Congregation Satisfaction Questionnaire

Abstract

The Congregation Satisfaction Questionnaire (CSQ) is a multidimensional psychometric instrument developed by Kenneth I. Pargament, William H. Silverman, Steven M. Johnson, Ruben J. Echemendia, and Stephen Snyder (1983) to assess member satisfaction across fundamental organizational, spiritual, and social domains within religious institutions such as churches and synagogues. Stemming from principles of community psychology and organizational psychology, the CSQ conceptualizes congregations as complex social ecologies where member flourishing, active participation, and institutional viability depend upon the congruence between individual expectations and organizational reality. Following rigorous qualitative exploration and empirical item reduction, the definitive revised version comprises 72 descriptive word or short-phrase items organized across seven distinct subscales: Religious Services (10 items), Church Members (10 items), Church Leaders (10 items), Special Programs and Activities (10 items), Religious Education for Children (10 items), Religious Education for Adults (10 items), and Church Facilities (12 items). Each item is evaluated using a 5-point Likert response scale ranging from 1 (not at all descriptive) to 5 (completely descriptive), incorporating balanced positive and negatively worded (reverse-coded) descriptors to mitigate acquiescence bias. Psychometric evaluations on diverse congregational samples reveal high internal consistency, with subscale Cronbach’s alpha coefficients ranging from .79 to .94, alongside robust four-week test-retest reliability (.62 to .82 across iterative scale forms). Construct validity was established via a modified multitrait-multimethod matrix (MTMM) framework, demonstrating significant convergent associations with single-item domain indices (r = .32 to .43, p < .001) and strong discriminant validity across 95% of cross-trait comparisons. The instrument serves as a diagnostic, evaluative, and consultative tool for behavioral scientists, religious researchers, and organizational consultants seeking to identify specific institutional strengths and targets for organizational development.

Keywords

Congregation Satisfaction Questionnaire, CSQ, religious satisfaction, Kenneth Pargament, church evaluation, organizational psychology of religion, community psychology, psychometrics, institutional assessment, person-environment fit, religious education

Authors

The Congregation Satisfaction Questionnaire was conceptualized, developed, and empirically validated by a team of community and clinical psychologists affiliated with Bowling Green State University:

• William H. Silverman, Ph.D. — Department of Psychology, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio. Dr. Silverman’s scholarship centered on program evaluation, community mental health delivery systems, and organizational interventions within non-profit community systems.
• Kenneth I. Pargament, Ph.D. — Professor Emeritus of Psychology, Department of Psychology, Bowling Green State University. Dr. Pargament is internationally renowned as a pioneer in the psychology of religion and coping, authoring landmark treatises such as The Psychology of Religion and Coping: Theory, Research, Practice (1997) and spearheading the Congregation Development Program.
• Steven M. Johnson, Ph.D. — Department of Psychology, Bowling Green State University. Dr. Johnson contributed extensively to empirical field research examining person-environment fit and psychosocial health within faith-based institutions.
• Ruben J. Echemendia, Ph.D. — Department of Psychology, Bowling Green State University. Dr. Echemendia focused on community-based measurement methodologies, institutional structures, and neuropsychological assessment frameworks.
• Stephen Snyder, M.A. — Department of Psychology, Bowling Green State University. Researcher in psychometrics and data analysis within community and congregational settings.

Institutional Origin and Correspondence Context: Department of Psychology, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH 43403.

Purpose

Religious congregations function as primary mediating institutions within modern society, operating simultaneously as voluntary associations, centers for spiritual enrichment, providers of essential community welfare, and primary social support networks. Despite their immense societal influence, classical organizational psychology historically neglected religious assemblies, treating them as idiosyncratic or methodologically inaccessible. The primary purpose of the Congregation Satisfaction Questionnaire (CSQ) is to provide an empirical, standardized, and theoretically grounded measurement architecture to assess how members perceive, experience, and evaluate the core operations of their religious congregations.

