Alyssa N Rockenbach
Biographic Data
| ID | 1250199 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Alyssa N Rockenbach |
| GIVEN NAMES | Alyssa N |
| FAMILY NAME | Rockenbach |
| SIGNATURE | ROCKENBACH A N |
| AFFILIATIONS | North Carolina State University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9576-258X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 22 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 30 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 22 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2016 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Comparisons Across Higher Education Contexts: Findings from Collaboratively Adapting an Interfaith Diversity Study
Understanding campus climates for interfaith learning in higher education supports universities in achieving their missions of producing global leaders and ensuring equitable access and experiences of campus life for students of diverse religious and nonreligious worldviews. The Interfaith Diversity Experiences and Attitudes Longitudinal Survey (IDEALS) was a mixed-method study designed to explore these issues in the United States; recently, UK r…
How can universities support students’ interfaith learning? Findings from a longitudinal survey of students in the UK
Across the globe, on-campus religious diversity generates opportunities for learning and growth. But how can universities prepare students to learn about and engage positively with people with different religions and beliefs from their own? Put another way, how can universities best support students’ interfaith learning? This article explores how the university environment, or ‘campus climate’, influences one measure of interfaith learning, stude…
This Is How We Heal These Divisions: Exploring Prosocial Outcomes of College Students’ Boundary-Crossing Friendships
Friendships that cross social boundaries foster the development of important civic and prosocial attitudes among college students. The present study complements and extends prior quantitative findings with qualitative description, in college students’ own voices, of the learning and growth that take place within boundary-crossing friendships, including those crossing boundaries of religious, secular, and spiritual (RSS) identity; political belief…
Gender matters: The development of pluralism orientation in college by students’ gender identity
Inspiring Muslim Appreciation in the First-Year of College: What Makes a Difference
The purpose of this study was to examine first-year change in appreciative attitudes toward Muslims by non-Muslim students. To this end, we longitudinally assessed 6229 undergraduate students at the beginning and end of their first year in college. We performed a hierarchical linear modeling analysis and found evidence that Muslim appreciation can change as a result of exposure to and participation in the first year in college, specifically throu…
You Don’t Get to Say What I Believe, I Do: Provocative Encounters as Catalysts for Self-Authored Worldview Commitments During College
This paper examines the developmental trajectories of students’ self-authored worldview commitments over four years of college and the reasons they offered for making associated developmental gains. Through a longitudinal, mixed methods approach, we unearthed four distinctive developmental trajectories of a nationally-representative cohort of 9,470 students enrolled across 122 institutions. We found that provocative encounters with worldview dive…
The Evangelical Puzzle Partially Explained: Privileged Prejudice and the Development of Appreciative Attitudes Toward Evangelical Christianity
Background: Evangelical Christian college students simultaneously experience the privileges that accompany dominant religious identities and feel a need to conceal their identity and perspectives on college campuses. Consistently and empirically, the college campus has been studied for its potential to help students develop appreciative attitudes toward religious, secular, and spiritual worldviews. Yet, few studies have investigated evangelical C…
Campus Conditions and College Experiences that Facilitate Friendship Across Worldview Differences
Supporting students’ friendships across social boundaries is one powerful way in which colleges and universities can contribute to the civic mission of higher education. Using data from the Interfaith Diversity Experiences and Attitudes Longitudinal Survey (IDEALS), a national, multi-institutional study, we examined how institutional conditions and various forms of student engagement predicted the number of interworldview friendships among colleg…
Being Evangelical is Complicated: How Students' Identities and Experiences Moderate Their Perceptions of Campus Climate
Background Evangelical Christian college students navigate campus buoyed by Christian privilege but may encounter silencing or othering tied to their religious beliefs, a feeling of incompatibility with their campus climate, and conflations of their religious and political beliefs that are inaccurate and discouraging. Unsupportive campus climates can discourage evangelical students from having productive exchanges across difference and deepening …
Interfaith Experiences and Their Relationship with Heterosexual Collegians' Attitudes Toward Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual People
