Validation of the religious commitment inventory among women religious

• Main Author: Pama, Eufemia A., MSLT.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 1996
• Subjects: Monastic and religious life of women; Tests and scales > Validity; Commitment (Psychology); Psychometrics; Counseling; Educational Psychology
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_masteral/1748
• Institution: De La Salle University

This study validates the instrument Commitment to the Religious Life Questionnaire (CRLQ).This study was descriptive in nature. It was conducted to describe the characteristics of an instrument that measured one's commitment to the religious life. The study consisted of three phases. The first was devoted to the re-examination of the content domain of the instrument. The second was the investigation of the reliability and the validity of the Religious Commitment Inventory (RCI). The third was the construction of norms and the refinement of the inventory that included instruction, scoring, and interpretation. The subjects were 204 women religious who came from fifteen different religious congregations in the Philippines. Sixty-three of them were seniors, 75 were juniors and 66 were novices. The instruments used were the Religious Commitment Inventory (RCI) and the Religious Motivation Questionnaire (RMQ). The latter was administered in order to test concurrent validity. The data gathered were subjected to statistical analyses-item, factor, and correlational analyses. The total number of items of the RCI was 46. Out of 46, 36 items were retained. Nine items were garnered from each of the four components. The reliability coefficients obtained ranged from 0.5633 to 0.8234. Through factor analysis, 32 items which loaded meaningfully on the five factors were selected. Four items were discarded. The identified factors of CRLQ were: Factor 1 - Prayer Life, Factor 2 - Commitment to Neighbor, Factor 3 - Vowed Life, Factor 4 - Community Life, and Factor 5 - Apostolic Life. In order to establish the concurrent validity of the CRLQ, the results of the Questionnaire were correlated with another questionnaire (RMQ). Using Pearson r, a significant correlation coefficient (p .01) was found. ANOVA was computed to assess the commitment level of the three groups - the novices, juniors, and seniors. Results showed that there was a significant difference (p .05) in the level of commitment of the novices and the seniors. However, there was no significant difference in the level of commitment between the novices and the juniors, as well as that between the juniors and the seniors. Based on the data gathered from the 204 respondents, the norms for novices, juniors, seniors and the total sample were constructed in percentile rank.