From an applied perspective, the CSQ is engineered to resolve a classic organizational challenge: identifying precisely which operational dimensions meet congregational needs and which foster dissatisfaction, member turnover, or institutional alienation. Religious institutions rarely fail due to abstract ideological divergence alone; rather, attrition and conflict typically emerge from systemic friction within specific operational domains, such as perceived interpersonal cliquishness, inadequate educational offerings, uninspiring worship services, leadership opacity, or deteriorating physical infrastructure. By gathering aggregated, anonymous quantitative ratings across fine-grained behavioral descriptors, the CSQ equips researchers, denominational administrators, and local clergy with an objective diagnostic instrument. It highlights targeted operational nodes requiring intervention, programmatic re-engineering, or leadership mediation.

In academic and clinical research contexts, the CSQ serves several vital functions:

• Investigating Person-Environment Fit: It operationalizes the congruence between congregational characteristics and individual psychological needs, enabling scholars to test empirical models of religious burnout, spiritual commitment, and psychological well-being.
• Facilitating Data-Based Organizational Consultation: As the core evaluative backbone of the Congregation Development Program (Pargament et al., 1991), the CSQ enables organizational psychologists to deliver data-driven feedback to governing boards, replacing speculation and vocal minority biases with representative member diagnostics.
• Examining Religious Coping Mechanisms: Member satisfaction directly impacts whether a faith community serves as a buffer against life stress or becomes a chronic source of spiritual struggle and strain. The CSQ provides empirical controls and primary predictors in studies examining mental health outcomes among religious adherents.
• Denominational and Cross-Tradition Comparative Research: The CSQ was constructed deliberately with ecumenical terminology (e.g., adaptable between churches and synagogues), allowing comparative analyses of governance, liturgical renewal, and community cohesion across Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish assemblies.

Psychological Construct

The overarching construct quantified by the instrument is congregational member satisfaction, conceptualized not as a global, unidimensional affective sentiment, but as a multidimensional cognitive and evaluative appraisal of discrete organizational ecologies. Drawing upon job satisfaction and customer satisfaction models from industrial-organizational psychology (e.g., the Job Descriptive Index), the CSQ posits that an individual’s evaluation of their congregation comprises distinct, partially independent cognitive judgments regarding seven primary environmental facets:

1. Religious Services

This subscale assesses member evaluations of the central corporate worship experience. Corporate liturgy represents the most frequent and salient point of institutional contact for members. Cognitive appraisal in this domain encompasses aesthetic quality, spiritual vitality, cognitive stimulation, temporal pacing, and pragmatic relevance. Evaluative indicators balance positive attributes such as whether services are Inspiring, Comforting, Interesting, and Useful in daily life against negative descriptors identifying worship that is perceived as Too long, Confusing, Dull, Not well planned, or possessing Not enough variety.

2. Church Members

Congregations function predominantly as relational networks. This subscale measures the social climate and perceived psychosocial characteristics of the peer membership body. It taps into warmth, accessibility, mutual support, and inclusivity. Key operational indicators capture whether peers are experienced as Supportive, Easy to get to know, Dedicated, and Active versus exclusionary or dysfunctional dynamics characterized as Close-minded, Uninvolved, Hard to meet, Prejudiced, Complaining, or Cliquish.

3. Church Leaders

Explicitly distinguishing lay and administrative governance from pastoral/clergy figures, this dimension captures evaluations of elected or appointed officials (e.g., vestry members, church councils, elders, deacons, committee chairs). It measures leadership efficacy, interpersonal receptivity, and executive competence. Positive appraisal involves perceived qualities such as being Receptive to new ideas, Creative, Around when needed, Dedicated, and Well informed. In contrast, perceived deficits include being Too set in their ways, Inexperienced, Slow to get things done, and Not sensitive to members’ needs.

