Evaluating the Religious Commitment Inventory for Adolescents.

Abstract

Although numerous studies link adolescent religiousness to a variety of outcomes, limitations in the measurement of adolescent religiousness constrain interpretation of the findings. We introduce a multi-item measure of adolescent religiousness, the Religious Commitment Inventory for Adolescents (RCI-A), that assesses both religious behavior and sentiments and is appropriate for use with adolescents of varying religious faiths. Ninth graders (N ϭ 1,419) completed the RCI-A and several other survey instruments online. Results revealed that the RCI-A has strong psychometric properties (e.g., internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and construct validity) and is appropriate for use with adolescents from a variety of religious faiths. Furthermore, it predicted engagement in risk behavior (cigarette, marijuana, and alcohol use).

Religiousness and aggression in adolescents: The mediating roles of self‐control and compassion

“…Religiousness. We measured religiousness using the RCI-A, an 11-item measure based on the Religious Commitment Inventory (RCI-10) (Worthington et al, 2003), that assesses the extent to which people follow their religious values, beliefs, and practices (Miller et al, 2013). We chose this instrument because it measured religious sentiments and behavior broadly, was applicable to all religious groups, and was generally meaningful to people who were non-religious, and was appropriate, after modification, for adolescents.…”

“….80) at all Time points. The scale shows good convergent, divergent, and predictive validity (Miller et al, 2013;Shepperd et al, 2014). Example items include, I enjoy participating in religious activities, and I am involved in my religious group.…”

“…We describe data from waves 4-6 of data collection in a longitudinal study of religiousness and adolescent behavior. Although we have published two prior studies using the data set, there is no overlap in the results between the current study and the prior studies (Miller et al, 2013;Shepperd, Miller, Smith, & Algina, 2014). We examined data from wave 5 and 6 because they were the only waves in which we assessed compassion and aggression, and examined data from wave 4 because it occurred 6 months prior to wave 5, giving us a temporal precedence in measuring religiousness.…”

“…We assessed religiousness in two ways. First, we assessed level of religiousness in adolescents using an individual difference measure (Miller, Shepperd, & McCullough, 2013). Second, we distinguished religious adolescents (adolescents who reported belonging to a religious faith) from non-religious adolescents (adolescents who reported that they were agnostic or atheist) in recognition that non-religious adolescents may have difficulty responding to a measure of religiousness.…”

The psychological salience of religiosity and spirituality among Christian young people in New Zealand: A mixed-methods study.

“…This is somewhat related to a religious orientation as originally proposed by Allport and Ross (1967) and subsequently refined by Batson and Schoenrade (1991) and Francis (2007). However, the majority of previous research on religious orientation or commitment has combined the cognitive (motivation, attributed importance, commitment), affective, and behavioral elements to provide a broad and multifaceted perspective (e.g., Denton, 2012;Miller, Shepperd, & McCullough, 2013;Pearce, Foster, & Hardie, 2013). For example, in a meta-analysis, Dehaan, Yonker and Affolter (2011) identified that the most common ways for measuring religiosity were (a) frequency of religious service attendance, (b) religious behaviour, such as personal prayer or participation in church-related activities, RELIGIOUS AND SPIRITUAL PSYCHOLOGICAL SALIENCE 6 (c) salience, such as its attributed importance for daily life or in making decisions , and (d) questioning, which included engaging with doubts and questions about faith and religion.…”