AD ALTA
JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH
for students. It is not so much about developing the student's
spirituality, but rather about solving common student problems,
such as study, personal, relationship and psychological
problems. This approach is based on the fact that academic and
pastoral duties cannot easily be separated because academic
problems almost always have a non-academic cause (Hughes et
al, 2018). In this context, universities are attempting to specify
the responsibilities of employees for academic and pastoral care.
However, this is not based on the notion that they need to be
separated, but in order to clearly define the levels of
responsibilities for employees and provide clarity for students as
a result.
Universities are trying to tackle pastoral care professionally –
through personal tutors and academic supervisors. The problem
is the difficulty of strictly separating academic and pastoral
responsibilities. These specialists are uncertain about where the
boundaries of their roles lie, and what their remits are. A further
problem is the lack of a shared view between universities on
what is part of academic care and what is part of pastoral care.
Therefore, the role of a personal tutor in one school is
understood in terms of academic support, and in others as more
pastoral support. Another factor preventing a clearer perception
of the pastoral service is the fact that students bring personal
problems not only to their personal tutors, but to any member of
the university staff whom they trust. However, there is a general
consensus that cases that fall within the professional competence
of other professionals, such as psychologists, must be referred to
them.
Although this is not the norm in the definition of pastoral care in
English-speaking universities, in some cases, in addition to
emotional and psychological, the definition of pastoral service
also mentions promoting the spiritual welfare of students
(Equality, 2013). But that does not mean that it directly relates to
spiritual ministry of the priests from individual church
denominations for the benefit of the students.
The Australian and New Zealand approach to defining pastoral
care takes a similar approach to that in the United Kingdom,
with the difference that it explicitly states the original definition
of this service based on the principle of Christian philosophy,
which is focused on personal development and, in particular, on
the universal and moral well-being of students (Lang, 1983). At
the present time, it seeks above all to promote values relating to
mutual respect, responsibility and services within the community
(Pastoral care, 1994). Although the referenced Christian basis
has been eroded from this service, the individual areas of activity
include support for the student's moral and spiritual
development, as well as the preventive function of pastoral
ministry (Cross, Lester and Barnes, 2008).
In the materials of Catholic universities, Jesus Christ is directly
mentioned as the image and form of God present in the human
community. Jesus’ values and teachings show all people the
way, the truth and life, and it is from that the values are derived
that this kind of pastoral service seeks to promote – love,
respect, compassion, tolerance, forgiveness, repentance,
reconciliation and justice (Pastoral Care Policy, 2016). The
question of what means of promotion that entails is not answered
in these documents.
Some universities offer, if necessary and in the interest of
students, the direct service of a priest of a particular Christian
denomination, to whom the students can turn if necessary. In the
United States of America, especially in Catholic universities,
there are Catholic university centres (for examples the Catholic
student center at Washington University has, in addition to its
Catholic priest and deacon, 19 other team members who look
after the needs of the students) (Stohr, 1996), with a similar
focus to that of university pastoral centres in Slovakia.
3 Methodology
The principle of phenomenological analysis, which is part of
qualitative methodology, was used in this research. The essence
of phenomenological analysis lies in the fact that the researcher
tries to enter the inner world of the individual in order to
understand the meanings the person attributes to the
phenomenon under investigation (Miles and Huberman, 1994).
They try to reveal the way a selected group experiences the
world, representing the feelings, thoughts and self-knowledge of
the subjects (Morgan and Smircich, 1980). The main aim of
phenomenological research is to analyse and describe the actual
experience of the individual (group) with the specific
phenomenon (Grbich, 2009). It seeks to understand the hidden
meanings and essence of the experience along with the
importance attributed by the participants themselves (Gavora,
2009).
In our research we used a semi-structured in-depth interview.
The basic research question was: How did the participants assess
the educational activity of the university pastoral centre
compared to that of the university where they studied? The basic
research question is very broad and therefore, as it is common in
qualitative design, we have divided it into smaller units and
specified it in separate research questions (Bryman, 2006).
We transcribed and encoded the recorded conversations using
open coding (Ezzy, 2002). The individual codes were
subsequently categorized (Strauss and Corbinová, 1999). The
research report processes those categories that relate to the
research topic.
3.1 Participants in analytical interviews
The recommendations in the literature regarding the number of
participants in a phenomenological study are not uniform.
Various authors mention numbers ranging from 7 to 15 people
(Creswell, 1994). More important than the number of
participants in the sample is that the meaning categories be
saturated (Brikci and Green, 2007). The research sample in our
research consisted of 14 participants – 5 male students and 9
female students. We chose this ratio of men and women
deliberately because it corresponds to the proportion of male and
female students attending the UPC. We used a homogeneous
sample when selecting participants (Onwuegbuzie and Leech,
2005) – the focus of our research was to study participants who
had a shared experience, namely attending a university pastoral
centre.
3.2 Data collection, processing and analysis
We used a qualitative interview method – an in-depth semi-
structured interview – to gather research data. This interpersonal
method is based on personal contact, which is aimed at putting
the researcher into the shoes of the participant (Mack et al,
2005).
Some of the interviews took place at the participants’ private
accommodation and some of them took place at the faculty
where they studied or in the university pastoral centre. We tried
to meet the requirements of the participants. The opening part of
the interview sought to assure them that their identity would
remain anonymous. At the end of the opening part of the
meeting, we asked their express permission to record the
interview. After it was granted, we began recording the
interview.
Quotes from interviews used in the work are given in italics. In
parentheses without italics is information that could lead to the
identification of the participants or other people who have some
relation to the research. The quotations are not linguistically or
stylistically edited. They are presented as we recorded them,
including with grammatical errors. Since we decided not even to
give fictitious names to the participants, after each quote there is
a code that contains information about whether it is a male
student M or a female student W. Next follows the serial number
of the interview and the number of the page from which the
quote is taken. For example, (2M4) is a quotation from the
interview with the male student who has serial number 2, taken
from page 4.
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