Chaplaincy program study 'flawed and biased': conclusions not justified

The report ‘The Effectiveness of Chaplaincy’[1] by Dr Philip Hughes of Edith Cowan University and Prof. Margaret Sims of University of New England is being used by the National Schools Chaplaincy Association (NSCA) to argue for the program to be continued.

It suggests that the contribution made by chaplains could not be made by other welfare professionals or teachers.

The Greens challenge the validity of both the report and its use to justify the continuation of the program, on the grounds of:

¨       unsound research method (absence of control group) leading to unjustified conclusions: the report fails to compare results with schools that do not have chaplains but have similar access to welfare and community liaison workers. While claiming a number of benefits for school communities derived from the presence of the chaplains, the report fails to account for the positive impacts of an additional welfare-focussed staff member other than by virtue of their chaplaincy, and

¨       lack of independence: the report failed to disclose the affiliation of one of the authors to the Christian Research Association[2], established and run by a number of Christian churches that provide many of the chaplains.

 Unsound conclusions

Dr Hughes and Prof. Simms used both quantitative and qualitative research to assess attitudes of school principals, chaplains, teachers, parents and students to the presence of NSCA chaplains in public schools.

Only public schools where NSCA chaplains funded under the NSCP were studied. Schools in NSW were excluded because the Rees government denied permission to collect data.

The researchers reported extremely positive responses from across the school community, highlighting opportunities for students to address problems, improve peer, family and community relationships and change behaviour in respect of bullying. The authors also focused on positive responses on offering support for students in special risk categories.

The report, however, failed to test the hypothesis that the school community was responding to the benefits of another set of hands focusing on student welfare and wellbeing.

The key conclusion that

“Chaplaincy is a unique service that is proving to be of great value to students, staff, parents, and their schools.” (page 6) has not been justified, either by the data presented or by the analysis.

Given the list of services provided by chaplains (see pp. 16-18), there are strong reasons to believe that the benefits identified by the school community could have been equally obtained by the same number of hours of teachers, welfare workers, psychologists, counsellors and community liaison officers.

Apart from ‘spiritual issues’, no evidence was presented that chaplains deliver unique services.

Chapter 5 of the report (‘The Special Contribution of Chaplaincy’) asserts that the “uniqueness of the contribution” was apparent though the study and lists the special features as:

¨      proactive,

¨      accessible,

¨      unaligned,

¨      holistic,

¨      flexible,

¨      values-based, and

¨      church-connected.

With the exception of the last point, each of these attributes is to be found in the work of counsellors, welfare workers and community liaison officers, as well as in certain aspects of the roles of teachers.

The benefits of “church-connectedness” is highly contentious in a secular and multi-cultural public education system.

The unique ability of chaplaincy to deliver each of these attributes (apart from church-connectedness which is true by definition) are neither obvious not established by analysis or reference to data in this report.

The report should be interpreted as assessing the educational and welfare benefits of an addition staff member who is focused on the wellbeing of students and who can provide counselling and liaison services.

Lack of independence of one of the authors

The report fails to state that its lead author, Dr Philip Hughes, is employed for four days per week by the church-funded Christian Research association (CRA).

While there is nothing wrong with a researcher having such an affiliation, the failure to declare or acknowledge the connection to church funding undermines the report’s credibility.

By claiming to be an employee of a university, Dr Hughes is attaching to himself a reputation for independent and unbiased research that would normally be derived from membership of an academic institution.

Such a reputation would not be associated with an individual who works for an organisation funded and controlled by churches such as the Anglican Diocese of Brisbane and Sydney, the Assemblies of God, the Baptist Union of Victoria, Seventh-day Adventists, Lutheran Church Australia and Uniting Church Synods of New South Wales and Victoria.

Many of these churches would provide chaplains and would have a vested recruitment interest in the continuation of the program.

Comments

Greens NSW MP John Kaye said: “The report is biased and the conclusions are not justified by the research.

“The report fails to disclose that the lead author is employed for four days a week by a church-funded and controlled research organisation.

“Readers have a right to interpret the conclusions in the full knowledge of any potential conflict of interest that the researcher might have faced.

“The report should have acknowledged that Dr Hughes is employed by CRA that is controlled by churches that have a strong interest in the continuation of the program. Not only do these denominations supply some of the chaplains being studied, but the program has provided a major opportunity for recruiting new church members.

“The data and analysis presented in the report do not to justify the conclusion it reaches.

“It’s a huge leap of faith from principals welcoming an additional pair of hands focused on student welfare to the conclusion that these benefits could only be delivered by a Christian chaplain.

“The research methodology is deeply flawed. At no stage did the report test the case that  the source of the high levels of support for the program might be the additional help of another two or three days a week of a welfare-focused adult.

“Before claiming that the contributions are ‘unique’ to chaplains, the researchers should have examined the work of school counsellors, community liaison officers and welfare workers.

“If they had looked impartially at the work of other welfare professionals, they would have found that chaplains have little that is unique other the capacity to proselytising their religious beliefs.

“The report will no doubt be used to argue for another three years of funding for the chaplains program.

“The undeclared conflict of interest of the lead author and the failure to justify the conclusions remove this work as a valid contribution to the debate.

“It should be viewed as a piece of advocacy, not as indecent and scholarly research.

“Federal funding of religious missionaries in schools is a spectacular violation of the separation between church and state and undermines the secular nature of public education.

“The NSW government did well to keep the state’s schools out of this research.

“Education Minister Verity Firth should now be arguing that the program be terminated and the money spent on more school counsellors, welfare workers and community liaison officers,” Dr Kaye said.

For more information: John Kaye 0407 195 455