FACTORS INFLUENCING YOUTH VULNERABILITY TO EXTREMIST IDEOLOGIES IN PUNJAB: A QUANTITATIVE STUDY OF UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

Abstract

This quantitative study, grounded in the positivist paradigm, examined factors influencing university students' vulnerability to extremist ideologies in Punjab, Pakistan. A correlational survey design was used to collect data from 500 undergraduate and postgraduate students (252 public, 248 private) drawn from fifteen purposively selected universities across Punjab, with the sample size determined using Krejcie and Morgan's formula. A self-developed, 42-item, five-point Likert-scale questionnaire was designed for this study, covering socio-economic deprivation, educational factors, psychological/identity factors, media and social media exposure, religious-social influence, and vulnerability to extremism. The instrument's content validity was established through expert review by specialists in Peace and Counter-Terrorism Studies and refined through pilot testing on 40 students, while its reliability was confirmed through Cronbach's alpha, with all subscales ranging from 0.80 to 0.90 and an overall scale reliability of 0.96, indicating excellent internal consistency. Data were analyzed using Pearson correlation, independent-samples t-tests, and multiple linear regression. Findings showed that all five factors were significantly and positively linked to vulnerability, with psychological/identity issues and religious-social influence showing the strongest connection. Together, the five factors explained about 64% of the differences in students' vulnerability scores, and psychological/identity factors along with religious-social influence stood out as the most important predictors. Students from private universities showed noticeably higher vulnerability than those from public universities. Based on these results, the study recommends setting up university-based Peace and Counter-Terrorism centers, strengthening student counselling services, and promoting media literacy along with inclusive student engagement to reduce vulnerability.