CHAPTER THREE: FOUNDATIONS, DESIGN, AND PROCEDURE
The introduction and the discussion of the literature in the previous
two chapters have established the bias and basis of this research project.
This chapter describes the purpose of the research project as a study of
influences that are associated with the development of a faith system in
children . Adults pass on or want to pass on certain values and beliefs
to the younger generation (figure 1). This is part
of the process of child nurture . The primary benefit of this research
is the evaluation of common ‘teaching methods’ that are used by adults.
This chapter also lists the research’s limitations and delimitations (appendix
9,) and details the actual research procedures.
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Theoretical Base
Research of faith development is a difficult thing because faith itself
can not be seen or manipulated in a physical sense. In researching it we
focus on the behaviours and feelings that are the consequence of the beliefs
and values. Tracing the changing patterns of behaviours and emotions through
time develops a picture of the development of the faith that underlies
them. Blijdorp (1995) calls faith a disposition,
indicating that it involves both emotions and a kind of knowing or cognition.
Faith is a construing of the conditions of existence. It attempts to make
sense of our mundane everyday experiences in light of some accounting for
the ultimate conditions of existence. Fowler
(1986) describes faith development as a sequence of stages by which persons
shape their relatedness to a transcendent center or centers of value .
According to Blijdorp (1995) faith nurture
emphasizes the nurturer’s limitations and dependencies. “She can teach
head knowledge but she cannot instill faith; it is a gift of God. Adults
are important in the process of faith development but God is the one who
turns the heart.” The experience of faith, the walk with God in the family
must be credible and real, if the child is to adopt it as a his own faith.
The convictions of faith also have to permeate everything the adults do,
or it will be seen as something separate from real life. The faith of the
significant adults in the life of a child must be obvious and joyful.
It has to be understood that a faith is not just a private religious
practice that can be kept separate from a person’s every day affairs. A
person’s faith is his moral vision that is part of his whole person. It
is not merely a set of moral ideals that can be set aside if the situation
requires. Gow (1996) emphasizes that moral ideas
are external concepts, objectives towards which one may strive, moral vision
indicates involvement and personal experience. Moral ideals can be taught,
moral visions are ‘caught’.
The process of acquiring moral values has parallels with the teaching
of Mathematics. In Math instruction the aim is to develop the students’
math ‘sense’. This is the awareness that they are dealing with fundamental
realities, that Math is a holistic endeavour. While the teacher realizes
that basic mathematical theorems and truths are important, he will not
present them all to be learned by rote, rather he provides an experience
by which the students begins to uncover and discover this reality by themselves.
For people to validate and commit to a certain value they first must
have the opportunity to test and experience that value personally. Without
that opportunity for testing they will see these principles as ‘ponderous
rules and abstractions’. Values may be taught as ‘obvious fact’ but they
will have no real meaning for the student because they have no personal
connection. Moral values are caught in relationships. It is in relationships
that one knows compassion, not merely as a desirable ideal, but as a personal
experience. One can therefore connect with it as having reality and intrinsic
validity.
A person’s faith effects all his endeavours. Consequently, religious
training is not a separate section in the whole effort of education, but
it is an integral part of the training in all educational subjects. The
real purpose of religious training is a life of service in every relationship
(Waterink, 1980).
Every adult in the life of a growing young person operates from a personal
moral vision. The young person observes them all and chooses to ‘buy in
to’ some of those visions while rejecting others. That process of emulation
or diversion is outlined in figure 1. This study considers what it was
that those adults may have done that made their faith and vision credible
and reliable to the young person. It is the area which I have called methodology.
This term needs to be understood in a broad sense including not only what
people do but also what they are.
Design, Method, and Instrumentation
The time available for actual research was about six months. The work started
in October 1998 and concluded in March 1999. Cost and time limitations
necessitated a local focus to the research. All participants were from
the Surrey and Langley area of British Columbia.
While the argument of my research could for the most part be applied
to nurture in other religious communities and cultures, I have limited
myself to Christian nurture because that is the kind of religious education
with which I am most familiar. In order to obtain data that may be considered
reliable and insightful, I requested various church leaders to make a subjective
selection of people that they considered very committed in the faith. The
selection consisted only of young people of post high school age. They
were young enough to remember their experiences well and yet mature enough
to reflect on them critically. They were in a position to decide for themselves
whether to participate in the study. To keep the amount of research manageable
within the time available I restricted the number of interviews to seven.
