A needs assessment of third culture children and the administrative implications for an orientation program

Abstract

Three groups of Southern Baptist foreign missionary parents, career, former, and new missionaries, numbering 492, reported their perceptions of the cognitive, social, emotional, and spiritual needs of young missionary children by rating sixteen goals for a pre-departure orientation on the variables of importance, responsibility and attainability. Mean scores of each of the variables were used to compute a criticality quotient, based on the Westinghouse Needs Assessment Model, to be used in determining the priority of each goal. Data analysis included total response, group response, and response by geographic location of the respondents. Implications were then drawn for the development of an orientation program for missionary children. No one category of need (cognitive, social, emotional, or spiritual) emerged as the most consuming for young missionary children. Rather, the goals related to the categories were well dispersed throughout the priority ranking.