Empirical Study 

Empirical Study 

Introduction

This article focused on students’ levels of spirituality and how it may have an impact on their thriving. The researchers sought to understand the experiences of participants concerning their thriving, and how each participant’s institution and its programs, staff, and faculty may have influenced the increase or decrease of thriving during the semester. According to this article, the goal of faith-based institutions is teaching holistically for the students to function as a whole. This article used a mixed-method phase of a longitudinal sequential explanatory study of changes in thriving over the course of one semester from interviews with 23 students on five faith-based campuses. This article somewhat supported my topic in terms of how faith contributes to students’ engagement; however, this article did not specify whether the students were predominantly monolingual or students from other countries who speak different languages. This study had many limitations; the review was at a faith-based institution, which the authors suggested for further research to include non–religious private and public institutions and longer longitudinal. To analyze the data, the researchers used interview transcripts, which coded to identify the themes. This study does not align with the topic I intended to study.

Summary of Research Conclusions

In order to identify how religion influences students in the realms of higher education, it is first necessary to analyze other research most applicable to the subject. According to Fatima et al., the focus is on exploring a specific, external, and significant component in human living as it relates to learning at this level. For example, realities of institutional emphasis on faith as meaningful the subjects as the student’s religious motivation to learn. Religion can influence human behavior and actions in many ways, and individuals have to live by example, such as not getting involved in any practical steps. This paper sought to synthesize the different scholarly literature reviews of the impact of religion and or faith on academic achievement at the university level. The literature reviews are based on theoretical performance among Christians, Islamic, and various domains, including the medical field.

Christians Academic Engagement

Derrico et al. (2015), argued that the mission of Christian higher education has historically focused on a holistic view of education, which includes the intellectual, emotional, social, and spiritual development of students. The authors also focused on realistic optimism, which was an essential quality for student success and prolonged academic engagement. In addition, the authors believed that support from family and friends helps students to thrive in an institution. These researchers used a mixed-methods design to measure and explore changes in thriving, the Thriving Quotient (Schreiner, 2012b) scores of 622 undergraduates from five predominantly white CCCU institutions were collected near the beginning, and again at the end of the Fall 2013 semester and specifically member institutions of the CCCU.       

Academic in Islamic Faith

Islam is the second-largest and fastest-growing religion in the world, Christianity being the first.  Zubairu et al., (2016) explored the relationship between religiosity and academic performance among accounting students enrolled at the International Islamic University. The results demonstrated a positive connection between religiosity and academic success. Students’ religiosity was measured using proxies from an Islamic perspective, while their academic performances were measured using their Cumulative Grade Point Averages (CGPA). The implications from these researchers were that the findings did not represent the general Muslim student population in Malaysia. This will indeed contribute to my topic because it shows a correlational relationship between student’s religiosity and their academic performances, although I have not yet come across an enormous amount of scholarly research published on my topic, which is how religion affects the academic performance of English Language Learners. This quantitative methodology approach used in this study address the gap in my study.

Academics and Faith in the United States

Li and Murphy (2018) studied the effects of religious affiliation and religiosity on student performance in marketing classes at a university in the United States. These researchers found a positive interaction effect on performance for Christianity and religiosity, no interaction effect on performance for Judaism, Buddhism, and Hinduism, and a negative interaction effect on performance for Islam and religiosity. The authors sample 740 students who comprise faiths spanning five major religions. Nine hundred surveys were distributed to students, receiving 740 completed questionnaires back. They found a positive interaction effect on performance for Christianity and religiosity, no interaction effect on performance for Judaism, Buddhism, and Hinduism, and a negative interaction effect on performance for Islam and religiosity. Based on these findings, the authors offer policy recommendations related to campus life at U.S. higher education institutions.

Academic, Faith and Prayers in the Medical Field

Mitchel et al. (2016) conducted a qualitative study, study to understand the implications of incorporating fundamental Christian principles in the curriculum of medical schools and how students would perceive such developments. The researchers realized that there is a direct correlation in patients with spiritual factors and that the implementation of a Christian-based curriculum could help in developing holistic medical professionals. The authors described the importance of undertaking such a measure from a qualitative standpoint. The study further explored the perspectives of medical students and chaplaincy training regarding the development of a curriculum based on Christian principles. The research consisting of 44 students of the Harvard Medical Schools conducted semi-scripted interviews to understand the views of the respondents. The study realized that the development of a future medical curriculum on R/S should be elective, longitudinal, and experimental. This research provides essential perspectives about the implication of a Christian curriculum and how it can promote the development of professionals.

Academic and Faith in New Zealand

Henning et al. (2015) examined the responses from 275 medical students (156 females, 118 males, and one missing datum) at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, who voluntarily participated. These researchers investigated the connections between religious affiliation, quality of life (QOL), and measures of academic performance. Besides, does religious affiliation translate into higher self-perceived engagement in hours spent on study and own self-predictions of future grade predictions? The findings of the study indicated that participants from different religious affiliations expressed different spiritual QOL perceptions.

Statement of Common Findings

All the empirical studies have common findings that express the same interests. The results of the study indicated that participants from different religious affiliations expressed different spiritual QOL perceptions. Therefore the typical findings of the research suggest that religiosity does not significantly moderate the relationship between alliances with any of the three religions’ performance.

Research Gap Connection

The research gap of this study is based on the effects of religions on students. Christian students showed higher extrinsic social, religious orientation than their Hindu and Muslim fellows, which is a factor in my study to understand better what motivates Christian students to perform better academically than other religious groups.

Conclusion

In order to identify how religion influences students in the realms of higher education, it is first necessary to analyze other studies most applicable to the subject. To some extent, any of these studies discussed may serve to work with my proposed research. Many reviews mentioned above believed that religion makes one’s life meaningful by providing the purpose of life. Religiosity may also affect life’s goals by providing direction, determination, and motivation to achieve these goals. The analysis of these kinds of literature examined the impact of religion and or faith on academic achievement at the university level among Christians, and including Islamic, in the domain of the medical field closely. Furthermore, many of these researchers used an inductive qualitative approach because it was appropriate for the research questions they so desired. These qualitative measures would, indeed, help to answer the questions on my study, which is to determine the effects of religion on the academic achievement of English Language Learners.