Date of Award

1986

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education

Program

Higher Education Administration EdD

First Advisor

Edward A. Streeter

Second Advisor

Wilfred W. Liske

Third Advisor

Marle Greenway

Abstract

Problem. Within the time constraints of the 24-hour day and the sevenday week, and under the pressure of the increased number of units to be earned before graduation from Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) residence academies, it was doubtful that students were experiencing educational balance. The number of and time for activities in which a student could be engaged, plus the content and emphasis on daily functions, were studied and reported under five areas of educational balance: academic achievement, vocational and professional interests, social growth, physical activities, and religious experience.

Method. Representing grades ten, eleven, and twelve in 18 out of 36 SDA residence academies in the Unifed States, 1,997 students completed a pilot-tested questionnaire consisting of 99 items; 55 administrators from these schools selected time provisions for 27 student activities; and the principals completed a short questionnaire designed to give demographic information for their schools. Responses from students were scored using a panel-prescribed weighting schedule and percentages calculated for each reply. These scores were used as possible indicators of educational balance.

Results. In academic achievement, social growth, and religious experience the students rated above the mean ideal expectancy for educational balance. In physical activities the students rated slightly above this mean, but in vocational and professional interests the rating was slightly below the mean ideal expectancy. Time provisions for daily student activities exceeded the 24-hour day time limit, a constraint that had to be removed to insure educational balance. To accomplish this goal seven of the 24 total activities were placed into a variable category to be set by advisors, counselors, and work coordinators, according to individual student academic and work needs.

Conclusions. Teachers were perhaps responsible for requiring their students to think, the depth depending on the students; for allowing, as opposed to requiring, their students to get everything done on time; and for encouraging temperance and good posture. Students chose to pay tithe and to make prayer a part of their daily life, two actions probably reinforced by tangible results promised by God. Student desires may have conflicted with time-limited activities such as increased study load and work. Students may have been guilty of time robbery, causing inability to meet with the guidance counselor and lack of devotional time. Time adjustments for student activities were shown to be necessary, complicated, and delicately interrelated to prevent imbalance from occurring.

Subject Area

Boarding schools--United States.

DOI

https://dx.doi.org/10.32597/dissertations/651/

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