GROVE CITY — At the end of a three-year study, a team of psychology professors at Grove City College hopes to be able to determine what stimuli in a teen's environment affect social development.

The college received a $300,000 grant from the John Templeton Foundation of West Conshohocken for the study, which will include about 200 people from Butler and Mercer counties.

"The Grove City professors proposed an innovative approach to investigate how children's developmental milieu, moral framework and religious faith influence the trajectory of their character development," said Kimon Sargeant, vice president of Human Sciences at the John Templeton Foundation.

The foundation is a family-run organization based near Philadelphia. Its grant awards were estimated at close to $60 million last year.

Joe Horton, a professor in Grove City's psychology department and one of those helping to conduct the study, said accuracy is the key. "We just want the truth," he said.

Seventh graders and 10th graders recently completed questionnaires asking about their attitudes and behaviors in certain situations. The questionnaires were also given to the students' parents and teachers. Participation was voluntary. The answers of all three study groups will be compared in an effort to determine what impacts student behaviors.

A wide variety of students were chosen, according to Horton. Advertisements went out to private, public, and home schools in Mercer and Butler counties. There are also a few participants from Ohio and New York, Horton said.

"It's a broadly defined group," he said. "We should have people with a variety of backgrounds — which is good, because if everyone were from the same background, the stats would not come out well for us."

In two years, the same students and parents will complete another identical survey, with the help of the students' new teachers. The results of the new and old questionnaires will be compared.

"We're looking for a change," Horton said. "So we had to do the study over that period of time." Some families will also be interviewed in the interval between surveys so more detailed information can be gathered.

Horton declined comment on the survey questions. The foundation, in its mission statement, says its goal "is to serve as a philanthropic catalyst for discovery in area's engaging life's biggest questions."

Horton said the foundation is interested in religion and how it impacts life.

"It is one of the factors we're looking at, but this is not just a religion study," Horton said.

"It's one of many things we're asking people. We're going to put all of the questions together to see how it shapes a person."

Horton said the team has compiled some very preliminary results, after having entered half of the data from the first questionnaire. He wouldn't detail what those results may indicate.

"We've only analyzed half of the data," he said. "After the rest of the data has been answered, it's possible what we've learned (so far) could fall apart."

There are currently five people working on the project, two of whom are students, Horton said. He said he hopes the study will be beneficial both to teachers and students, but also for the college.

"Grove City College is primarily a teaching college," Horton said. "The faculty here does research, but not on a large scale. We are not Penn State, nor do we pretend to be. This is good for the college because as the results come out, it's an advertisement for the school and it gets our name out there."

He also said the study will keep faculty members up to date on the latest research methods.

"It's one of the big things we teach," Horton said. "Doing a large, occasional project helps to keep us sharp in the classroom."

Horton said much of the Templeton funding will be used to compensate family participants. Results will be published when the study is completed.