McDonough, Daniel P. The Role of Short-Term Missions in the Great Commission: A Study of the Effects of STEM Ministries' Short-Term
Summary:
Survey of 432 participants in STEM Ministries two-week mission trips found that participants doubled giving and increased prayer for missions. Builds off of Peterson and Peterson's 1991 STEM Ministries survey.
Methodology:
Printed survey mailed to 900 people. 635 had participated in one two-week STEM
mission, 265 had participated in more than one two-week STEM mission. (This second group consisted of all people who had ever gone on two or more STEM two-week trips; the total number of people who had gone one or more STEM two-week trips was around 2035). It was determined that a 50% response rate or better would guarantee a 95% confidence interval of + or - 5%.
Limitations:
Over 121 out of the 900 addresses supplied were incorrect and thus returned, several of the proposed respondents had died, and one refused to answer because he/she was offended. A limited but unknown number of the survey recipients had not participated in a STEM trip. Most importantly, the study does not show whether changes since the STEM trip(s) were directly caused by those trips or by other events in respondents' lives.
Highlights:
Table 2 contains the responses which showed a median monthly giving before
their trip of $1-$10, compared to the median of their present giving of $11-$25.
Probably the most encouraging change which can be noted in Table 2 is the shift
away from the giving at the $0 level. The number of people in that range dropped by
105 individuals, a 60.3% reduction." --p. 49.
".it can be concluded that there was on the average a doubling in the giving of those
who had participated from before their trip to the present. [.] An important
qualification, however, is that several of the respondents commented that their change
in giving (both positive and negative) reflects more a change in life stage than a
change in mission perspective." [i.e. retiring, moving from college to full-time work]
--p. 52
"The median reported for the amount of mission-focused prayer each week
before the STEM trip was 1-5 minutes whereas at present, the median has shifted
up to 6-10 minutes." --p. 53
Missions-related activities (i.e. reading books and magazines, getting to know
missionaries, attending conferences, etc.):
"While most of the sample did not alter their patterns of behavior, those who did
change primarily did so by increasing their activity." -p. 54
".those who participate in short term mission trips are much more likely to return
for another short-term mission than they are to commit to serving full-time. This
implies that two-week short-term missions such as those that STEM offers do not
motivate a majority of the participants to consider full-time work." --p. 57
Multiple trip participants' prayer increased more than that of single trip participants,
but giving and other factors were the same for both groups. -pp. 59-60
Demographics: see following page
