Calling Outside of Work: A Comparative Study of Qualitative Responses
Calling often refers to the feeling or urge towards paid work or career; however, calling may also be an approach to one’s life roles. The present study was a content analysis on responses of 103 Northwest Christian University undergraduate students from a pre-existing data set (Skaggs & Lewis, 2016) to the open-ended question, “Does the word ‘‘calling” apply to areas of your life other than work? Please explain.” Several themes emerged from the responses. Of the 98% of participants who said that calling applied to areas of life other than work, the themes included all aspects of life, relationships, service, faith, and meaningful activities such as hobbies and education. Traditional (n = 68) and adult degree (n = 35) undergraduate students reported equally high frequencies in relationship with others, service to others, and faith. However, adult degree students reported higher in calling as it related to all aspects of life and much lower in the hobbies label. There were more differences between males (n = 29) and females (n= 74), as males reported generally lower frequencies in all labels except hobbies. The findings of the present study support previous research that people apply calling to areas outside of paid work. Future research should investigate gender differences and the implications of callings to areas outside of paid work on life or job satisfaction.
PSY 490, Research Practicum
Nani Skaggs
L203, Poster 8
10 AM – Noon