4. Special Programs and Activities

Religious life extends beyond the sanctuary into ancillary communal, benevolent, artistic, and social programming (e.g., fellowship dinners, outreach to vulnerable populations, choirs, charitable drives). This dimension evaluates the institutional breadth, execution, and logistical vibrancy of these auxiliary activities. Descriptors examine whether programming is perceived as Well organized, Fun, Creative, and offering Something for everyone, or whether it suffers from being Inadequate, Hard to get involved in, Poorly planned, Poorly attended, or Not well publicized.

5. Religious Education for Children

Pedagogical socialization of the next generation represents a paramount priority for family retention and denominational continuity. This subscale evaluates structured educational initiatives (e.g., Sunday schools, youth groups, catechism, Hebrew classes). Evaluative facets address instructor competence, classroom decorum, curriculum richness, and engagement. Items assess whether programs have Qualified teachers, are Interesting, and prove Meaningful, or conversely, whether they are undermined by Boring curricula, Poorly attended classes, Misbehaving students, or Incomplete instructional content.

6. Religious Education for Adults

Lifelong adult formation and continuing spiritual education represent distinct developmental needs requiring nuanced instructional approaches. This dimension measures the institutional commitment to adult intellectual, theological, and moral growth. Evaluative markers evaluate whether offerings are led by Qualified teachers, are Well run, Meaningful, and Useful in daily life, versus instruction that is experienced as Boring, Weak, Poorly attended, Incomplete, or Poorly taught.

7. Church Facilities

The material, architectural, and spatial environment represents an essential substrate for community functioning. Facilities either support or constrain spiritual and social transactions. This subscale evaluates the safety, cleanliness, thermal comfort, spatial capacity, acoustic adequacy, and accessibility of the physical plant. Descriptors capture whether the grounds and structures are Pleasant to be in, Neat, Attractive, Well kept up, and provide Enough parking, versus material stressors such as being In need of repair, Poorly lit, Not big enough, located in an Unsafe neighborhood, Too hot or too cold, or possessing environments where Services are hard to hear.

Theoretical Framework

The theoretical architecture of the CSQ is rooted at the intersection of three major psychological frameworks: Community Psychology Ecology, Person-Environment (P-E) Fit Theory, and Organizational Expectancy-Disconfirmation Models.

1. Ecological Community Psychology

Pioneered by James Kelly (1966) and Rudolf Moos (1974), ecological community psychology conceptualizes human behavior as embedded within layered social systems. Moos asserted that human environments can be characterized by three broad domains of climate: Relationship dimensions (involvement, cohesion, mutual support), Personal Growth/Goal Orientation dimensions (education, task orientation, personal enrichment), and System Maintenance/Change dimensions (order, organization, leadership control, responsiveness to change). The CSQ maps onto this ecological framework with exceptional fidelity:

• Relationship Dimensions: Captured by the Church Members subscale.
• Personal Growth Dimensions: Operationalized via the Religious Services, Religious Education for Children, and Religious Education for Adults subscales.
• System Maintenance and Change Dimensions: Represented by the Church Leaders, Special Programs and Activities, and Church Facilities subscales.

2. Person-Environment (P-E) Fit Theory

Derived from Lewin’s field theory ($B = f(P, E)$) and systematically elaborated by John French, Robert Caplan, and Harrison (1982), P-E Fit theory posits that psychological strain, dissatisfaction, and behavioral withdrawal occur when an environment fails to supply resources that match an individual’s needs, values, and expectations. In faith-based contexts, Pargament et al. (1985, 1987) demonstrated that congregational satisfaction is not an intrinsic property of the individual or the assembly in isolation, but a dynamic product of member-institution congruence. When congregational environments align with member preferences for leadership style, intellectual stimulation, and interpersonal warmth, satisfaction increases, accompanied by heightened psychosocial coping capital and institutional commitment.

3. The Cognitive Appraisal Model of Satisfaction

Rather than adopting simple affective rating scales (e.g., “How happy are you with X?”), the CSQ operationalizes satisfaction via cognitive appraisal theory (Locke, 1976). Members are asked to evaluate the objective descriptiveness of specific behavioral, atmospheric, and operational attributes. By decoupling the measurement from raw emotional valence and anchoring it in concrete institutional realities (e.g., Services are hard to hear, Receptive to new ideas), the CSQ minimizes halo effects and social desirability distortions that typically inflate religious survey measures.