For queer-spectrum students, college and university campuses are often sites of marginalization, discrimination, and/or harassment. Though such experiences are not singularly attributable to worldview, research highlights the role that religious identity plays in shaping individuals' perspectives on lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) people. Absent from current scholarship, however, is insight into the ways in which interfaith experiences may influ…
Beyond the Binary: Sophisticating Diversity Climate Considerations and Assessments
Anti-Semitism on Campus is Alive And Well
Hate crimes against Jews in America are on the rise, including on college campuses. In this article, the authors share details about their recent study, The Interfaith Diversity Experiences and Attitudes Longitudinal Survey (IDEALS), which surveyed thousands of students at over 120 schools. The findings show that Jewish students are the least likely among their peers to view their campus environments as welcoming to people of diverse faiths
Examining the Relationship Between College Students’ Interworldview Friendships and Pluralism Orientation
Background One of the most influential factors shaping college students’ prosocial development—the development of attitudes and behaviors that involve positive engagement within one's community and larger society—is the peer group. Friends have an especially important influence on students’ learning and development because of the time and emotional investment friendship involves. While ample research documents the association between college stud…
Back-Pocket God: Religion and Spirituality in the Lives of Emerging Adults, by Melinda LUNDQUIST Denton and Richard FLORY
Back-Pocket God portrays the religious trajectories of 10-year participants in the National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR), a longitudinal study that tracked change from adolescence to emerging adulthood. Denton and Flory draw on rich survey and interview data to weave a compellingly nuanced collection of storylines that showcase whether, how, and why religion matters in the lives of emerging adults. The book’s overarching thesis emphasizes t…
Careful with your ‘We’”: Worldview minority faculty at sectarian institutions
Developing Appreciative Attitudes Toward Jews: A Multi-Campus Investigation
The purpose of this paper was to examine the institutional conditions and educational practices associated with the development of first-term students’ appreciative attitudes toward Jews. Using a longitudinal design, we administered a theoretically derived and empirically validated measure of interfaith experiences to 7, 194 first-term students enrolled in one of 122 institutions. Analytically, we weighted data to reflect national figures regardi…
Owning Faith: First-Year College-Going and the Development of Students’ Self-Authored Worldview Commitments
The purpose of this paper was to examine the institutional conditions and educational practices associated with the development of first-year students’ capacities to script their own religious, spiritual, and worldview narratives through exposure to and thoughtful reflection on encounters with diverse others. We longitudinally administered a theoretically-derived and empirically-validated measure of interfaith learning and development to 7,194 fi…
An Examination of Non-Muslim College Students’ Attitudes Toward Muslims
The current study enhances the understanding of campus climate for religious and worldview diversity by examining how non-Muslim college students perceive Muslims and Islam and what predispositions, environmental factors, and experiences predict their attitudes toward Muslims. Results indicate that informal engagement with diverse peers, interfaith engagement, and space for spiritual expression on campus are positively related to appreciative att…
Expanding Perspectives on Evangelicalism: How Non-evangelical Students Appreciate Evangelical Christianity
Evangelical students pose a distinctive set of challenges to higher education professionals. These students, though advantaged to some degree because of their Christian identity, commonly report feeling marginalized and silenced on college campuses. In light of these tensions, the purpose of this study was to examine how non-evangelical students come to an appreciative understanding of evangelical Christianity. Specifically, the research focused …
How LGBT College Students Perceive and Engage the Campus Religious and Spiritual Climate
The purpose of this study was to compare how students of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities perceive the campus religious and spiritual climate and engage in interfaith and spiritual activities during college. Using data from a national study of 13,776 students at 52 institutions that took part in the Campus Religious and Spiritual Climate Survey, results indicate significant variations in perceptions and engagement by sexual orien…
Respecting the LDS/Mormon Minority on Campus: College Students' Attitudes Toward Latter-Day Saints
Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints remain a minoritized and marginalized population in the United States at large, a pattern mirrored on the majority of college and university campuses across the United States. This study addresses how social identities, institutional contexts, and intergroup dynamics within the postsecondary education environment contribute to cultivating college students' attitudes toward LDS/Mormons and…
The Association between Worldview Climate Dimensions and College Students' Perceptions of Transformational Learning
