Does the level of one's personal religious level affect what one studies in college, or even if they go to college? Does a path of study influence a person's religious development? A new study released by the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan examines the correlation between these two aspects of young people's lives.

A lot of people might expect that those who study physical sciences become the least religious during their tenure at school. The research found that this is not the case; a course of study in the sciences, such as physics or biology, leads to little change in what the authors term religiosity. The survey found that the greatest positive change—those who become more religious during their studies—are those preparing for an education degree. Those who become the least religious relative to their starting point are those majoring in the social sciences.

The authors reached this conclusion by studying religious attitudes, college attendance, and course of study for over 26,000 high school students that graduated between 1976 and 1996. Not surprisingly, the authors found that personal views often changed in the six years following high school.

Using business majors as a reference point, they graphed how religious attendance and its personal importance correlated with different fields of study. Education majors had a positive correlation with both the level of religious importance in one's life and the frequency of attendance at religious services.

For the physical sciences, including biology, the overall trend was neutral, with no major change in religiosity. Somewhat oddly, these students showed increased attendance at religious services, but a reduced sense of religious importance.

The study also tracked those individuals who did not attend college right out of high school. Those who attended religious services more regularly were more likely to attend college later. For those in the humanities and social sciences, a negative correlation was seen in both measures of religiosity.

The authors suggest that three streams of thought play a role in influencing an individual's level of religiosity: science, developmentalism (an economic concept), and postmodernism. They conclude that postmodernism—which frequently involves a mistrust of traditional interpretations—not science, is what most strongly challenges people's view of religion. However, it must be kept in mind that this study only shows a correlation between different factors, and doesn't support causal conclusions.

Listing image by University of Michigan Institute for Social Research, 2009