Preliminary Empirical Findings on the Adapted Faith Development Model for a Muslim Context

The theory of faith development was criticized from a Muslim perspective, and a modified bipolar orthogonal dimensional version of the model (low-to-high level of cognitive development vs. low-to-high level of commitment) with eight dimensions was subsequently proposed in two previous studies. The aim of this third study is to provide empirical findings to support the proposed model of religiosity styles (content and structure) in a Muslim context. To this end, two sets of data were employed using a group comparison design. In Study 1, the sample (n = 934) was conveniently selected from the campuses of three different Turkish state universities (454 men and 480 women, with a mean age of 22). The instruments used for data collection were adapted from items of previously developed scales aimed at measuring Muslim religiosity. In Study 2, a second mixed sample of 165 participants was selected, comprising university students and members of the general public (54 men and 111 women, with a mean age of 28). The instrument for data collection was constructed by transforming the Likert response format of previously employed scales into a semantic differential format and adding several new items to the battery to measure areas in the proposed model that the available data did not cover. Data were analysed using factor analysis, item analysis, and correlation analyses. The findings from the two studies broadly supported the theoretically proposed eight concepts of religiosity represented in a circumplex model of religiosity styles with the two bipolar dimensions of “Hight vs. Low Differentiation” and “High commitment vs. High non-commitment”.