Based on 13,776 student respondents to the Campus Religious and Spiritual Climate Survey (CRSCS) across three academic years at 52 colleges and universities, this study examined how aspects of the campus climate for religious and spiritual diversity related to student perceptions of transformational learning in college. Perceived transformational learning was associated with college experiences that provoked new ways of thinking and presented cha…
Owning Faith: First-Year College-Going and the Development of Students’ Self-Authored Worldview Commitments
The purpose of this paper was to examine the institutional conditions and educational practices associated with the development of first-year students’ capacities to script their own religious, spiritual, and worldview narratives through exposure to and thoughtful reflection on encounters with diverse others. We longitudinally administered a theoretically-derived and empirically-validated measure of interfaith learning and development to 7,194 fi…
An Examination of Non-Muslim College Students’ Attitudes Toward Muslims
The current study enhances the understanding of campus climate for religious and worldview diversity by examining how non-Muslim college students perceive Muslims and Islam and what predispositions, environmental factors, and experiences predict their attitudes toward Muslims. Results indicate that informal engagement with diverse peers, interfaith engagement, and space for spiritual expression on campus are positively related to appreciative att…
How LGBT College Students Perceive and Engage the Campus Religious and Spiritual Climate
The purpose of this study was to compare how students of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities perceive the campus religious and spiritual climate and engage in interfaith and spiritual activities during college. Using data from a national study of 13,776 students at 52 institutions that took part in the Campus Religious and Spiritual Climate Survey, results indicate significant variations in perceptions and engagement by sexual orien…
You Don’t Get to Say What I Believe, I Do: Provocative Encounters as Catalysts for Self-Authored Worldview Commitments During College
This paper examines the developmental trajectories of students’ self-authored worldview commitments over four years of college and the reasons they offered for making associated developmental gains. Through a longitudinal, mixed methods approach, we unearthed four distinctive developmental trajectories of a nationally-representative cohort of 9,470 students enrolled across 122 institutions. We found that provocative encounters with worldview dive…
Campus Conditions and College Experiences that Facilitate Friendship Across Worldview Differences
Supporting students’ friendships across social boundaries is one powerful way in which colleges and universities can contribute to the civic mission of higher education. Using data from the Interfaith Diversity Experiences and Attitudes Longitudinal Survey (IDEALS), a national, multi-institutional study, we examined how institutional conditions and various forms of student engagement predicted the number of interworldview friendships among colleg…
Expanding Perspectives on Evangelicalism: How Non-evangelical Students Appreciate Evangelical Christianity
Evangelical students pose a distinctive set of challenges to higher education professionals. These students, though advantaged to some degree because of their Christian identity, commonly report feeling marginalized and silenced on college campuses. In light of these tensions, the purpose of this study was to examine how non-evangelical students come to an appreciative understanding of evangelical Christianity. Specifically, the research focused …
Interfaith Experiences and Their Relationship with Heterosexual Collegians' Attitudes Toward Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual People
For queer-spectrum students, college and university campuses are often sites of marginalization, discrimination, and/or harassment. Though such experiences are not singularly attributable to worldview, research highlights the role that religious identity plays in shaping individuals' perspectives on lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) people. Absent from current scholarship, however, is insight into the ways in which interfaith experiences may influ…
Developing Appreciative Attitudes Toward Jews: A Multi-Campus Investigation
The purpose of this paper was to examine the institutional conditions and educational practices associated with the development of first-term students’ appreciative attitudes toward Jews. Using a longitudinal design, we administered a theoretically derived and empirically validated measure of interfaith experiences to 7, 194 first-term students enrolled in one of 122 institutions. Analytically, we weighted data to reflect national figures regardi…
The Association between Worldview Climate Dimensions and College Students' Perceptions of Transformational Learning
Based on 13,776 student respondents to the Campus Religious and Spiritual Climate Survey (CRSCS) across three academic years at 52 colleges and universities, this study examined how aspects of the campus climate for religious and spiritual diversity related to student perceptions of transformational learning in college. Perceived transformational learning was associated with college experiences that provoked new ways of thinking and presented cha…
The Association between Worldview Climate Dimensions and College Students' Perceptions of Transformational Learning
