Out of the many responses I received, I was only able to use 177. (This is still more than enough!) Responses were tossed if:
- any of the questions were skipped
- answers were vague (e.g., "I quit attending at age ###, but I stopped believing at ###.")
- more than one answer per question (e.g., answering the "How old were you when you quit?" question with an age range instead of a one- or two-digit age.)
- I just couldn't decipher the response.
I still appreciate that so many people took the time to take the survey. I'm sorry that I couldn't use all the responses.
Demographics
Out of the 177, 88 were males and 89 were females. The average age for all respondents was 42 years. The average age at which someone quit the JW's was 32 years.
The majority of the sample resided in the United States (68%), while the rest were disperesed between Canada (11%), the United Kingdom (10%), Australia (5%), South Africa (2%), Austria (1%), the Czech Republic (1%), Finland (1%), Hong Kong (1%), New Zealand (1%), Puerto Rico (1%), and Sweden (1%).
Education
More than half of the sample (63%) had not earned a degree, but more than half (66%) also had some education beyond high school. (It's not supposed to add up to 100% -- those who had "some college" but never got the degree fit into both groups.)
6% didn't finish high school. 28% did. The largest category was those who had attended some college, but didn't earn a degree (29%). 11% had 2-year degrees; 19% had 4-year degrees; 7% had postgraduate degrees.
Doin' Time
More than half of the sample (55%) came into this world as JW's. 48% entered as children, while 18% converted as teens or adults.
Implications
For ex-JW's? There are none. This is about as unscientific as it gets.
For my class? I've got enough to earn a grade for the project, but I have more processing to do. Thanks again!