Esquema versão 2 (6)

6. Method and articulation of the thesis
This research will have three main moments. On the first part (Theoretical approach) I will critically review the precedent research, will present the social representation theory and its merits to this research project and the theological criteria that will configure the research problem. The second part (Believing in God. Empirical perspective) will report the empirical procedures. The third part (Believing in God. Theological perspective) will read, interpret and evaluate the empirical data found on second part. It will also identify pastoral challenges and new research questions brought up by this research.
6.1 Part 1: Theoretical approach
6.1.1 Chapter 1: Status Quaestionis
This research will start with a systematic analysis and evaluation on the researches done so far in regard with the topic “God and adolescents”. I will search to present and evaluate the relevant literature focused on the conceptual representation of God, the factors related to or predictive of these representations, the development of God representations. This analysis won’t limit itself to report and compare the previous researches but also to discuss them epistemological and theoretically.
6.1.2 Chapter 2: The Social Representations Theory
In this chapter i will present the social representations theory, its rationale, epistemologic legitimation and methodologies. I will also highlight its merits and heuristic relevance in today’s socio-cultural complexity.
6.1.3 Chapter 3: Theological dimensions
In this chapter i will also try an overview of the most relevant theological literature pertinent to this theme.
6.2 Part 2: Believing in God. Empirical perspective
6.2.1 Chapter 4: Research design
This chapter describes the research design.
The suggestions Bauer and Gaskell make on the choice of a multi-method approach seam specially relevant to this research: “… calls for a multi-method approach, simultaneously observing the different representational modes as well as mediums, and their consequences. In research this implies some combination of field observations for behavioural habits, questionnaires, free associations or interviews to explore individual cognitions; group interviews for informal communication; and documents or mass media contents for formal communication. Triangulation of these different data sources across modes and mediums is a central objective; not merely to achieve the parallax of different perspectives (…) but to determine core and peripheral elements of a representation, to map contradictions and consistencies, and to explore the functions of the representations across the different modes and mediums” .
In this research project it is not possible to be as systematic as proposed by Bauer and Gaskell so I will use mainly a quantitative approach to describe the social representations. Complementary to this, in order to clarify what the quantitative data and analysis procedures can not, I will use a qualitative approach. Through focus group and personal interviews I will collect data to be studied according the findings of the quantitative moment.

Quantitative questionnaire:
The variables under research will be operationalised in different ways.
Gender is a nominal variable; age and the number of years the subjects followed the catechetical curriculum are interval ones.
The subjects religious practice will be determined through ordinal scale questions regarding frequency of mass assistance, confession and personal prayer.
To detect the orthopraxic dimension of faith there will be an open ended question about behavioural consequences of believing in God.
There will be also two other open ended questions regarding personal experiences and people that have influenced the subjects believing in God experience.
To operationalize the social representation of faith in God, I will use free association questions. The subjects will be asked to produce associations from an inductor expression. The inductors will be “God”, “Jesus”, “Holy Spirit”, “my relation with God”. The intervention of the researcher is limited to the instructions. The task is therefore relatively unstructured: the subject is not required to state his position in relation to a pre-existing frame of reference, as is the case of a multiple choice opinion question or for closed questions in general. The open nature of the questioning allows the subject not to think that the researcher is investigating his competence, thus avoiding social desirability effects. This method of data collection is standardized and facilitates a collection procedure which is identical for all the subjects of the investigation.
Another variable is the catechist social representation of God. This is found in the catechist questionnaire. Each adolescent questionnaire is connected to a catechist questionnaire.
The quality of the relation between the adolescent and his catechist is determined with a likert-scale.
The analysis units will be defined at a double level. On the first level they are the individual adolescents. On the second level they are the catechetical groups to whom they belong (or belonged). This is important to correlate the subjects to a specific catechetical group and to a specific catechist.
I propose to follow a stratified sampling strategy, according to gender, age and ecclesial belonging factors.
The administration process will follow this steps:
1. Identify and invite catechist usually working with adolescents;
2. Use the pair catechist-group as a second level unit of analysis
3. Apply the research instrument to the adolescents actually belonging to the group
4. Ask the catechist for help to get in touch with adolescents that used to belong to the group.

Qualitative procedures:
The focus group and the personal interviews will explore the following topics: Images of the Trinitarian God, description of the relation towards God, personal consequences of faith in God, influential experiences and people to the present day image of God.
6.2.2 Chapter 5: Results of empirical research and data analysis
This chapter will describe the analytical procedures and the results. Also at this level validity will be increased through analytic triangulation. The redundant use of factor analysis, cluster analysis and multidimensional scaling will prevent interpretative bias.
6.3 Part 3: Believing in God. Theological perspective
In this third part, the results of the empirical study are related back to theinitial questions and aims.
6.3.1 Chapter 6: Theological evaluation and meaning of the empirical results
The empirical results found in part 2 do not provide a direct answer to the theological questions. They need to be theologically interpreted through a dialogue between the theological concepts and theories previously identified and the results of the empirical analysis.
Then I will try a theological reflection on the meaning and relevance of the results of the theological interpretation and the adequacy of the structure and execution of the empirical-theological study.
6.3.2 Chapter 7: Pastoral and research challenges
On this final chapter I will try to identify the pastoral challenges posed by this research. This research deals with a essential dimension of Christian existence and studied it in the referents perspective. What relevant teachings and questions are there to the other ecclesial agents and processes?
Probably, the chosen research design had to leave out many relevant questions and methodological approaches. It is important to identify them.