Changing Trends in Ritual Attendance and Spirituality throughout the College Years

Chelsi A Creech,Sean A Worley,Travis J Pashak,Paul J Handal,Lea Caver,Eunice J Perez

doi:10.4236/psych.2013.412143

Abstract

According to previous literature, levels of religiousness decrease among emerging adults, but similar research has not been done regarding levels of spirituality. The current study examined the responses of college students to measures of religiousness and spirituality. The participants in the study were from a private, religiously affiliated university in the Midwest, between ages 18 and 24. Participants completed the Personal Religious Inventory (PRI), the Duke Religion Index (DUREL), the Spiritual Transcendence Scale (STS), the Daily Spiritual Experiences Scale (DSES) and the Spiritual Involvement and Beliefs Scale (SIBS). Significant differences were found between first-year and upper-class participants on religious attendance, non-religious attendance, and the Daily Spiritual Experiences Scale. Based on these results, it is suggested that multi-dimensional measures provide a more accurate view of religiousness than one-dimensional measures.

Highlights

Until the 1960s, religiousness and spirituality were not considered as separate belief systems (Hood Jr., Hill, & Spilka, 2009)
Results of these analyses revealed that significant differences existed on measures of ritual attendance (F(2, 286) = 5.09, p < .007), non-ritual attendance (F(2, 286) = 3.63, p < .027), and the Daily Spiritual Experiences Scale (F(2, 286) = 4.88, p < .008)
There were no significant differences between the sophomore participants and either the first-year or the upper-class participants, with regard to ritual attendance

Summary

Introduction

Until the 1960s, religiousness and spirituality were not considered as separate belief systems (Hood Jr., Hill, & Spilka, 2009). Suggest that there is no such thing as spirituality outside of institutional religion (Hood Jr. et al, 2009) Other studies, such as Zinnbauer et al (1997), show a frequent interchanging of the two terms, despite attempting to highlight differences between them. Contradictory results were reported by Astin et al (2011) who analyzed data from the Higher Education Research Institute’s Spirituality in Higher Education project Their results showed that students who self-identified as Christian as first year students and attended Evangelical-affiliated schools showed an increase in overall religiousness throughout college, but Christian students at schools of other affiliations or secular institutions decreased in religiousness, as measured by the Religious Tradition measure (RELTRAD). This study investigated the relationship between spirituality and the college years by using three measures of spirituality, the Daily Spiritual Experiences Scale (DSES), the Spiritual Transcendence Scale (STS), and the Spiritual Involvement and Beliefs Scale (SIBS)

Participants

Procedure

Results

Discussion