Comparison of Spiritual Intelligence, Spiritual Experiences, Religious Orientation, and Their Correlation among Engineering Students and Students Who Come and Go to Shiraz University Mosque

One of the components recently introduced in the psychology of religion is spiritual intelligence. Spiritual experiences are pure and innate experiences that are inherent in human being. Also, religious orientation means one's attitude toward religion. Thus, the aim of the present study was to compare the spiritual intelligence, spiritual experiences, religious orientation, and their correlation among engineering students and students who come and go to Shiraz University mosque.
Instruments & This descriptive, causal-comparative, and correlational study was conducted among 60 engineering students and 60 students who come and go to mosque in Shiraz University; the participants were selected based on available sampling method. Spiritual intelligence and spiritual experiences questionnaires as well as and Allport religious orientation scale were used for data collection. The data were analyzed by SPSS 16, using one way anova and Pearson correlation tests.
Findings: Compared to the engineering students, students who come and go to mosque significantly had higher mean scores in spiritual intelligence, spiritual experiences, and religious orientation (p<0.05). There was a significant positive correlation between spiritual intelligence and religious orientation of the two groups, spiritual intelligence and spiritual experiences of students who come and go to mosque, as well as spiritual experiences and religious orientation of the engineering students (p<0.05). Students who come and go to mosque in Shiraz University have higher spiritual intelligence, spiritual experiences, and religious orientation compared to the engineering students. There is a correlation between spiritual intelligence and religious orientation of the two groups, spiritual intelligence and spiritual experiences of students who come and go to mosque, as well as spiritual experiences and religious orientation of the engineering students