SUMMARY
The aim of this paper was to investigate Finnish theology students’ and teacher education students’ experiences of the learning environment provided by their faculty in relation to their personal worldview. Previous research supports the theoretical idea that religious questions are intertwined in the personal worldviews and values of students and, in turn, affect their motivational constructs. In this study, first and second-year higher education students of theology and teacher education responded to a questionnaire concerning religious or ideological perspectives on their personal worldviews and their experienced position in the learning environment as part of the religious majority or minority. According to the results, theology students experienced that their personal worldviews had affected their goals and that they were more committed to their personal worldview than teacher education students. However, teacher education students reported significantly higher certainty in career choice. Among teacher education students, male students reported more often than female students that they were committed to their personal worldview and that their personal worldview had affected their goals. The effects of personal worldview on goals and commitment to one’s personal worldview varied significantly in terms of majority, minority, and non-religious group among both teacher education students and theology students. Members of majority and minority and non-religious groups thought differently about the importance of privacy in personal perspectives on religion and spirituality. Certainty of career choice varied significantly between religious minority and majority groups only among theology students.https://doi.org/10.26803/ijlter.18.5.4