ATTITUDE TOWARD CHRISTIANITY SCALE

Abstract

The Attitude Toward Christianity Scale (Form ASC4B) is a psychometric instrument designed to measure an individual’s attitude toward the Christian religion. Developed by Leslie J. Francis, the scale exists in both child and adult versions, each consisting of 24 Likert-type items. It assesses self-evaluation across core religious domains, including personal prayer life, church attendance, and beliefs concerning central figures and texts such as Jesus, God, and the Bible. The scale utilizes a 5-point response format, ranging from “agree strongly” to “disagree strongly,” with eight items requiring reverse scoring. Higher scores consistently reflect more favorable attitudes toward Christianity. Short forms of the scale have also been developed, showing strong correlation with the full version.

Keywords

Christianity, Religious Attitude, Psychometric Scale, L. J. Francis, Religious Beliefs, Church Attendance, Likert Scale, Psychological Measurement, Religiosity.

Authors

Leslie J. Francis, M. T. Stubbs.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Attitude Toward Christianity Scale (ASC4B) is to provide a specific, quantifiable measure of an individual’s evaluative disposition concerning the Christian religion. Unlike instruments designed for generic measures of interest in religion, the ASC4B is narrowly focused on elements integral to Christianity, specifically referencing Jesus, the Bible, and prayer practices. This specificity ensures that the resulting scores reflect a focused religious attitude rather than general spirituality.

The scale is grounded in a theoretical perspective that views attitude, as conceptualized by Francis (1993), as an “underlying, deep seated and relatively stable evaluative predisposition.” By measuring this predisposition with a high degree of specificity, the ASC4B aims to provide a robust measure capable of predicting religious behaviors and other related psychological outcomes, aligning with the view that attitudes can predict behaviors when measured similarly.

Construct

The core psychological construct measured is the **Attitude Toward Christianity**. This construct is defined as a stable, evaluative disposition encompassing cognitive, affective, and behavioral components specifically directed toward the Christian faith, its institutions (the Church), and its central doctrines (God, Jesus, the Bible). The scale items are designed to capture the personal salience and perceived value of Christian practices and beliefs.

The instrument’s focus ensures that it examines personal engagement (e.g., self-evaluation of personal prayer life and church attendance) alongside deeply held beliefs about core religious figures. The deliberate inclusion of these specific Christian variables ensures the construct remains distinct from broader measures of religious interest or spirituality, supporting its utility in research focused on Christian populations and religious development.

Validity

The Attitude Toward Christianity Scale demonstrates clear **face validity**, given that subjects are aware they are responding to questions explicitly related to their views on Christianity. Support for its construct validity is inferred by examining the scale’s ability to predict distinct aspects of religious behavior and beliefs, which is a common approach when the relationship between attitude and behavior cannot be assumed to be direct.

Research utilizing the child version (Francis, 1988, 1993) has yielded outcomes predictive of several factors, including gender differences in religious attitudes, the decline of interest in religion during adolescence, the distinction between personal religious practice and public expression, and the correlation between parental religious behavior and children’s attitudes. While research on the adult version is less extensive, it generally supports construct validity by demonstrating strong correlations between religious attitudes and practices, beliefs, and certain personality variables (e.g., psychoticism). It is noted that certain relationships, such as that between gender and attitude, have shown mixed results in adult samples compared to children, suggesting genuine differences between age populations rather than an instrument deficiency.

Reliability

The ASC4B exhibits exceptionally high internal consistency, suggesting that the scale is highly reliable across both child and adult populations. In the original sample for the children’s version (ages 8–16), Cronbach’s alpha coefficients ranged from 0.954 to 0.971. Subsequent samples have consistently maintained high reliability, yielding alpha coefficients between 0.91 and 0.97.

Reliability for the adult version is similarly high, with Cronbach’s alpha coefficients ranging from 0.95 to 0.98. Further statistical support for the instrument’s homogeneity is found in the high item-to-rest-of-test correlation coefficients: 0.40 to 0.87 for the child version and 0.42 to 0.92 for the adult version. Preliminary findings regarding the short versions of the instrument also suggest similar reliability statistics when compared to their parent scales (Francis, 1993).