Validity

The empirical validation of the Congregation Satisfaction Questionnaire was executed through a rigorous multiphase research program detailed by Silverman, Pargament, Johnson, Echemendia, and Snyder (1983). The psychometric validation procedures thoroughly examined construct, convergent, discriminant, and criterion-related validity.

Multitrait-Multimethod Matrix (MTMM) Convergent Validity

To establish convergent validity, the authors utilized the rigorous classic methodology formulated by Donald T. Campbell and Donald W. Fiske (1959). Participants completed the multi-item CSQ subscales alongside independent, single-item global indicators tapping the exact construct domains (heteromethod assessment). All convergent correlations between each CSQ subscale and its corresponding single-item counterpart achieved high statistical significance ($p < .001$):

• Church Facilities: $r = .32$
• Special Programs and Activities: $r = .35$
• Church Members: $r = .38$
• Religious Services: $r = .39$
• Religious Education: $r = .41$
• Church Leaders: $r = .43$

These values demonstrate that the multi-item scales effectively capture their target construct domains while providing substantially greater variance and measurement precision than unrefined single-item prompts.

Discriminant Validity Evaluation

Campbell and Fiske’s (1959) MTMM framework specifies three rigorous empirical criteria for establishing discriminant validity:

1. Criterion 1: The correlation between the same construct measured by different methods (validity diagonal) should be higher than the correlation between that construct and any other construct measured by a different method. In the CSQ validation analyses, this criterion was satisfied in 95% of all pairwise comparisons, providing overwhelming confirmation that the subscales do not cross-load onto extraneous operational facets.
2. Criterion 2: The correlation between the same construct measured by different methods should exceed the correlation between different constructs measured by the same method. The CSQ satisfied this standard in 31% of comparisons, indicating the presence of common-method variance inherent to self-report questionnaires—a recognized and typical finding in organizational perceptual surveys.
3. Criterion 3: The pattern of inter-trait correlations should remain structurally consistent across both monomethod and heteromethod matrices. Analysis via Kendall’s coefficient of concordance yielded a coefficient of $W = .77$ ($p < .001$), confirming highly stable, parallel relational structures across diverse measurement methodologies.

Criterion-Related and External Construct Validity

Each CSQ subscale displayed distinct, theoretically predictable patterns of correlation with demographic and behavioral religiosity markers:

• Satisfaction with Religious Services: Positively correlated with frequent weekly church attendance ($r = .29, p < .001$) and personal private prayer frequency ($r = .24, p < .01$).
• Satisfaction with Church Members: Strongly predicted by the absolute number of close personal friends known within the congregation ($r = .34, p < .001$).
• Independence from Social Desirability: Inclusion of the Crowne-Marlowe Social Desirability Scale revealed negligible, non-significant correlations with the CSQ subscales, demonstrating that member appraisals are not artifacts of defensive self-presentation or pious posturing.

Reliability

The CSQ exhibits high reliability across both internal consistency and temporal stability metrics, documented through iterative pilot testing, large-scale field validation, and subsequent scale optimization.

Internal Consistency (Cronbach’s Alpha)

In the original 8-scale formulation administered to 353 congregants across 13 diverse assemblies, internal consistency estimates were robust: Religious Services ($lpha = .85$), Church Members ($lpha = .85$), Church Leaders ($lpha = .82$), Special Programs ($lpha = .79$), Combined Education ($lpha = .90$), and Clergy ($lpha = .80$). The original Facilities subscale demonstrated marginal initial consistency ($lpha = .67$).

