The Measurement of Religious Attitudes in a University Population

Abstract

A scale was constructed for measuring the religious attitudes of students at a British University. Scores obtained from administration of the scale to a representative sample of 500 students show that there is a significant decline in religious belief among students in the Faculties of Arts and Pure Science during early years at the University, but that this decline continues only for the Science students, especially those who later engage in research. Medical students in their final years and students training for the teaching profession, especially the arts graduates, have the highest scores of all. Between denominations it was found that Catholics and members of small evangelical sects scored higher than adherents of other denominations, and between sexes the familiar finding that women tend to be more religious than men was replicated. Some implications of these findings are discussed. 21Of the scales mentioned above, (3) was the most relevant to our enquiry, but the statements in it were deliberately chosen so as to encourage outright acceptance or rejection for the purpose of obtaining two well-defined groups. Of the British scales, (6) is a composite scale containing only a few items which concern religion, and ( 5 ) was designed for use with the general population. The items which this and some of the other scales contain are rather crude. We felt that expressions of belief amongst students might well be of a more sophisticated nature, and therefore that items should be derived from amongst the student population.Our interest lay in measuring attitudes towards the Christian religion. This is not because we regard other religious beliefs as unimportant, but to have included them in our scale would have added yet another 'dimension' to a set of beliefs which we suspected were very far from being homogeneous. Statements were invited from a large number of students and also from members of the teaching staff. The first part of the article is concerned with an account of the compilation of the scale, the methodological problems which arose during this stage and the scale's administration to a representative sample of students. The findings are then presented and discussed.can be calculated for each person by scoring 2 points for each 'Strongly Agree' or ' Strongly 'Disagree', I point for each 'Agree' or ' Disagree' and o for each 'Mildly Agree' or 'Mildly Disagree'. The relationship between the E score and the subject's total score can then be shown in a scatter diagram, the lowest point of which indicates that score at which intensity of response is minimal. Such a scatter diagram was constructed and resulted in the U-shaped form which is typically found with a bi-polar variable. The zero point was located round about the score value of 85, just below the median.

The Multi-Religion Identity Measure: A New Scale for Use With Diverse Religions

“…It is necessary, then, to pay attention to specific elements of faith and religious practice. Almost all descriptions and measures centering around religious faith and practices duly do this (e.g., Brown & Lowe, 1951;Francis, 1978;Gill & Thornton, 1989;Greer & Francis, 1992 1965; Poppleton & Pilkington, 1963). As noted by Lewis, Cruise, and Lattimer (2007), Francis's (1978) Scale of Attitude Toward Christianity is so popular that it has featured in more than 200 studies on religiosity.…”

“…For the sake of scientific convenience and parsimony, these can be clustered in two main categories: (a) unidimensional and (b) multidimensional measurement schemes. Within the former, religiosity is typically studied in terms of discrete elements distributed among, but not limited to, religious beliefs and practices (e.g., Brown & Lowe, 1951;Gill & Thornton, 1989;Lee, 1965), attitudes toward religion (e.g., Francis, 1978;Greer & Francis, 1992;Poppleton & Pilkington, 1963), religious orientation (e.g., Allport & Ross, 1967;Gorsuch & McPherson, 1989;Ryan, Rigby, & King, 1993), religious commitment and experience (e.g., Hood, 1970;Pfeifer & Waelty, 1995;Roof & Perkins, 1975), and religious development (e.g., Fowler, 1981;Malony, 1988). From the second perspective, religiosity is understood in terms of a discrete unidimensional component, which is developed into multidimensional religiosity statements as it seems prominent, for instance, in the case of attitudes toward religion (e.g., Funk, 1958;Maranell, 1974) or religious experiences and beliefs (e.g., Boan, 1978).…”

A Psychophysical Investigation of the Influence of Attitude on the Judgement of Social Stimuli

“…(3) Assessment of subject's religious attitudes. The scale used was one constructed by Poppleton & Pilkington (1963) to measure religious attitudes in a British university population. Since the scale was specifically designed to measure religious attitudes, it was necessary to make certain assumptions regarding the attitude towards the church of high, intermediate and low Scorers on the scale.…”

Aspects of religion: Degree, domain, and context

“…The evidence of whether the trend away from religion applies equally to religious beliefs and practices is split. Poppleton and Pilkington (1963) found that both are almost equally affected, whereas Watkins ( 1 979) concluded that only religious practice was declining among students at an Australian university from 1965 to 1977. McCallum (1 986) reviewed the dynamics of secularization in Australia and noted that on the basis of cross-sectional surveys the following indicators of religion have declined during the past 20 years in Australia: church affiliation, church attendance, strength of belief in God, prayer, religious vocations among Catholics, and church control over marriage.…”