Measuring Quality in the Christian Religious Context: Development and Validation of the Push–Pull Religious Quality (P-P-RelQual) Scale

Given the implications of quality for the survival and performance of business and non-business organizations, research on its operationalization and measurement especially as it relates to services have continued to increase over the years. There is, however, a glaring dearth of research on the measurement of service quality in the non-business context, especially in the religious setting though it is a thriving segment of the market for services. Building on the Push–Pull–Mooring framework and following a multistage procedure involving both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses (EFA and CFA), this paper described the procedure employed in developing and validating the P-P-Relqual scale for measuring the quality of services offered by Christian religious service providers in the Nigerian context. The final version of the validated scale is made up of 11 items, measured on a five-point Likert scale, which were categorized into four dimensions (Conflict, Appeal of pastor, Appeal of Church, and Opportunity for Development). Based on the result obtained, the paper concluded that adherents will perceive the religious service they receive as being of a high quality, if their providers can strategize to effectively minimize intra-church "conflict" while enhancing "Appeal of pastor," "Appeal of Church," and "Opportunity for Development."