Chapter 2 - Measurement of Religiosity

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the quantitative measurement of religious involvement, religiousness, and religiosity. The importance of quantitative measurement will be discussed, the necessity of establishing the reliability and validity of measures will be emphasized, and both single and multi-item scales will be described. How to choose a scale will be discussed, commonly used scales will be examined, and recommendations made on the best scales to use depending on the researcher’s needs. Finally, we will briefly review statistical considerations, including the need to visually inspect the form of the relationship between religiosity and mental health to determine whether it is linear or nonlinear.