Abstract Impact of Teaching Death and Dying
The purpose of this study was to (1) examine attitudes of college students toward death and dying prior to enrolling in a death and dying course, (2) following enrollment in and completion of a course entitled “Death and Dying,” examine the impact the course had on the attitudes of college students relative to death and dying, and (3) develop effective teaching and learning strategies in death and dying. Data were collected from college students who took class Death and Dying during Spring semester, 2002-3. A total of 180 surveys were collected, including 98 in pretest and 82 in posttest. The survey instrument consisted of 47 attitude items. Data were subjected to descriptive as well as inferential statistical analysis including factor analysis, regression analysis, t-test, multivariate tests, and Analysis of Variance using SPSS computer program. Also data were subjected to item analysis and reliability tests. Results. Overall reliability coefficient of the attitude items was 0.9528, 0.9511 for pretest, and 0.9517 for posttest. Independent sample t-test comparing mean attitude scores between pretest and posttest found no statistically significant difference (p = 0.68). Independent T-test, and one-way ANOVA tests were conducted to test whether such a difference exists in each of the variables, gender, class standing, age, grade point average (GPA), and confessions when pretest and posttest data were combined. The results found significant differences in attitude toward death and dying between male and female (F = 10.13; p = .002), among age groups (F=3.310, p=0.012), and among confessions (F=3.093; p=0.028). Tukey’s test showed the difference by age was between age 19 and 22 or above, but failed to identify where the difference is between confessions. There were no significant difference in attitude by class standing and GPA. The data were further analyzed by using factor analysis and regression test. The factor analysis found seven factors that explain 61% of the variance. Multiple regression tests were then conducted to test the relationship between each factor as well as the total attitude score and variables of gender, class standing, age, grade point average (GPA), confessions, and pre-posttest. The results found that there were significant predictive values of these variables to total attitude score, factor #2, #3, #4, #6, and #8 (R ranges from 0.225 to 0.351). Among these tests, pre-post test time and confessions were remained in the final equation in tests of total attitude score, #3, #4, and #6.