Nynäs Peter, Janne Kontala, & Mika Lassander (2021). The Faith Q-Sort: In-depth assessment of diverse spirituality and religiosity in 12 countries. In Ami L. Ai, Paul Wink, Raymond F. Paloutzian, & Kevin A. Harris (Eds.), Assessing spirituality in a diverse world (pp. 553-573). Cham, Switzerland: Springer. (Link: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52140-0_22)
Abstract: The Faith Q-Sort (FQS) developed by David Wulff is the only instrument for the assessment of religion and spirituality that is based on Q-methodology, a framework that provides a foundation for a systematic study of a person’s subjective viewpoints, beliefs, attitudes, and related concepts. Specifically, the FQS accounts for diversity in subjective construal of religiosity and spirituality. It is designed to meet the complexities of religious variety globally as well as the challenge of religious and spiritual fluidity that stems from contemporary religious change. The logic of Q-methodology differs from what is valid when working with regular scales and questionnaires. In this chapter, we introduce the FQS and exemplify how it allows the researcher to discern shared but complex patterns of religion and spirituality, including for example the growing influence of secular positions, but simultaneously a high level of variations and nuances. Our focus is set on the more recent version of the FQS that was systematically developed for multicultural application in a range of cultural and religious contexts. It has been translated to 12 languages using a double back-translation procedure. Our discussion of the benefits and limitations of this method highlights examples from our global study of young adult’s religiosity in 12 countries where the FQS was implemented as part of a mixed method approach. This opens up for reflections on the scientific quality and relevance of the FQS.
Peter Nynäs <peter.nynas@abo.fi> is in the Faculty of Arts, Psychology and Theology, Åbo Akademi, Turku, Finland.
