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Lutheran Adolescent Spiritual Development: the Effect of School View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Liberty University Digital Commons LUTHERAN ADOLESCENT SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT: THE EFFECT OF SCHOOL ATTENDANCE ON SPIRITUAL TRANSFORMATION INVENTORY TEST SCORES by Michael James Weider Liberty University A Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Education Liberty University, Lynchburg, VA November, 2013 LUTHERAN ADOLESCENT SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT: THE EFFECT OF SCHOOL ATTENDANCE ON SPIRITUAL TRANSFORMATION INVENTORY TEST SCORES by Michael James Weider A Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Education Liberty University, Lynchburg, VA October, 2013 APPROVED BY: Mark A. Lamport, PhD, Committee Chair Ralph Marino, EdD, Committee Member Renea Gernant, PhD, Committee Member Scott B. Watson, PhD, Associate Dean of Advanced Programs 2 LUTHERAN ADOLESCENT SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT: THE EFFECT OF SCHOOL ATTENDANCE ON SPIRITUAL TRANSFORMATION INVENTORY TEST SCORES ABSTRACT Lutheran schools have been established to nurture and disciple children into the Christian faith. However, empirical evidence is lacking that Lutheran schools are accomplishing this goal. The purpose of this Causal comparative and Correlational study was to determine whether attendance at Lutheran or Public schools made a statistically significant difference on Spiritual Transformation Inventory 2.0 test scores among Lutheran adolescents. Participants (N=129) took the Spiritual Transformation Inventory 2.0 (STI) test which measures spiritual development from an attachment to God perspective. Data was analyzed using a t-test to examine between group differences as well as Spearman’s rho to examine the relationship between STI 2.0 scores and the number of years participants attended Lutheran schools. Results showed that there was no significant difference between the STI 2.0 scores of study participants who attended Lutheran schools verses those who attended public schools. In addition, no significant relationship was observed between the number of years students spent attending Lutheran schools and their STI 2.0 scores. However, significant differences were observed between students from two-parent homes and students from divorced homes. Likewise, students who participated in additional ministries within their churches scored higher than individuals who did not participate. These results suggest that more research needs to be conducted on the effect of Lutheran school attendance on the spiritual development of students from divorced homes as well as those who are minimally committed to their church community. 3 Keywords: Lutheran schools, Spiritual Transformation Inventory, spiritual development, faith development, adolescent faith, Lutheran church. 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS There are many people that deserve thanks and acknowledgement for their help, guidance, and support throughout the dissertation writing process. First and foremost I wish to thank my wife who sacrificed many days, weekends, and evenings for me while I locked myself away to research and write. She graciously allowed me to take time from our family in order to work on this immense project. Likewise my children deserve thanks for their patience. More times than I wish to count I shut the door and sent them somewhere else so that I could work. I am happy to complete this project and fully rejoin my family. Second, it goes without saying that my doctoral committee deserves much credit and thanks for their patience, guidance, and help during the past year and a half. Their critique, advice, and correction allowed me to focus my thoughts and shape this study into something useful and presentable. Doctors Lamport, Marino, and Gernant, I would like to thank you very much for your support and assistance. Finally, God knows that He has sustained me and given me courage when panic and exhaustion rose up within me. Through sleepless nights, stressful days, and the fear that all of my effort might be wasted, God provided people in my life to keep me going. In addition, it is in thankful response to His love for me that I pursued this research project. “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Since God has done so much for me in Christ Jesus, I can rejoice in what I learned through this project with thanksgiving. Soli Deo Gloria 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements ..........................................................................................................................5 List of Tables ...................................................................................................................................9 List of Figures ................................................................................................................................10 List of Abbreviations .....................................................................................................................11 CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................12 Background ........................................................................................................................12 Problem Statement .............................................................................................................18 Purpose Statement ..............................................................................................................20 Significance of the Study ...................................................................................................20 Research Questions ............................................................................................................21 Identification of Variables .................................................................................................22 Definitions..........................................................................................................................23 CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW .................................................................................25 Lutheran Education in America .........................................................................................25 Current State of Adolescent Faith ......................................................................................31 A Theoretical Framework for Understanding Spiritual Development ..............................34 Empirical Reviews and Measurement of Relational Spirituality .......................................49 Summary ............................................................................................................................65 CHAPTER THREE METHODOLOGY .......................................................................................67 6 Proposed Research Design .................................................................................................67 Research Question and Hypotheses ...................................................................................68 Participants .........................................................................................................................69 Setting ................................................................................................................................70 Instrumentation ..................................................................................................................71 Data Collection Procedures ................................................................................................71 Data Analysis .....................................................................................................................73 CHAPTER FOUR RESULTS .......................................................................................................75 Descriptive Statistics ..........................................................................................................76 Data Analysis .....................................................................................................................77 Research Question 1 ..........................................................................................................78 Research Question 2 ..........................................................................................................83 Summary ............................................................................................................................88 CHAPTER FIVE DISCUSSION ...................................................................................................89 Summary of the Findings ...................................................................................................90 Discussion of the Findings .................................................................................................91 Study Limitations ...............................................................................................................95 Recommendations for Future Research .............................................................................97 Conclusion .........................................................................................................................98 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................101 7 APPENDICES .............................................................................................................................116
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