Validation of the Chinese Version of the Centrality of Religiosity Scale (CRS): Teacher Perspectives

Abstract

This study applied the Centrality of Religiosity Scale (CRS) to the context of Hong Kong as a part of China with the focus on a specific target group of teachers in primary and secondary schools. For the validation of the scale in the Hong Kong context, the version of CRSi-20 was tested with data collected from local teachers (N = 671). For the validation of the scale, six versions were tested (CRSi-20, CRS-15, CRSi-14, CRS-10, CRSi-7, and CRS-5). Confirmatory Factor Analysis demonstrated that the single-factor solution of five items (CRS-5) had better fit indices than the seven-item version (CRSi-7), which, in turn, was better than CRS-15 with a five-factor solution (Intellect, Ideology, Private Practice, Public Practice, and Religious Experience). The other three versions encountered a problem with high correlations between factors. Multiple-indicators multiple-causes (MIMIC) analysis was used to test the effect of covariates on the established factor structure for CRS-5, CRSi-7, and CRS-15. The results indicated that gender and religious belief are significant predictors of the centrality of religiosity scores for CRS-5, CRSi-7, and CRS-15. In addition, age was a positive predictor for public practice, and teachers’ education level was positively related to private practice for CRS-15. Implications regarding understanding for the existing literature are discussed.

Validation of the Interreligious Forms of the Centrality of Religiosity Scale in Taiwan: Perspectives from Selected University Students

“…In this section, a particular focus on the Asian context will be discussed. In Hong Kong, researchers Lee and Kuang (2020) validated the CRS Chinese version among primary and secondary school teachers. They found that "the single-factor solution of five items (CRS-5) had better fit indices than the seven-item version (CRSi-7), which, in turn, was better than CRS-15 with a five-factor solution" (p. 1).…”

Centrality of Buddhist Religiosity Scale: Adaptation and Validation of the Centrality of Religiosity Scale in a Buddhist Sample in Vietnam

“…Thus, the CRS five core dimensions were generally constructed such that they could be found in many different religious cultures. Indeed, past studies (Ackert et al 2020a(Ackert et al , 2020bdel Castillo et al 2020;Demmrich 2020;Esperandio et al 2019;Lee and Kuang 2020;Huber and Huber 2012;Huber and Krech 2009;Ju et al 2018;Stanford and Jong 2019) also reported empirical evidence for these core dimensions in many different religions and cultures. Of particular relevance are the studies by Ju et al (2018) and Stanford and Jong (2019).…”

Religiosity, Beliefs in the Supernatural, Perceived Social Support, Resilience, and Well-being of University Students during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“…The CRSi-20 has good reliability and validity and demonstrated good convergent validity among the subscales and very good total score internal consistency ranging from α = .92 to α = .96, and subscales score ranging from α = .71 to α = . 93 (del Castillo et al, 2020;del Castillo et al, 2021;Lee & Kuang, 2020).…”