The Effect of the College Experience upon Students' Concepts of God

Abstract

HE religion of college students is a subject of perennial interest. Frequently the claim has been advanced that our colleges rob young people of their faith, and as frequently the college has been painted as a place of spiritual enlightenment and development, where significant consecrations occur, and where great spiritual movements are born. Many observations have been published as to the result of the college experience upon the religious life and belief of students, some of which have been keen, and quite true, no doubt, to situations portrayed. Few attempts have been made, however, to determine by methods of objective measurement the effect of the college experience on the religious belief of students. Until such methods are perfected we cannot be sure of the facts. The present study is an attempt to discover by objective method what happens to one important aspect of student religious thinking during college days. As the idea of God is conceived generally to be the central and pivotal concept of religion, the study has been directed specifically to discovering in what terms students conceive of God, and what changes are produced in their concepts as a result of four years in college. Limiting the study to one fundamental concept was done for the sake both of greater thoroughness with respect to it and the possibility of securing a much larger number of responses to a simple than to a complex study. Young people find it very difficult to articulate their beliefs in religion, so it was determined that the instrument of investigation must be so constructed that students would have only to identify their own opinions from a number of possible choices