The quest of a lifetime : how the first year of University of Richmond life affects student\u27s spirituality and religiosity

Abstract

First year university students’ religious and spiritual beliefs and attitudes were investigated over the course of the year. The survey used was largely made up of a subset of questions from the CSBV survey created by HERI and adapted and administered via Survey Monkey software to 153 first year students in the Fall Semester and 74 first year students in the Spring Semester at the University of Richmond. Students pray less and self-reflect more, are more likely to agree that the universe arose by chance, less likely to believe that ‘only religion can truly explain existence’, less likely to find religion personally helpful, and they are less likely to feel certain about the existence of God after one year. Students shift from religiosity or spirituality