Exploration in Breadth
Active consideration of religious, spiritual or worldview possibilities.
Research instrument · STR
The Religious Identity Scale
A 33-item self-report instrument designed to assess five dynamic processes involved in the development of religious identity.
Conceptual foundation
Identity processes, not the intensity of faith
The STR applies a five-process identity framework to the domain of religion and spirituality.
Inspired by the Dimensions of Identity Development Scale developed by Koen Luyckx and colleagues and its Polish adaptation, the STR captures how people explore religious or worldview options, evaluate commitments, experience uncertainty, make choices and identify with those choices.
STR scores must not be interpreted as direct measures of faith, religious orthodoxy, spiritual maturity or mental health.
Five dimensions
A profile of processes, not one total score
Exploration in Depth
Reflective evaluation of religious commitments already made.
Ruminative Exploration
Repetitive difficulty in resolving religious identity questions; not a clinical indicator.
Commitment Making
Clarity in making choices important to religious identity.
Identification with Commitments
Internalisation and personal meaning of religious commitments.
Preliminary evidence
Development and psychometric information
Final items
Reduced from an expert-reviewed pool of 69 pilot items through exploratory component analysis.
Internal consistency
Reported Cronbach’s alpha coefficients across the five subscales.
Four-week stability
Test–retest coefficients in a subsample of 33 participants.
Pilot sample
Full-time psychology and theology students in Poland; further validation is required in more diverse samples.
Scoring
Respondents use a seven-point agreement scale. There are no reverse-scored items. Each subscale is calculated as the arithmetic mean of its items and remains on the 1–7 metric. A total STR score is not recommended because the dimensions represent distinct processes.
Appropriate use
Research, adaptation and collaboration
The STR is intended for research on religious identity development and related psychological or social processes.
It should not be used as a stand-alone clinical, pastoral, legal or diagnostic instrument. There are no validated clinical cut-offs or universal low, average and high categories.
- Independent confirmatory factor analysis is needed.
- Measurement invariance should be examined across cultures, languages and demographic groups.
- Translations require systematic linguistic and cultural validation.
- Permission should be agreed before reproduction, translation or online implementation of the complete item set.
Recommended citation
Wieradzka-Pilarczyk, A. (n.d.). The Religious Identity Scale: Development, structure, scoring, and preliminary psychometric evidence [Research brief based on the book Religious Identity of Young Poles].