Research
Survey
Over the course of the first three years of our grant project, we have developed an ecumenically scoped, theoretically robust, and psychometrically sound seminarian formation assessment instrument that has been pilot tested on a sample of Evangelical, Mainline Protestant, and Roman Catholic seminary students. Our assessment instrument, which measures over 50 distinct constructs relevant to human and spiritual formation, can be administered entirely online and can be completed in 50-60 minutes.
Some of the constructs measured include:
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Intellectual Humility
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Compassion
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Patience
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Kindness
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Self-Control
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Honesty
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Commitment to Justice (within both individual & social contexts)
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Self-awareness, Self-knowledge
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Knowledge of God
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Relational Dispositions with God
and Others -
Spiritual Practices
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Calling/Vocation
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Community & Social Connectedness
**We’ll have some results available to be shared here later this year
Additionally, we have developed an app to help seminaries track and receive results on their student's surveys to help them improve their programs for future students.
An iOS app has been built to manage all features of data collection, benchmarking, and database management. A relational database has been built and stored in the Apple iCloud (see Appendix B for current database schema). The database allows for the collection and storage of both quantitative and qualitative data. Essential data for each user is stored locally on the user’s device (iPhone or iPad). This assures native speed and thus a fast response time. The data are aggregated in iCloud, uploaded in a background thread each time a user makes a change in the database. When developers make changes in items, scoring schemes, or other data classes, those changes are stored in iCloud and then the next time each user opens the app the user’s device is updated accordingly.
Data Collection is currently managed through the iOS app. Student users may view their past responses on the assessment inventory and complete new administrations. Progress indicators are shown as students work through each scale. We will begin implementing this data request for participating seminaries. This will require ongoing semi-annual communication with the seminaries participating in the project. The students being invited to participate in the study will be entered into the database before they attempt to log in to the iOS or web app. This gives seminaries control over who is sampled. We will do database management throughout the grant and develop a set of training procedures to allow us to turn this over to others at the conclusion of the grant.
See below for some examples of how the app can be used.
iPad Access Page -
The name at the bottom of the page is the name of the registered person using the app
Menu - These are the options available to users on the development team
User Manager -
An example of the tables used in the User Manager
Benchmarking Manager - All results can be shown graphically. Month-to-month scores for the institution are plotted along with the 25th and 75th percentile scores for all institutions.