Based on 13,776 student respondents to the Campus Religious and Spiritual Climate Survey (CRSCS) across three academic years at 52 colleges and universities, this study examined how aspects of the campus climate for religious and spiritual diversity related to student perceptions of transformational learning in college. Perceived transformational learning was associated with college experiences that provoked new ways of thinking and presented cha…
An Examination of Non-Muslim College Students’ Attitudes Toward Muslims
The current study enhances the understanding of campus climate for religious and worldview diversity by examining how non-Muslim college students perceive Muslims and Islam and what predispositions, environmental factors, and experiences predict their attitudes toward Muslims. Results indicate that informal engagement with diverse peers, interfaith engagement, and space for spiritual expression on campus are positively related to appreciative att…
Expanding Perspectives on Evangelicalism: How Non-evangelical Students Appreciate Evangelical Christianity
Evangelical students pose a distinctive set of challenges to higher education professionals. These students, though advantaged to some degree because of their Christian identity, commonly report feeling marginalized and silenced on college campuses. In light of these tensions, the purpose of this study was to examine how non-evangelical students come to an appreciative understanding of evangelical Christianity. Specifically, the research focused …
How LGBT College Students Perceive and Engage the Campus Religious and Spiritual Climate
The purpose of this study was to compare how students of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities perceive the campus religious and spiritual climate and engage in interfaith and spiritual activities during college. Using data from a national study of 13,776 students at 52 institutions that took part in the Campus Religious and Spiritual Climate Survey, results indicate significant variations in perceptions and engagement by sexual orien…
Respecting the LDS/Mormon Minority on Campus: College Students' Attitudes Toward Latter-Day Saints
Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints remain a minoritized and marginalized population in the United States at large, a pattern mirrored on the majority of college and university campuses across the United States. This study addresses how social identities, institutional contexts, and intergroup dynamics within the postsecondary education environment contribute to cultivating college students' attitudes toward LDS/Mormons and…
Owning Faith: First-Year College-Going and the Development of Students’ Self-Authored Worldview Commitments
The purpose of this paper was to examine the institutional conditions and educational practices associated with the development of first-year students’ capacities to script their own religious, spiritual, and worldview narratives through exposure to and thoughtful reflection on encounters with diverse others. We longitudinally administered a theoretically-derived and empirically-validated measure of interfaith learning and development to 7,194 fi…
Beyond the Binary: Sophisticating Diversity Climate Considerations and Assessments
Anti-Semitism on Campus is Alive And Well
Hate crimes against Jews in America are on the rise, including on college campuses. In this article, the authors share details about their recent study, The Interfaith Diversity Experiences and Attitudes Longitudinal Survey (IDEALS), which surveyed thousands of students at over 120 schools. The findings show that Jewish students are the least likely among their peers to view their campus environments as welcoming to people of diverse faiths
Examining the Relationship Between College Students’ Interworldview Friendships and Pluralism Orientation
Background One of the most influential factors shaping college students’ prosocial development—the development of attitudes and behaviors that involve positive engagement within one's community and larger society—is the peer group. Friends have an especially important influence on students’ learning and development because of the time and emotional investment friendship involves. While ample research documents the association between college stud…
Back-Pocket God: Religion and Spirituality in the Lives of Emerging Adults, by Melinda LUNDQUIST Denton and Richard FLORY
Back-Pocket God portrays the religious trajectories of 10-year participants in the National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR), a longitudinal study that tracked change from adolescence to emerging adulthood. Denton and Flory draw on rich survey and interview data to weave a compellingly nuanced collection of storylines that showcase whether, how, and why religion matters in the lives of emerging adults. The book’s overarching thesis emphasizes t…
Careful with your ‘We’”: Worldview minority faculty at sectarian institutions
Developing Appreciative Attitudes Toward Jews: A Multi-Campus Investigation
The purpose of this paper was to examine the institutional conditions and educational practices associated with the development of first-term students’ appreciative attitudes toward Jews. Using a longitudinal design, we administered a theoretically derived and empirically validated measure of interfaith experiences to 7, 194 first-term students enrolled in one of 122 institutions. Analytically, we weighted data to reflect national figures regardi…
