The relationship between religious attitudes and academic motivation of nursing and midwifery students: A descriptive-analytical study

Abstract

Religious attitude is one of the factors affecting mental health; thus, considering motivation as a psychological factor, this study aimed to investigate the relationship between religious attitudes and academic motivation of nursing and midwifery students. This descriptive-analytical study was conducted on 139 nursing and midwifery students of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences who were selected randomly in 2016. The questionnaire consisted of 3 parts of demographic data, religious attitude questionnaire of religion attitude scale-review (RAS-R), and academic motivation adopted from the questionnaire developed by Hermens. The mean score of the students’ academic achievement motivation was 83.56 ± 8.29, and that of religious attitude was 97.2 ± 15.5. The relationship between the total score of the student’s academic motivation and religious attitudes based on the Pearson correlation coefficient test was significant, with P < 0.001 at a significance level of 0.01. Based on the linear regression test, also the relationship between the two variables at a significance level of ≤ 0.05 was significant with P < 0.001, r = 0.412, and r2 = 0.164. So, a positive relationship was observed between religious attitudes and academic achievement motivation in students.