Summary: | Religion is a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, or both,
which may exert certain degree of influence to one’s life. As reported by Gallup International
in 2012, Malaysia is a highly religious society. Therefore, it could be assumed that religion
permeates deep in the lives of all levels of Malaysian society including post-secondary
students. Investigation on religiosity among post-secondary students is necessary as
emerging research has outlined the importance of religion in shaping post-secondary
students’ ideals, goals, and habits. Not only that, investigation on religion in classically
pluralistic Malaysia could yield novel insights as religiosity in this specific context has
idiosyncratic dimensions and its influences are multifold. Accordingly, the objective of this
review includes to investigate how religiosity predispose students to certain outcomes and
how religiosity of students in Malaysia were measured in previous studies. In addition, this
review also identified some the gaps and limitation in the literature concerning investigation
of religiosity of students in Malaysia. Summarily, this review found evidence to corroborate
effects of religiosity to students’ cognition, emotions, as well as behavior. Furthermore, this
review also noted that most of the studies utilized cross-sectional survey method which
prompted suggestions to improve research methodology in future efforts. Other
recommendations include to consider facets of religiosity and the underlying factors that
could influence effects of religiosity. In short, this review highlighted insights that could
benefit not only post-secondary students, but also all other actors in their social ecologies
which encompass tertiary education authorities, mental health helpers, and other policymaking bodies.
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