Factor Analysis

The internal structure of the Attitude Toward Christianity Scale is consistently reported to support **unidimensionality**. This means the scale is designed to measure a single, coherent construct (Attitude Toward Christianity) rather than multiple sub-factors of religiosity. This interpretation is primarily supported by the high item-to-rest-of-test correlation coefficients observed across both child and adult samples (ranging from 0.40 to 0.92).

The exceptionally high Cronbach’s alpha values (all above 0.91) further reinforce the homogeneity of the items, indicating that they consistently measure the same underlying trait. Although formal detailed factor rotation results are not provided in the primary source material, the psychometric evidence strongly suggests that the ASC4B functions as a single, highly cohesive scale.

Instrument

Test Type: Psychometric Attitude Scale (Self-report)

Format: 24 Likert-type items responded to on a 5-point scale (ranging from “agree strongly” to “disagree strongly”). Eight items are negatively phrased and reverse scored. Higher scores indicate more favorable attitudes.

Language Available: English (Standardization conducted primarily in the United Kingdom and Ireland, with some U.S. adult data available).

Population Group: School pupils, adolescents, and general adult populations.

Age Group: Children (minimum age 8, with caution for those under 8), Adolescents (up to 18), and Adults (18 to 64+).

Population Details: Extensive normative data is available for adolescents across various denominations, including Roman Catholic, Protestant, and non-denominational school pupils in England, Northern Ireland, and Scotland (sample sizes ranging from 935 to 4,405). Adult norms are less extensive but include British adults (N=185) and UK undergraduate students (N=126).

Test Methodology: The scale is brief, requiring less than five minutes to complete. It is easy to administer to individuals or groups and requires no specialized administration skills. Caution is specifically advised when interpreting scores from children under age 8 due to potential comprehension difficulties with negatively phrased items (Francis, 1988).

Keywords

Religious Psychology, Francis Scale, ASC4B, Construct Validity, Internal Consistency, Religious Behavior, Psychoticism, L. J. Francis.

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: Not specified in source material.

Affiliation Email addresses: Not specified in source material.

Correspondence Address: Not specified in source material.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

Permissions & Fee: Not specified in source material. Researchers should contact the primary author, L. J. Francis, for usage rights and permission.

Test Year (Child Version): 1978

Test Year (Adult Version): 1987

Reference’s

• Francis, L. J. (1978). Attitude and longitude; A study in measurement. Character Potential, 8, 119-130.

• Francis, L. J. & Stubbs, M. T. (1987). Measuring attitudes towards Christianity: From childhood to adulthood. Personality and Individual Differences, 8, 741-743.

• Francis, L. J. (1988). Measuring attitude towards Christianity during childhood and adolescence. Personality and Individual Differences, 10, 695-698.

• Francis, L. J. (1992). Reliability and validity of the Francis Scale of attitude towards Christianity (adult). Journal of Comparative Religious Education and Values, 4, 17-19.

• Francis, L. J. (1993). Attitudes towards Christianity during childhood and adolescence: Assembling the jigsaw. Journal of Beliefs and Values, 14(2), 4-6.

• Lewis, C. A. (1995). Religiosity and personality among US adults. Personality and Individual Differences, 18, 293-295.

• Maltby, J. (1994). The reliability and validity of the Francis scale of attitude towards Christianity among Republic of Ireland adults. Irish Journal of Psychology, 15, 595-598.

Items of the ATTITUDE TOWARD CHRISTIANITY SCALE

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

Read the sentence carefully and think, “Do I agree with it?

If you agree strongly, put a ring round…………. A NC D OS If you agree, put a ring round ………………. As 0 NC D DS If you are not certain, put a ring round ………… AS A D OS If you disagree, put a ring round …………….. AS A NC OS

If you strongly disagree, put a ring round ………. AS A NC D

*Negative items are reverse scored.