American college students’ understandings of the good life: a grounded theory

ABSTRACT

‘What is the good life?’ Few empirical studies explore how American college students answer this important question. In this grounded theory study, we analysed the responses of 276 American college students in two phases. In the first phase, we examined responses from 109 students at 10 different universities. In the second phase, we added interviews with an additional 167 students at one of the universities. Based on our coding, we found students’ visions of the good life were comprised of 24 unique ingredients; the most common being having a stable or passion-inspired career, being married, having children, continuing advanced learning, and being financially stable. We also discovered that eight distinct clusters of ingredients accounted for three-fourths of student responses. The clusters included American dreamers, happy strivers, comfort, and stability seekers, ECL (enjoy work, have comfort, limited family) students, family cultivators, singular career strivers, moral strivers, and God-followers.

Plain Language Summary

‘What is the good life?’ For thousands of years, authors have told us what the good life should be. Yet, if educators and other practitioners, such as student life personnel and youth workers, are going to help persuade students to develop a particular vision of the good life, respectable pedagogy requires that we first understand what students think the good life is.

Unfortunately, few studies explore how American college students answer this important question. In this study, we analysed the responses of 276 American college students in two phases. In the first phase, we examined responses from 109 students at 10 different universities. In the second phase, we added interviews with an additional 167 students at one of the universities.

Based on our analysis, we found students’ visions of the good life were comprised of 24 unique good life ‘ingredients’. An ingredient is simply one particular element of the good life that students mentioned. The most common ingredients were having a stable or passion-inspired career, being married, having children, continuing advanced learning, and being financially stable.

We also discovered that eight distinct clusters of ingredients accounted for three-fourths of student responses. We named these clusters: American dreamers, happy strivers, comfort, and stability seekers, ECL (enjoy work, have comfort, limited family) students, family cultivators, singular career strivers, moral strivers, and God-followers.

KEYWORDS:

• Good life
• higher education
• American
• qualitative
• college students
• wellbeing

Acknowledgments

This work was supported financially by the John Templeton Foundation under Grant 36656, the Lilly Foundation, Inc., and by Baylor University’s Division of Student Life, Parents Network, and Office of Spiritual Life. We have no financial interest or benefit that arises from the direct applications of this research.

Disclosure statement

We have conflicts of interest to declare that are relevant to the content of this article. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Perry L. Glanzer and Theodore F. Cockle and Sarah Schnitker added to previous versions of the manuscript. Jonathan Hill helped collect qualitative interviews. All authors read and approved the final manuscript. Finally, our study was declared exempt by our institution’s review board.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the The John Templeton Foundation [36656].

Notes on contributors

Perry L. Glanzer

Perry L. Glanzer (Ph.D. University of Southern California) is a Professor of Educational Foundations at Baylor University, a Resident Scholar with the Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion, and the Editor-in-Chief of Christian Scholar’s Review. He is the co-author, author, or editor of over a dozen books including most recently: The Dismantling of Moral Education: How Higher Education Reduced the Human Identity and Identity Excellence: A Theory of Moral Expertise for Higher Education.

Theodore F. Cockle

Theodore F. Cockle (Ph.D., Baylor University), is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Baylor University and a Resident Scholar with Baylor’s Center for School Leadership.

Sarah Schnitker

Sarah Schnitker (Ph.D., University of California, Davis) is an Associate Professor of Psychology & Neuroscience at Baylor University. She is an Associate Editor for Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, an Editorial Board member for the Journal of Research in Personality, and a co-editor of the Handbook of Positive Psychology, Religion, and Spirituality.

Jonathan Hill

Jonathan Hill (Ph.D., University of Notre Dame) is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Calvin University. He has authored or co-authored three books and published articles and book chapters on higher education and religious faith, volunteering, charitable giving, and the public understandings of science and religion.