The last few weeks have been busier than this skeletal blog might indicate! Since my last post I have read eight journal articles and a PhD thesis, investigating primary research into measuring the spiritual formation experiences of students and looking at matters of definition. It's been an interesting journey, and I will be writing my primary research documentation in the next three weeks (following a week of holiday in the South Island). I just have four more articles and three book chapters to draw notes from before I begin; the total expended from that mentioend in my post below thanks to another literature search.
It is clear that I will need to prepare my own research instrument, and it is likely that this will be a major part of the study. Ma's (1999) PhD instrument looks like it will add some useful elements, but reading through her work I became very conscious that what you seek to measure and the approach you take to the resaerch question will influence your results. While Ma's findings are very useful for my study, the instrument does not consider church involvement among its quantitative measures because this is actually a factor external to the teaching institution. Fair enough for her study, which considered academic and non-academic matters relating to on-campus study, but unfortunate in terms of not providing any comparative data for what is likely to prove a very significant factor (Ma's qualitative findings found church involvement very significant).
So, a bit more reading then into the methodology - with a focus on developing an instrument. Exciting days, but hard work ahead! Zotero's working well, and another study I am involved in looking at the transofrmative aspects of theological education across a particular course is also going well. I'm also now on study leave (YES!) so the PhD - and this blog - are likely to get a lot more attention now!
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