Measuring a Highly Religious Population: Development of an Empirical Test for Brigham Young University Students

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Marin Turley and Dr. Steven R Thomsen, Department of Communications

This research charts the development of a reliable scale that can discriminate differences in religiosity in a highly religious population. Approximately 99% of the more than 30,000 students at Brigham Young University are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, presenting a highly religious and highly homogenous population (www.byu.edu). In such a population, a researcher needs a sensitive survey scale to generate a quantifiable measure of religiosity that will discriminate between members. This project applied considerations for defining and measuring religiosity empirically, using the BYU population as a case study. The goal and final product of this research was the scale itself: one that was sensitive enough to be able to discriminate different levels of religiosity between members of a highly religious population.

The methodology for this research fell into two steps: First, defining religiosity and generating a preliminary scale, and second, repeatedly administering the scale and analyzing the results, making necessary modifications to the survey instrument. The definition of religiosity is based on searches through the socio-scientific literature, particularly the work of Dr. Marie Cornwall in her study on determinants of religious behavior for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Cornwall, 1986, 1987; see also Finney, Stout, Mueller, Roof, and Kristensen); interviews with church leaders of students’ wards and stakes (Turley, McBride, Biggerstaff, Archibald); interviews with students (focus group); and content analyses of current religious literature of The Church of Jesus Christ such as the Articles of Faith, official Church proclamations, and doctrine published on the official Church Web site. A preliminary scale was drafted as a set of subscales, and it was administered in selected general education classes at the university. The test group for administering the preliminary scale was small (25 students), but adequate for the purpose of measuring variation for each question. If I had been measuring some religious trait to apply to all BYU students, the sample size would have been significantly larger.

The data from the preliminary administration was then factor analyzed, and the variance and range of responses were observed. Preliminary statistical analysis suggests that although students have little variability in their responses about standard Church doctrines, wider variation can be found in the responses for personal religious commitment and behavior. In other words, students may know all of the “right” answers to survey questions about Church doctrine, but how completely these doctrines are applied in their day-to-day life can produce much more variable results.

These preliminary findings suggest that in studying members of a highly religious population, questions about personal religious commitment and behavior may tease out greater variation between members of the population than will questions about belief in standard religious doctrines for the faith. Of particular interest are individual responses to recent guidelines set forth by the General Authorities of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Social desirability played a large role in this study. For example, students frequently justified their answers that they thought would generate a lower religiosity score by writing justifications in the margins of the surveys. Also, the survey questions that were phrased in ways recognizable as Church doctrine repeatedly generated higher religiosity scores than the questions phrased more neutrally. One could use this data to argue that BYU students are not only highly religious, but they also wish to be seen as religious, a trait that may not exist in other populations.

The first scale was then “cleaned up” to account for the results from the preliminary administration. Questions that generated no variation at all (that is, everyone gave the same answer) were deleted, and other questions were phrased with more neutral wording. Literature on survey design and analysis was taken into account (Sudman, 1989).

This new scale can now be administered as a somewhat reliable scale for religiosity of BYU students, although repeated administrations, analyses, and edits are preferable, naturally.

References

  • Alston, Jon P. and Wm. Alex McIntosh. (1979). “An Assessment of the Determinants of Religious Participation.” The Sociological Quarterly. Vol. 20, No.1 (49-62).
  • Archibald, James.: Personal Interview. March 15, 2002.
  • Bahr, Howard M. and Renata Tonks Forste. (1986). “Toward a Social Science of Contemporary Mormondom.” Brigham Young University Studies. Vol. 26, No. 1. (73-119).
  • Biggerstaff, W.: Personal Interview. February 3, 2002.
  • Cornwall, Marie and Stan Albrecht. (1986). “The Dimensions of Religiosity: A Conceptual Model with an Empirical Test.” Review of Religious Research. Vol. 27, No. 3 (226-244).
  • Cornwall, Marie. (1987). “The Social Bases of Religion: A Study of Factor Influencing Religious Belief and Commitment.” Review of Religious Research. Vol. 29, No. 1 (45-55).
  • Finney, John M. (1978). “A Theory of Religious Commitment.” Sociological Analysis . Vol. 39, No. 1 (19-35).
  • Focus group: Communications 457 class. Brigham Young University. Interviewed March 4, 2002.
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  • McBride, Andrew.: Personal Interview. January 12, 2002.
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    Roof, Wade Clark, ed. (1979). The Religious Dimension: New Directions in Quantitative Research. Academic Press, New York.
  • Smith, Joseph. (1981). “The Articles of Faith of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” Published by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City, UT.
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  • Stout, Daniel A.: Personal Interview. January 22, 2002, follow-up interview March 5, 2002.
  • Sudman, Seymore and Moman M. Bradburn. (1989). Asking Questions: A Practical Guide to Questionnaire Design. Jossey-Bass Publishers.
  • Turley, R. Steven.: Personal Interview. December 19, 2001.
  • www.byu.edu. Official web site for Brigham Young University. Accessed multiple times between January 1, and March 16, 2002.
  • www.lds.org. Official web site for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Accessed multiple times between January 1, 2002 and April 4, 2002.