Designing and Evaluating a Curriculum for the Effective and Accessible Training of frontier Missionaries from New Sending countries

Abstract

Many missionaries, especially those from the New Sending Countries (NSCs), go to the field inadequately prepared for the challenges they will face, resulting in high missionary attrition rates. This dissertation seeks to answer the question, how should a curriculum for accessible cross-cultural training of effective frontier missionaries from the New Sending Countries be designed and tested? The research answered this question by following a practical theological research approach. Using literature review and analysis, the researcher investigated the commonalities and differences between the main cultural traits of missionaries from the Sample of New Sending Countries and those from the Old Sending Countries. Another literature review examined the best practices in adult education, curriculum design, technological trends in education and missionary training. Further literary research and analysis resulted in a new competency-based framework for missionary training. The researcher then synthesized the results of these literature reviews to create a curricular approach that addresses the identified challenges. Concurrently, with these reviews, the researcher led a small team that implemented a set of online courses and evaluated learner experiences through structured questionnaires, opinion polls, computer log files and analytics of video usage. The literature reviews revealed that Western training methods should be adapted to suit the cultural learning preferences of New Sending Countries. The research found that adults prefer self-driven and self-paced learning, learnt Just In Time (JIT) for its application. Therefore, the synthesized curriculum uses hybrid online e-learning in a time-phased approach. The analysis of missionary competencies mapped onto missionary life phases is made possible by the CPL (Competency-Phase-Learning domain) training matrix designed in this dissertation. This analysis showed that pre-field training is mostly cognitive and could therefore be done mostly through online video-based training. Nevertheless, on-field training requires learning in the affective and psychomotor domains in addition to the cognitive. Therefore, a hybrid blend of online e-learning and practical application is the solution for training in each phase. Such training can be facilitated by the missionary team leader in conjunction with the online course content. Once implemented by mission organizations, this approach should make training accessible to missionaries from most countries. The empirical evaluation of actual course usage showed high levels of engagement and learner satisfaction among both New- and Old Sending Country learners. The final chapter of the dissertation contains the findings and recommendations for further research.