBU. The thing that I love most working at CBU is that I am able to do faith integration in classrooms. One day in my first year, I got curious if I could measure the effectiveness of the faith integration I was doing in my classrooms. This led Professor Bermejo and I to start a small research project. In this blog, we would like to briefly share the process of this research and what we have found so far.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Identify the General Study Idea<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The integration of faith and learning is a key feature of Christian higher education. Faculty members in Christian institutions are encouraged to foster integration between students\u2019 understanding of subjects and their faith. At CBU, professors integrate the “Core 4” outcomes in their course instruction so students are (1) academically prepared, (2) Biblically rooted, (3) globally minded, and (4) equipped to serve. Our shared vision of being \u201cunapologetically Christian and academic rigorous\u201d is challenging and inspiring. But how can we assess the effectiveness of faith integration in our classrooms?  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Dan Dimmock<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a>, Sixteen Miles Out<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a>, Joshua Rawson-Harris<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a>, Zach Vessels<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a>
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Choose <\/strong>the <\/strong>R<\/strong>esearch <\/strong>T<\/strong>opic <\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

First of all, we wanted to see whether our faith integration work in classrooms has an impact on the extent to which students work to integrate their faith with their discipline\/class. Second, we also wanted to identify the factors contributing to student faith integration. The purpose of this project was to determine whether and how taking a class in a Christian institution predicts changes in students\u2019 faith integration. Research questions of this project were \u201cIs there any changes in the degree to which students engage in faith integration at the beginning and the end of semester?\u201d And \u201cWhat factors promote changes?\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Formulate <\/strong>P<\/strong>lan and <\/strong>M<\/strong>ethodology<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Professor Bermejo and I created an online survey to measure basic demographic information and student faith integration. Student faith integration was measured at Time 1 (beginning of semester) and Time 2 (end of semester) using the Psychology and Faith Integration (Psy-FI) Scale (Collison et al., 2019). The scale contains 27 items (e.g., \u201cI often think about how psychology and my faith relate to each other.\u201d) with response options ranging from 1 (Disagree strongly<\/em>) to 6 (Agree Strongly<\/em>). Changes in student faith integration were calculated by subtracting student faith integration Time 1 from Time 2. Other variables were also included as possible contributing factors: school year, the course they were taking (BEH or PSY), experience of taking psychology classes, instructor (Professor B. or M.), and spirituality (Instructor & Self).   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo by Green Chameleon<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Collet <\/strong>D<\/strong>ata <\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The data was collected in 6 classrooms (PSY & BEH courses) in 2020 fall semester. Longitudinal data was collected from a sample of 161 students (students took the same survey twice at the beginning and the end of semester). The survey was distributed and data was collected via Qualtrics.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Analyze <\/strong>D<\/strong>ata<\/strong> & Present <\/strong>F<\/strong>indings <\/strong> <\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We conducted a hierarchical multiple regression analysis to explore contributing factors in changes in student faith integration. Three significant predictors were found: student spirituality, experience of taking psychology classes, and students\u2019 prior faith integration (Time 1, beginning of semester).  Regarding experience of taking psychology classes, we found that students who had not taken a psychology class before showed increases in the degree to which student engage in their faith integration. In addition, students with low faith integration at Time 1 reported increases in faith integration at the end of the semester. Overall, our results demonstrate that faith integration in our classrooms was promoted especially for students with lack of exposure to faith integration in lower-level courses and students with low prior faith integration.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Prince Akachi<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a>, Omid Armin<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a>, Noah Blaine Clark<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a>
John Alvin Merin<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a>, Divine Effiong<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a>, Petr Sevcovic<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a> Joackim Weiler<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a>, alexandra lammerink<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Summary & Discussion<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our results show effects of faith integration in classrooms vary depending on students\u2019 experiences and existing levels of faith integration. In summary, we found that faith integration in classrooms may not benefit all students in the degree to which student engage in faith integration. It should be attuned to differences among students in their experience and their prior level of faith integration (e.g., applying different approaches of faith integration to lower level and upper-level classes). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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References<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Collison, B., Eck, B. E., Edwards, J. M., & Allen, E. C. (2019). The Psy-FI Scale: A Measure of Psychology and Faith Integration.\u202fJournal of Psychology and Christianity<\/em>,\u202f38<\/em>(2), 67\u201380.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sophia Mun & Russ Bermejo This is my second year at CBU. The thing that I love most working at CBU is that I am able to do faith integration in classrooms. One day in my first year, I got curious if I could measure the effectiveness of the faith integration I was doing in my classrooms. This led Professor Bermejo and I to start a small research project. In this blog, we would like to briefly share the process of this research and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[131,149,144,142],"tags":[12,46,29],"class_list":["post-791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dr-sophia-mun","category-prof-russ-bermejo","category-research","category-science-and-christianity","tag-cbu-faculty","tag-christianity","tag-education"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.calbaptist.edu\/cshb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.calbaptist.edu\/cshb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.calbaptist.edu\/cshb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.calbaptist.edu\/cshb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.calbaptist.edu\/cshb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=791"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.calbaptist.edu\/cshb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":799,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.calbaptist.edu\/cshb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791\/revisions\/799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.calbaptist.edu\/cshb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.calbaptist.edu\/cshb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.calbaptist.edu\/cshb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}