Anonymized responses from 155 participants across 50+ countries and 10 religious traditions, collected via a structured Google Forms questionnaire shared on international social media platforms. All 20 Likert-scale items are recorded as full qualitative text responses (Strongly Disagree β Strongly Agree). The study captures multiple perspectives on religious feelings, beliefs, identity, and the role of religion in modern life.
Instrument Design: A self-administered structured questionnaire was built using Google Forms and organised into three sections: (1) nine demographic and background fields including country of origin and country of residence at time of answering; (2) twenty 5-point Likert-scale items on religious beliefs, feelings, and social attitudes; and (3) four closed-ended categorical questions on religious practice, identity formation, and views on religion in public education.
Distribution & Reach: The survey link was distributed publicly on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter/X, WhatsApp community groups, Reddit (r/religion, r/islam, r/Christianity, r/hinduism, r/Buddhism, r/Judaism, r/sikhism, r/atheism, r/agnostic), LinkedIn, and Telegram faith-based channels. Posts were made in English and targeted communities of diverse religious backgrounds across all major world regions.
Sampling Strategy: A convenience and snowball sampling approach was used. Participants were invited to forward the link to family, friends, and community members of different faith traditions to maximise diversity. Minimum age was set at 18. Both country of birth and country of current residence were collected separately to capture diaspora, migration, and cross-cultural religious experiences.
Anonymization Protocol: Google Forms was configured to not collect email addresses, IP addresses, or usernames. No names or direct identifiers were requested. Age was collected in 10-year brackets. Sequential participant IDs (PART_001βPART_155) were assigned post-export and have no link to real identities. All data were stored on a password-protected encrypted drive accessible only to the research team.
Collection Period & Cleaning: January 2024 β June 2024. Submissions with more than five unanswered Likert items were excluded. Duplicates identified by identical demographic profiles and near-identical response patterns were removed. The final cleaned dataset contains 155 complete, unique responses.
Self-Selection & Platform Bias: Convenience and snowball sampling introduce self-selection bias β individuals with stronger or more reflective views on religion may be over-represented. Online distribution systematically under-represents populations with limited internet access. The English-only questionnaire excludes non-English speakers. Social desirability bias may affect responses on sensitive items (Q6 on exclusivism, Q20 on LGBTQ+ stance). These results should not be treated as statistically representative of any national, religious, or demographic population. The dataset is intended for exploratory, qualitative-comparative, and educational research purposes only.
File: Global_Religious_Consciousness_Survey_Dataset_2024_155P.xlsx