This is a research paper where the author conducted structural interviews with 30 students in Christian colleges to discover their views and experiences of community since the began attending the schools. After analyzing the results she focuses on "authenticity," both of students and of the leadership, as a main theme of the study. She elaborates on the theme and finds many implications for those in Christian education and ministry.
Addressing credibility in this type of paper author clearly states the outlook and audience for this study as being distinctly Christian and for Christian educators and ministers. Author establishes a "senses of community" as a common goal of administrators, students and faculty of Christian colleges. There are common goals and assumptions made by the audience and the writer of this paper. The assumptions include Biblical mandates, education as ministry, and that researchers, beyond discovery and analysis, are empowered to draw implications and make suggestions readers. This type approach is starkly different than what we read in standard academic journals. At first it seems in appropriately congenial, but after accepting the limitations built into the study's clearly defined assumptions, context, perspective and audience it seems acceptable and rhetorically honest.
I chose this study not for content but for the research method, semi-structured interviews. The data gathered from this method was presented in two ways, one clumsy and superfluous and one deftly handled. I learned from this. The author gives sets the stage with a discussion of community and some demographic descriptions of the student population at the colleges studied. An approximation to our IRB system is achieved by obtaining permission from the administration and faculty. The author then introduces four well developed research questions? Three are drawn directly from the student responses to questions, dealing with their experiences, and two dealing with conceptions of ideal and Christian communities. The fourth question is analytical, evaluating the student responses for similarity and from perspectives "...postmodern, theological and historical."(79) The author included an adequate description of the interview, data-recording, and transcription process. However, the 20 questions that were asked were not included in the article. The evaluation of the interviews seemed confused. First an elaborate coding system was imposed on the 30 transcripts creating using a program named Non-numeric Unstructured Data-Indexing Searching and Theorizing 4(NUD*IST 4). The author explains the coding process and the categories for themes and internal relationships within the data but then seems ignore the coding structure for the rest of the paper. For example there is no discussion of numbers of student response falling into categories. My assumption is once the data was coded and the software produced a graphical display showing "...a network of related themes," the author didn't know what to do with it. Instead she used the broad categories that she programmed into as a structure for writing the paper. According to the way she used the data she could have skipped the use of the software. Once the author began to handle the information gathered from the interviews she effectively used the students quotes within seven themes or categories to demonstrate what was learned. Of note, I found a unique handling of the implications section of the article. The author devoted almost a third of the paper to the readers of the study, educators in Christian colleges and those involved with student ministries. In this section she gives nine areas where students needs can be addressed by educators and ministers. This is done in overtly didactic manner including the use of scriptures to contextualize her suggestions. This technique may be common within Christian education journals.