To optimize measurement precision, Silverman et al. (1983) executed systematic revisions: the Education domain was partitioned into dedicated child and adult subscales; the Facilities subscale was expanded with additional architectural and environmental descriptors; and the response metric was refined from a 3-point to a 5-point Likert format to reduce positive skewness. In the finalized revised instrument, Cronbach’s alpha coefficients demonstrated exceptional reliability:

• Church Facilities: $lpha = .94$
• Religious Education for Adults: $lpha = .88$
• Religious Services: $lpha = .85$
• Church Members: $lpha = .85$
• Religious Education for Children: $lpha = .85$
• Church Leaders: $lpha = .82$
• Special Programs and Activities: $lpha = .79$

Test-Retest Stability

Temporal stability was established by administering the instrument to a representative subsample ($n = 56$) over a 4-week test-retest interval. Stability coefficients confirmed excellent temporal consistency, with test-retest correlations ranging from $r = .62$ (Clergy scale) to $r = .82$ (Policies scale), and averaging above .73 across primary subscales. These metrics indicate that while member satisfaction fluctuates in response to tangible organizational interventions, baseline perceptions remain psychometrically stable over standard assessment windows.

Factor Analysis

The structural dimensionality of the CSQ was established through qualitative content categorization combined with sequential Exploratory Factor Analyses (EFA) and item-scale analyses.

Initial Scale Derivation and Item Selection

The foundational pool of items originated from extensive semi-structured qualitative interviews conducted with clergy and active lay members across diverse Christian and Jewish institutions. Content analysis of verbatim interview transcripts identified eight primary congregational facets: leaders, members, facilities, services, education, policies, special programs, and clergy. An initial pool of approximately 20 words or short phrases was drafted for each facet. Item reduction was governed by three strict empirical criteria: (a) high item-to-subscale total correlations ($r ge .40$), (b) balanced positive and negative descriptor representation to eliminate response sets, and (c) meaningful factor loadings on intended construct dimensions.

Structural Revisions and Empirical Discriminability

During subsequent factor-analytic evaluations across diverse congregational settings, two subscales from the preliminary 8-dimension model were eliminated:

• Exclusion of the Policies Scale: Exploratory factor analysis indicated that items assessing administrative “policies” demonstrated substantial cross-loadings onto the Church Leaders factor, failing to exhibit unique factor variance or discriminate between differing congregational structures.
• Exclusion of the Clergy Scale: While psychometrically reliable, the Clergy subscale failed to differentiate institutional health from individual charismatic affinity. In many declining congregations, clergy satisfaction remained paradoxically high while institutional operations were collapsing; conversely, institutional dissatisfaction often masked effective ministerial service. Thus, items evaluating clergy were excised from the organizational satisfaction score, focusing the instrument purely on structural, relational, and pedagogical church operations.

Factor analysis of the Religious Education items yielded a pronounced two-factor solution cleanly separating pedagogical methods, behavioral management, and developmental content for children from the intellectual and theological needs of adult education. This supported the formal division into two independent subscales. The resulting 7-factor orthogonal/oblique models confirmed clean structural loading, with primary items exhibiting loadings exceeding .50 on their target constructs and minimal cross-loadings (< .25), affirming the multidimensional integrity of the 72-item instrument.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

