Religious Believes As A Predictor Of Thinking Preferences Of Muslim Hearing-Impaired Students At College Level

Abstract

Religious belief is presumed as a concomitant of the human tendency to assign mental processes. Religious believers are mostly intuitive thinkers. Reflective thinking has usually been found negatively associated with religious beliefs among normal individuals. The present study was carried out to a special population of hearing impaired Muslim individuals to explore the associations of their thinking preferences with religious beliefs. A sample of 215 hearing impaired adolescents (134 males & 81 females) with a mean age of 20.69 was taken from special education colleges of Lahore, Multan and Rawalpindi divisions. To assess religious beliefs and thinking preferences, a forty items questionnaire was developed along with a demographic survey. The tool was translated into Urdu and interpreted in Pakistan sign language. The scale was administered after testing its reliability. Descriptive analysis was used to find frequencies, percentages and means. Inferential analysis was used to test hypothesis of the study. The analysis was done through SPSS 22. Independent samples t test, Pearsons correlation coefficient and multiple linear regression were employed to measure gender differences, associations and variances of religious beliefs along with its intrinsic, extrinsic personal and extrinsic social factors and rational or experiential thinking preferences. The finding revealed that overall, there was no significant difference of religious beliefs and thinking preferences among male and female hearing impaired students but there was a minor difference on extrinsic social factor of religious beliefs of male and female students. Religious belief had no direct relationship with rational thinking. However, there was a weak positive relationship between religious belief and experiential thinking. Religious belief explained less variance in rational thinking but more in experiential thinking.