Türkiye’de Din Psikolojisi Tezlerinde Dindarlık Ölçekleri: Bibliyografik Bir Araştırma (1997-2019)
The Religiosity Scales in Theses of the Psychology of Religion in Turkey: A Bibliographical Research (1997-2019)
Yazar: Albayrak, Ahmet; Kurt, Emine
Dergi: Bilimname, Vol. 2019 No. 40, 2019
Anahtar kelimeler: Din psikolojisi,dindarlık,Dindarlık Ölçekleri

Dindarlığın tanımlanması ve kavramsallaştırılması öteden beri din psikolojisinin önemli tartışma konularından birisi olmuştur. Bu durum dindarlığın, karmaşık ve kompleks yapısı yanında psikolojik, sosyal, kültürel, tarihsel vb. pek çok önemli faktörle olan ilişkisinden kaynaklanır. Din psikolojisi alanında ilk dindarlık ölçme araştırmalarının başladığı 1940'lı yıllardan bu yana, dindarlığın operasyonel tanımlarına vurgu yapılmıştır. Bu araştırmalarda geçerli ve güvenilir ölçekler vasıtasıyla dindarlığın derecesi, yönü, eğilimi ve boyutları vb. tespit edilmeye çalışılmaktadır. Alanın uzmanları tarafından gerekli kuramsal çerçevenin oluşturulması ve ilgili dindarlık ölçeğinin tespit edilmesi sorun oluşturmazken alana yeni giren araştırmacılar için bu durum önemli bir sorun oluşturmaktadır. Ülkemizde din psikolojisi başta olmak üzere çeşitli disiplinlerde çok sayıda dindarlık ölçeği geliştirilmiştir. Dolayısıyla dindarlık ölçme çalışmalarına yeni başlayacak olan bir araştırmacı için mevcut ölçeklerin bilinmesi, araştırma konusuna ve örneklem grubuna uygun ölçeğin belirlenmesi önemlidir. Bu nedenle araştırmanın amacı; din psikolojisi alanında yapılmış yüksek lisans ve doktora tezlerinde kullanılmış “dindarlık ölçekleri”ne ilişkin bir literatür ortaya çıkarmak olarak belirlenmiştir. Belirlenen amaca yönelik olarak da bibliyografik yöntem tercih edilerek tezlerin dindarlık ölçeklerine göre tasnifi yapılmıştır. Din psikolojisi alanında yapılmış tezlere ulaşmak için Yükseköğretim Kurulu Başkanlığı Ulusal Tez Merkezi (Yök Tez) veri tabanı kullanılmıştır. İlgili veri tabanında tarih aralığı sınırı koymadan tarama terimi alanına “din psikolojsi”, “dindarlık”, “dini inanç”, “dini tutum” ifadeleri girilmiştir. Tarama sonucunda 1997-2019 yılları arasında yapılmış 96 yüksek lisans ve doktora tezi araştırma kapsamına alınmıştır. Bu çalışmanın din psikolojisinde ölçme araçlarına ve çalışmalarına ilişkin 22 yıllık bir birikimi göstermesi ve alana yeni giren araştırmacılar için önemli bir literatür koyması açısından faydalı olacağı umulmaktadır.

Defining, understanding, explaining the phenomenon of religiosity, and its revealing the effects on the individual with its different dimensions is one of the basic study topics of the psychology of religion. However, the multi-dimensional and complex structure of religiosity brings with it several difficulties in the definition and conceptualization. In order to understand the phenomenon of religiosity from past to present, many definitions and conceptions have been made. Especially theology, philosophy, social sciences etc. many different areas have shown interest in the subject within the framework of their perspectives. In the definition of religiosity, in addition to the sociological contexts such as religion, tradition, and culture, there is also the psychological context that has been considered concerning the perception of religion on the individual level and how religion is experienced. Therefore, there are many definitions of religiosity in the literature, which are made by different disciplines according to different dimensions and different contexts.As in the definition of religiosity, important problems arise in measuring. These problems have been continuing since the 1940s when the first religiousness surveys in the field of psychology of religion began. One of the main problems in the psychology of religion research is to try to determine the degree, direction, tendency, and dimensions of religiousness according to the scales. Each researcher tries to identify and understand religiosity from the perspective of the measurement tool. However, the creation or selection of the relevant measurement tool is closely related to the theory and perception of the religiosity of the researcher.The main focus of criticism in the psychology of religion is to see complex phenomena such as religious experience, religious attitudes, and beliefs as an object that can be measured with a reductionist approach. For example, it can be seen that religious experience has a very complex structure when it is taken into consideration in terms of beliefs, religious practices, social religious activities, transcendental feelings, or the connection with the supernatural. Therefore, it is possible to encounter many problems in the measurement of religious experiences and religious attitudes and experimental analysis of religiosity.While the measurement paradigm in the psychology of religion is the focus of many debates, scales for correlational studies in religiosity studies are considered to be the most reliable data collection tools. However, it is important to determine the most appropriate scale for the case and to apply it to a sample group with the ability to represent the universe. In any study, the relevant case is evaluated according to the data obtained from the scale. Thus, a phenomenon is defined from the scale. Each researcher tries to understand and evaluate the phenomenon within the boundary presented by the measurement tool.Another problem arises from the fact that the first religiosity surveys were Western-centered and these studies were attempted to be adopted by other beliefs, cultures, and traditions over time. This situation led to the discussion of some important problems in the context of locality. In our country, these problems have been taken into consideration by psychologists of religion and researchers from other fields and there has been a limited accumulation of methods, techniques and tools in the measurement of religiousness. As a result of these studies, both the adaptation and specific instruments of religiosity were developed in the context of the Turkish-Islamic tradition.Another problem in the measurement of religiosity is the existence of a large number of similar religiosity measurement tools in the field. This situation led to criticism of religiousness scales and some criteria related to scales. On the other hand, it is important to examine the effects of current developments in the measurement of religiosity. It can be said that change and differentiation are inevitable in the way and perception of religion, along with the developments in many areas ranging from technology to politics, from politics to economy, from education to law. Therefore, it is necessary to take into account the effects of important social events and current developments on the individual and society in the measurement of religiousness.For new researchers in the field, the fundamental problems mentioned above about the religiosity measurement are “what kind of religious scales should be used in what kind of studies?” many questions such as brings. For this reason, the main purpose of our study is to reveal a literature about “religiousness scales” used in master's and doctoral theses in the field of psychology of religion in our country. Thus, researchers who work in this area or in other areas related to the field will be provided more easily to reach the religiousness scales and general information about these scales. For the intended purpose, the bibliographic method was used to classify the theses according to the religiosity scales.In order to reach the theses in the field of psychology of religion, the database of the National Thesis Center of the Council of Higher Education (Yök Tez) was used. In the relevant database, the terms '“religion psychology”, “religiousness”, ''religious belief'', ''religious attitude'' were entered into the scanning term without specifying a date range limit. As a result of the screening, 70 master and doctorate theses between 1997-2018 were included in the study. It is hoped that this study will be useful in terms of showing an accumulation of 20 years of knowledge about measurement instruments and studies in our country's psychology of religion and putting an important literature for the new researchers.