Psychology of religion in terms of its structure and function

In the Turkish context, the Psychology of Religion's place as a science is nearly a century old. This science has been evolving and developing but it needs evaluation to find out whether there is any deficiency or shortcoming that needs to be examined and improved. The purpose of this study is to find out the meaning of psychology of religion for the students who enrolled in this course during their Bachelor's degree along with the reasons of their interest or uninterest in the course, the prominent topics, efficiency with regards to answering the questions or the problems of this current age through personal, social or professional contributions along with the shortcomings and the expectations from this course. The sample of the study consists of a total number of 223 participants that 159 students who have taken the psychology of religion course during their bachelor's degree, 46 teachers and 18 preachers. The data has been collected through the literature review, 3 demographic variable questions and 10 open-ended questions. The collected data were analyzed primarily by content analysis and clustering. Frequency and percentages were used in the analysis of the data. According to the results of the study, when the psychology of religion is mentioned, 29,6% (f=66) of the participants responded as "the science which examines religious emotions, thoughts and behaviors" and 26,5% (f=59) of them responded as "It deals with human-religion relation." 76,2% (f=170) of the participants were interested in the Psychology of Religion. The biggest reason of interest (17,5%, f=39) in the field of psychology of religion is found to be "Its contributions in making people understand religion." Hardship in studying the Psychology of Religion, consisting of too many terms and foreign words, being impractical and imported from foreign societies, its inability to function and serve foreign communities and the lack of compliance with our cultural values have been identified as the causes of indifference towards the field. "Prayer and Worship", "Religious Experience" and "Developmental Psychology" were what they could mostly remember from their memory of the course. It was thought by 74,4% (f=166) of the participants that the topics which were discussed during the Psychology of Religion course can provide answers to today's age and its problems. 44,8% (f=100) of the participants thought that there are topics that were not covered during psychology of religion classes but are necessary to learn. Regarding this, participants claim that it is necessary to give more examples and make it more practical as a course. Based on the responses of the participants, two dominant views were obtained on the psychology of religion originating from the West sources. The first opinion mentions that it is natural since the foundations of the field initially were laid in the West. "Even though the foundations have been laid in the West, we must personalize it" was the second and most expressed view. "Getting to know ourselves and the target audience" has been identified as the most expressed individual achievement of the psychology of religion. "Understanding the religious life of the society and being conscious" was reported as the leading social contribution of the field. "Productivity in professional life" was the leading acquisition of the field's professional contributions. 51.1% (f = 114) of the sample thought that the field has shortcomings. The response might seem high in numbers but seems natural as it covers shortcomings in many aspects such as the course, subjects, method, research, researchers, resources and duration of the course of psychology of religion. The fact that the course is based on memorization and not being practical learning is determined as the most lacking point. Despite the shortcomings, 79.8% (f = 178) of the sample (f = 223) have positive expectations about this field. "Understanding human psychology" constitutes the greatest expectation from the psychology of religion. 91.0% (f = 203) of the samples find the field necessary. 22.5% (f = 40) of the sample group stated that the psychology of religion is necessary as it allows us to understand people and society