The Evangelical Puzzle Partially Explained: Privileged Prejudice and the Development of Appreciative Attitudes Toward Evangelical Christianity
Background: Evangelical Christian college students simultaneously experience the privileges that accompany dominant religious identities and feel a need to conceal their identity and perspectives on college campuses. Consistently and empirically, the college campus has been studied for its potential to help students develop appreciative attitudes toward religious, secular, and spiritual worldviews. Yet, few studies have investigated evangelical C…
Campus Conditions and College Experiences that Facilitate Friendship Across Worldview Differences
Supporting students’ friendships across social boundaries is one powerful way in which colleges and universities can contribute to the civic mission of higher education. Using data from the Interfaith Diversity Experiences and Attitudes Longitudinal Survey (IDEALS), a national, multi-institutional study, we examined how institutional conditions and various forms of student engagement predicted the number of interworldview friendships among colleg…
Being Evangelical is Complicated: How Students' Identities and Experiences Moderate Their Perceptions of Campus Climate
Background Evangelical Christian college students navigate campus buoyed by Christian privilege but may encounter silencing or othering tied to their religious beliefs, a feeling of incompatibility with their campus climate, and conflations of their religious and political beliefs that are inaccurate and discouraging. Unsupportive campus climates can discourage evangelical students from having productive exchanges across difference and deepening …
Interfaith Experiences and Their Relationship with Heterosexual Collegians' Attitudes Toward Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual People
For queer-spectrum students, college and university campuses are often sites of marginalization, discrimination, and/or harassment. Though such experiences are not singularly attributable to worldview, research highlights the role that religious identity plays in shaping individuals' perspectives on lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) people. Absent from current scholarship, however, is insight into the ways in which interfaith experiences may influ…
Inspiring Muslim Appreciation in the First-Year of College: What Makes a Difference
The purpose of this study was to examine first-year change in appreciative attitudes toward Muslims by non-Muslim students. To this end, we longitudinally assessed 6229 undergraduate students at the beginning and end of their first year in college. We performed a hierarchical linear modeling analysis and found evidence that Muslim appreciation can change as a result of exposure to and participation in the first year in college, specifically throu…
You Don’t Get to Say What I Believe, I Do: Provocative Encounters as Catalysts for Self-Authored Worldview Commitments During College
This paper examines the developmental trajectories of students’ self-authored worldview commitments over four years of college and the reasons they offered for making associated developmental gains. Through a longitudinal, mixed methods approach, we unearthed four distinctive developmental trajectories of a nationally-representative cohort of 9,470 students enrolled across 122 institutions. We found that provocative encounters with worldview dive…
Gender matters: The development of pluralism orientation in college by students’ gender identity
How can universities support students’ interfaith learning? Findings from a longitudinal survey of students in the UK
Across the globe, on-campus religious diversity generates opportunities for learning and growth. But how can universities prepare students to learn about and engage positively with people with different religions and beliefs from their own? Put another way, how can universities best support students’ interfaith learning? This article explores how the university environment, or ‘campus climate’, influences one measure of interfaith learning, stude…
This Is How We Heal These Divisions: Exploring Prosocial Outcomes of College Students’ Boundary-Crossing Friendships
Friendships that cross social boundaries foster the development of important civic and prosocial attitudes among college students. The present study complements and extends prior quantitative findings with qualitative description, in college students’ own voices, of the learning and growth that take place within boundary-crossing friendships, including those crossing boundaries of religious, secular, and spiritual (RSS) identity; political belief…
Comparisons Across Higher Education Contexts: Findings from Collaboratively Adapting an Interfaith Diversity Study
Understanding campus climates for interfaith learning in higher education supports universities in achieving their missions of producing global leaders and ensuring equitable access and experiences of campus life for students of diverse religious and nonreligious worldviews. The Interfaith Diversity Experiences and Attitudes Longitudinal Survey (IDEALS) was a mixed-method study designed to explore these issues in the United States; recently, UK r…
Psychology (20 works) · Sociology (19 works) · Social Psychology (16 works) · Pedagogy (11 works) · Political science (10 works) · Gender Studies (9 works) · Higher education (9 works) · Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology (9 works) · Higher Education Research Studies (8 works) · Social Psychology (8 works)