The relationship of halal food consumptions and psychological features of muslim students in Malaysian Public Universities

Abstract

Food has been identified as an important risk factor for health, yet many people overlook the effects of what they eat every day which are beyond their physical need. The previous studies show that most people still have a low level of awareness on the effects of food towards their psychological development. Expanding upon this issue, the present study was designed to investigate the relationship between halal food consumption and psychological features of Muslim student in Malaysian public universities. Specifically, this study has five objectives: first, to investigate the level of halal food consumption awareness among the university students; second, to examine significant differences in predictive ability in determining halal food consumption based on demographic characteristics; third, to determine the predictive ability of attitude, subjective norm, perceived behaviour control, and religious belief on halal food consumption via intention; fourth, to determine whether halal food consumption has any contribution in the development of psychological features of student; and fifth, to analyse the overall association between constructs proposed in the theoretical model from literature. This study involved 730 Muslim student between 18 to 36 years old who were randomly selected among Malaysian students of public universities in Peninsular Malaysia. All respondents have completed a set of self-developed questionnaire consists of “informed consent” and “three main sections”, namely demographic, halal food consumption, and psychological construct. Questionnaire contents were validated by five experts from various fields who constructed the validation using exploratory factor analysis (EFA) before being distributed to all respondents. The tools for statistical analysis employed in this study were descriptive, t-test, ANOVA, and regression using IBM SPSS 20.0 together with confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modelling in AMOS 21.0. The result showed that the majority of Muslim student in Malaysia have a high level of awareness in consuming halal food (93.8%). Significant differences were discovered between gender in their attitude, perceived behavioural control, and intention in halal food consumption (p<0.05). Next, this study discovered that there are no significant differences in attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioural control based on region, origin, and specialization (p>0.05). Concerning the predictor of halal food consumption, subjective norm, religious belief, and intention were found to be significantly correlated with the halal food consumption. This study also identified that intention plays a role as a mediator for predictor and halal food consumption (p=0.001). The analysis of data in this study has successfully proven that halal food consumption contributes in the development of psychological features of Muslim student in Malaysia. Finally, in conclusion, for the test model hypothesis, the development model is accepted and confirmed through the SEM AMOS analysis. Overall, the study has shown the importance of halal food towards the psychological development of the students.