Self-Religiosity, Father’s Attitude and Religious Education in the Moral Behaviour of Adolescents

Abstract

The study examines the role of self-religiosity, father’s religious attitude in the moral behaviour of youth from religious and nonreligious schools. Indigenous measures of self-religiosity, father’s religious attitude and moral behaviour developed in the pilot study were used in the main study. The subjects for the main study were 100 male Malay youth between 15 and 17 years of age drawn equally from religious and nonreligious schools. Data were collected with the help of class teachers. The subjects were given the father’s religious attitude questionnaire in a sealed envelope and were instructed to return it after it was completed by their fathers. Multiple regression analysis of selfreligiosity, father’s religious attitude, and type of school to the moral behaviour showed a significant effect for regression and a significant beta coefficient for self-religiosity indicating that self-religiosity was the only predictor of moral behaviour of youth. Results also revealed significant correlations between self-religiosity and moral behaviour, and self-religiosity and father’s religious attitude. T-tests between religious and nonreligious schools for moral behaviour, self-religiosity and father’s religious attitude indicated significant differences suggesting that youth from a religious school exhibited more moral behaviour and they and their fathers were more religious as compared to the youth from nonreligious school. The results suggest a path analytical relationship among the variables indicating that religiosity and religious education played a positive role in the moral behaviour of youth.