Higher Education Research Institute. 2004. The Spiritual Life of College Students: A National Study of College Students’ Search for Meaning and Purpose (Full Report). Los Angeles: Higher Education Research Institute at University of California, Los Angeles.
This report provides a summary of early findings from a comprehensive, multi-year study by the Higher Education Research Institute (HERI). Over 112,000 first-year students at 236 colleges and universities were surveyed in the late summer and early fall of 2004, with a follow-up survey administered to those students in spring 2007. HERI’s study differs from other research on religion and higher education in its focus on the inner development of students: “the sphere of values and beliefs, emotional maturity, spirituality, and self-understanding.” Based on their findings, the researchers developed three measures of spirituality, five measures of religiousness, and four other dimensions related to spirituality and religiousness. They find that a majority of college students report high levels of spirituality, with three-fourths saying that they are “searching for purpose/meaning in life,” while 80% attended religious services in the past year. Spirituality and religiousness correspond with various behaviors: they relate generally to physical well-being (for example, highly religious and highly spiritual students are less likely to drink and smoke), and the researchers also find that there is a divide between students of different levels of spirituality and religious engagement on political views and affiliations (for example, conservatives far outnumber liberals among those students who identify as being highly religious).
