A pre/post analysis of death anxiety as it relates to death education, Christian fundamentalism, anomie, recent death of a loved one, sex, age, and college classification.

Abstract

This research focuses on the topic of death anxiety among college students in a large, metropolitan university. Specifically, it purports to measure the relationship between death anxiety before and after a death education course. Other independent variables include: Christian fundamentalism, sex, age, college classification, and recent loss of a loved one. Many scholars argue that the topic of death was banished from American culture for much of the 20th century. Moreover, conversations involving death were often avoided in polite society. Some suggest that avoidance strategies are symptomatic of death anxiety embedded within cultural norms. Framed by these trends, the researcher believed it would be interesting to examine the impact, if any, of a death education course on death anxiety. A convenience sample was utilized in a class entitled Sociology of Death and Dying. The class consisted of students from a variety of majors, ages, and ethnic backgrounds. The students' classifications were juniors, seniors, and graduates. The students were mostly commuters. Although there was no significant relationship between the pre- and post-test, there was significance with other independent variables. However, there is reason to believe that a larger sample would have yielded significance between death education and death anxiety. Along these lines, and somewhat counterintuitive, this class seemed to engender higher levels of death anxiety. Further research is encouraged on this highly controversial topic.