Development and Validation of Religious Belief System Scale

The literature cites multiple definitions for religiosity, with little consensus among researchers. Religiosity has been associated with a myriad of positive outcomes in both adolescents and adults. Religiosity refers to the degree to which a person adheres to his or her religious values, beliefs and practices and uses them in daily life. Religiosity is still an emerging concept in the developing countries such as India, though rich culture has enriched in the past. Confining to various definitions of Religiosity the study attempts to evolve a Religious belief System scale in an Indian context. With exploration of literature and expert reviews, various attributes of belief System scale was initiated with a pool of 164 items. These items were subjected to experts’ opinion and reduced to 136. The scale was administered on a sample of 456 participants and the item analysis was carried out the having more than 0.35and above value were retained for factor analysis. After initial factor analyses the scale was again administered on a sample of 550 participants. The principal component analyses were employed and 48 items were retained covering three factor i.e. Belief, Attitude and values. The measure demonstrated high internal consistency and good test-retest reliability as well as validity.