• Instrument Name: Congregation Satisfaction Questionnaire (CSQ)
• Primary Authors: William H. Silverman, Kenneth I. Pargament, Steven M. Johnson, Ruben J. Echemendia, and Stephen Snyder
• Original Publication: Journal of Applied Psychology (1983)
• Assessment Type: Standardized multidimensional self-report organizational rating scale
• Target Population: Adult members and active participants of Christian churches and Jewish synagogues (adaptable across denominations)
• Administration Format: Paper-and-pencil or digital self-administered questionnaire
• Administration Time: Approximately 15 to 20 minutes
• Total Number of Items: 72 descriptive words or short phrases
• Number of Subscales: 7 discrete dimensions:
  • Religious Services: 10 items (5 positive, 5 reverse-coded)
  • Church Members: 10 items (4 positive, 6 reverse-coded)
  • Church Leaders: 10 items (5 positive, 5 reverse-coded)
  • Special Programs and Activities: 10 items (4 positive, 6 reverse-coded)
  • Religious Education for Children: 10 items (4 positive, 6 reverse-coded)
  • Religious Education for Adults: 10 items (5 positive, 5 reverse-coded)
  • Church Facilities: 12 items (5 positive, 7 reverse-coded)
• Response Scale: 5-point Likert-type descriptiveness rating:
  • 1 = Not at all descriptive
  • 2 = Somewhat descriptive
  • 3 = Pretty much descriptive
  • 4 = Very much descriptive
  • 5 = Completely descriptive
• Scoring and Computational Rules:
  • Reverse Coding: All items designated with (R) must be reverse-coded prior to statistical analysis using the transformation formula: $\text{New Score} = 6 – \text{Raw Score}$ (such that $1 to 5$, $2 to 4$, $3 to 3$, $4 to 2$, $5 to 1$).
  • Subscale Mean Calculation: For each subscale, compute the arithmetic mean across its completed items. Subscale scores range from 1.00 to 5.00, where higher scores represent greater satisfaction with that operational facet.
  • Total Score Calculation: An overall institutional satisfaction index can be derived by computing the grand mean across all seven subscale scores, or by averaging all 72 recoded items.
  • Aggregated Organizational Level Analysis: When used for congregational consultation, individual item averages across all participating members are computed to identify specific operational strengths (mean scores $ge 4.0$) and primary targets for institutional reform (mean scores $le 2.5$).

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Congregation Satisfaction Questionnaire was initially developed in 1983 as part of an extensive empirical research and community intervention initiative at Bowling Green State University (Silverman et al., 1983). The instrument and its foundational diagnostic framework are published within the public academic domain for non-commercial educational, scientific, and congregational consultation purposes. Researchers and religious organizations may utilize the instrument without royalty fees, provided full academic attribution is granted to the original authors and the Journal of Applied Psychology.

For large-scale denominational research or commercial consultation frameworks utilizing the structured Congregation Development Program Manual (Silverman, Pargament, & Falgout, 1983), consultation with the primary authors or university copyright administrators is recommended. Institutional administrators administering the CSQ are strongly advised to ensure respondent anonymity and confidentiality, as forthright assessment of leadership and peer relational dynamics depends upon robust privacy protections.

References

• Campbell, D. T., & Fiske, D. W. (1959). Convergent and discriminant validation by the multitrait-multimethod matrix. Psychological Bulletin, 56(2), 81–105. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0046016
• French, J. R. P., Jr., Caplan, R. D., & Harrison, R. V. (1982). The mechanisms of job stress and strain. John Wiley & Sons.
• Kelly, J. G. (1966). Ecological constraints on mental health services. American Psychologist, 21(6), 535–539. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0023598
• Locke, E. A. (1976). The nature and causes of job satisfaction. In M. D. Dunnette (Ed.), Handbook of industrial and organizational psychology (pp. 1297–1349). Rand McNally.
• Moos, R. H. (1974). Evaluating treatment environments: A social ecological approach. John Wiley & Sons.
• Pargament, K. I. (1997). The psychology of religion and coping: Theory, research, practice. Guilford Press.
• Pargament, K. I., Echemendia, R. J., Johnson, S., Cook, P., McGath, C., Myers, J. G., & Brannick, M. (1987). The conservative church: Psychosocial advantages and disadvantages. American Journal of Community Psychology, 15(3), 269–286. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00922699
• Pargament, K. I., Falgout, K., Ensing, D. S., Reilly, B., Silverman, M., Van Haitsma, K., Olsen, H., & Warren, R. (1991). The congregation development program: Data-based consultation with churches and synagogues. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 22(5), 393–404. https://doi.org/10.1037/0735-7028.22.5.393
• Pargament, K. I., Johnson, S. M., Echemendia, R. J., & Silverman, W. H. (1985). The limits of fit: Examining the implications of person-environment congruence within different religious settings. Journal of Community Psychology, 13(1), 20–30. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.68.4.664

13. Items of the Scale (Questionnaire)