The Measurement of Religious Attitudes in a University Population

A scale was constructed for measuring the religious attitudes of students at a British University. Scores obtained from administration of the scale to a representative sample of 500 students show that there is a significant decline in religious belief among students in the Faculties of Arts and Pure Science during early years at the University, but that this decline continues only for the Science students, especially those who later engage in research. Medical students in their final years and students training for the teaching profession, especially the arts graduates, have the highest scores of all. Between denominations it was found that Catholics and members of small evangelical sects scored higher than adherents of other denominations, and between sexes the familiar finding that women tend to be more religious than men was replicated. Some implications of these findings are discussed.