Change in religiosity and college major

An interesting study is out which shows a correlation between change in religiosity and college major.

The study used two criteria for religiosity: attendance at religious meetings and the importance the student placed on religion in their life.

The study found that students who majored in the humanities and social sciences, in general, became less religious, while those who majored in education and business became more religious. Those who majored in biology or the physical sciences had a negligible change in their religiosity.

This study is interesting because it measured the change in people's religious observance, rather than looking at their religious observance. It's the first derivative.

I think this is interesting because it shows a correlation between exposure to and study of ideas in the humanities/social sciences (primarily post-modernism) and declining rates of church attendance, whereas there exists no such correlation for exposure to ideas from the hard sciences. However, majoring in the physical sciences did lead to students placing less importance on religion, even if they still attend at the same rate (majoring in the humanities/social sciences also led to religion being less important to students).

I'd like to see some follow-up studies to see the relationship between major and how vocal one is on religious issues (i.e. most vocal atheists are scientists or scientifically minded; why this apparent disconnect?). It would also be interesting to see how these trends continue in grad school.

Of course, we're also left with the question of what's wrong with business and education?