Date of Award
2001
Document Type
Practicum
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Department
Programs for Higher Education
Advisor
Marian Gibney
Keywords
academic performance, Bible colleges, co-requisites, exegesis, ex post facto studies, Hermeneutics, New Testament, prerequisite courses, quasi-experimental research, student achievement, theological education, t-tests
Abstract
The problem under investigation was that the academic performance of several students in a new course offered at Harvest Bible College called New Testament Exegesis was unsatisfactory. The purpose of the study was to compare student performance in New Testament Exegesis between students who had completed Hermeneutics before commencing the course with those 2 who had not. The research question was, "Do students who take Hermeneutics as a pre-requisite course for New Testament Exegesis have an improved academic performance over students who do not have the pre-requisite?"
A quasi-experimental research design was used to determine the effect of a treatment. The data was derived from an ex post facto study of students' results in the New Testament Exegesis class of 1999. The sample consisted of 24 subjects. The statistical test used was a one tailed t-test with a .05 level of significance.
Comparison of the treatment and control groups produced a calculated t value of 0.860125 with a resultant E = 0.199498. The critical t value was 1.717144. Based on the test results, the null hypothesis, stating that there was no significant difference in the academic performance between the two groups failed to be rejected at the p = 0.05 level of significance.
Conclusions drawn from this study included that the results suggest that the alternative hypothesis could not be accepted. While those who had completed Hermeneutics as a pre-requisite had performed better than those who did not, the increase was not significant.
Since the statistical results of this study are inconclusive and inconsistent compared with the literature review and best practice at other colleges. It is recommended that further study be undertaken. It is also recommended that until the results of that further study are known that students intending to undertake New Testament Exegesis be strongly advised to have Hermeneutics as either a pre-requisite or co-requisite.