University students’ religious literacy and religiosity. What is the place of academic discipline and religious affiliation?

Abstract

The study examined the influence of university students’ religious literacy on their religiosity, while paying attention to their background characteristics such as field of study and religious affiliation. The urgency of this study lies in the fact that there seem to be numerous bizarre religious beliefs and practices that require people’s critical approach (religious literacy) towards these practices (religiosity). However, it appears that this kind of investigation is missing in earlier studies. Therefore, using the cross-sectional survey design, 90 university students reading English and 60 students reading Religious Studies at the university of Cape Coast were considered for the study. Descriptive statistics such as mean and standard deviation as well as inferential statistics such as Independent samples t-test, Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), and PLS-SEM were used to for data analysis. Results from the study showed high levels of religious literacy and religiosity of university students. In addition, no statistically significant differences were observed in university students’ religious literacy based on their field of study and their religious affiliation. Results of the study further indicated that university students’ religious literacy influenced their religiosity. It is recommended that the curriculum of Religious Education and other subjects should be developed with the aim of inculcating in students the philosophic conventions of critical literacy as to question the epistemic realities of some emerging religious beliefs and practices together with some sociopolitical occurrences in this contemporary pluralistic environment.

Keywords:

• religious literacy
• religiosity
• field of study
• university students
• religious practices
• religious education

PUBLIC INTEREST STATEMENT

In our contemporary world, most people, especially Ghanaian people fall victims of some unscrupulous religious practices owing to their illiteracy about some of these practices. Therefore, it becomes pertinent to investigate religious literacy of Ghanaian people, particularly university students. Admittedly, a number of studies have been conducted to address this phenomenon, but it appears that none of these studies tries to determine the influence of people’s religious literacy on their religiosity and the statistical significance of people’s religious literacy based on their religious affiliation and field of study. Hence, the current study departs from earlier studies on religious literacy, as it considers the influence of university students’ religious literacy on their religiosity. It also examines the statistical significance of university students’ religious literacy based on their field of study and religious affiliation.

Acknowledgments

We appreciate academic and non-academic staff, and students of the Department of Arts Education in the University of Cape Coast for their assistance and support during data collection.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).