Each interview took place in one sitting of about an hour. I interviewed
young people of Reformed, Mennonite, Evangelical, and Anglican denominational
background.
While it is reasonable to assume that the conclusions drawn in chapter
five are applicable to more young people than the seven interviewed alone,
it must be understood that circumstances vary for each individual. Some
thought needs to be given to the degree of certainty with which the findings
are generalized to other people and situations. I have pointed out which
findings were supported by the available literature, but even there one
must be careful about transferring findings concerning one group of people
to another group of people. This research has relied on categories of people
that have certain commonalities. It can not account for all divergencies
that may have played a role.
Data Collection and Analysis
This research was a grounded theory study. “It attempts to derive a theory
by using multiple stages of data collection and the refinement and interrelationships
of categories of information.”(Creswell, 1994,
p12)
The topic of this research was not totally new to me. From the summer
of 1995 till the end of 1997 I chaired a small committee which researched
the role of faith in the lives of young people in the Canadian Reformed
Church. My initial interest in a study on this topic was related to the
question of whether it is through talk (preaching and teaching) or through
experiences and identification with exemplary role models that people accept
certain beliefs.
The seven informants who participated in this research project had
no prior experience with any study of this kind. They were informed about
the intent and procedure of the study by means of a letter (appendix 5)
. They understood that they expressed willingness to participate by their
own choice, and that they could withdraw from the process at any time(Statement
of Informed Consent, appendix 8).
The informants were assured of the confidential use of the data. It
was indicated to them that the information they provided would be used
only for the purpose of this particular research project (appendix 3, 4,
5, 6, 7, 8). Transcripts of the interviews were offered upon request. The
informants were involved in the validation of the conclusions. They were
also promised a copy of the executive summary of the report. A Human Resource
Ethics Committee submission was made (appendix 3) and approval was received
before any of the people involved in the process of the research were contacted.
The selection of informants for this research project was not done
randomly. The seven informants were recommended by leaders in their respective
communities (appendix 4 and 5) based on the faith commitment which they
had shown.
Most of the interviews took place in a room in the library at Trinity
Western University. One interview was held
at the informant’s church building. The research instrument was an semi-structured,
open-ended interview. Each interview was audio recorded and later transcribed.
I did not ask many detailed questions. Rather, I began with some general
and broad questions, then narrowed the focus on the three fields of interest.
The idea was that the informants would feel free to tell their own story,
to direct it to elements that they considers important. I encouraged the
informants to relate their own experiences, opinions, and subjective assessments
of personal growth. The collected data deal with what it was that adults
did and were like that caused them to have such influence on others.
In response to the replies during the first interviews some of the
questions were reformulated to become more specific regarding the focus
of the study. The data were reduced to patterns that dealt with the influence
on the mind, the heart, and the will of a person. These patterns were interpreted
to create themes or ‘spheres of influence’ in the development of faith.
Both the patterns and the themes are represented in diagrams. (Figure 2
and 3 in Chapter 4) Most display a half curve that illustrates a continuum
moving toward a climax at the highest stage.
The information was categorized by means of standard procedures. Sentences
and phrases in the transcripts were colour coded to indicate similarity
of theme or sentiment. Identifying the commonalities was a subjective exercise,
largely driven by the emphases the informants placed in their responses,
and by the recurrence of similar descriptive language.Information considerably
contrary to the emerging themes was listed in a separate category.
It is important to be confident that the information gathered is indeed
accurate and in line with reality (Creswell, 159).
Some time after completion of the interviews the informants were provided
with a draft copy of preliminary analyses. They were asked to reflect on
the accuracy of the categorizations and interpretations.
It would be fairly easy to replicate this study in another setting.
It is reasonable to expect that, if the same central assumptions, values
and biases of the researcher, and selection procedures of the informants
were followed, similar conclusion would be the result.
Creswell, John W. Research Design: Qualitative
& Quantitative Approaches, Thousand Oaks, CA, Sage Publ. 1994