Religious Attitudes and Participation at Messiah College

The purpose of this study was to examine whether Messiah College's motto, "Christ Preeminent" was fulfilled in graduating Messiah College students. For this study, fulfillment of the motto was based on student's ratings of a several self-evaluatating questions which depicted aspects of "religious participation" and "religious attitudes". A pre-selected set of questions were asked to a control group of students upon entering as freshmen in the year 1998 and then again upon graduation in the year 2001. Each student's freshmen and senior responses were paired together and recorded in a data set. When all of the student responses were recorded, common trends emerged providing evidence that supported the following hypothesis. The hypothesis was that incoming students placed a higher level of significance on "religious participation" and "religious attitudes" then graduating students. This was tested with 177 undergraduates from Messiah College. Furthermore, this study was conducted by the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities in the year 2001.