The instrument was built based on the universal integrated perspective that is free from the secularism ideology and an integrated and faith-based perspective developed by Nik Azis (1994, 1999, 2009). The psychological aspects of the universal integrated perspective in this study are based on the Islamic teachings. It is based on the conceptions and elaboration on values and ethics developed by Al-Ghazali (1992) and Syed Muhammad Naquib (1995). The basic definitions on values and ethics development according to Islam were systematically structured by Syed Muhammad Naquib. Al-Ghazali, who is an intellectual discipline, known as adab which refers to the recognition and acknowledgement of the reality that knowledge and human are ordered hierarchically according to their grades and degree of rank, and of one’s proper place in relation to reality and to one’s physical, intellectual and spiritual capacities and potentials. According to the universal integrated perspective, values refer to conceptions or beliefs of individuals concerning the importance of something which act as general guides to individuals’ behaviors.
Components of values according to the integrated perspective comprise of the cognitive, affective, spiritual, and behavior. Manifestation of values could be reflected from these components where what one knows is created in the cognitive domain, how one feels is from the affective domain, one’s actions is the reflection of the behavior domain, and one’s beliefs and principles are form in the spiritual domain. The general education values consist of four dimensions of values, the mathematics education contained two dimensions and the values in mathematics contain four dimensions.
Proponents of integrated perspective believe that values are constructed and developed while the socio-cultural believes that values are inculcated and absorbed. The socio-culturists believe that values are formed in the cognitive domain and operate in the affective-cognitive domain. In contrast, the universal integrated proponents thought that values exist in the human soul, constructed in the mind, obtain its meaning in the heart, manifested through behavior, mental, cognitive and spiritual. In terms of values education, the socio-cultural focuses on inculcating, nurturing and transferring of values within individuals and society, while the ultimate of values development according to the universal integrated perspective is achieving adab and akhlaq, internalization of ilm (meaningful knowledge) and self-purification. Islam advocates the incorporation of knowledge within a just and balanced value system where anything beneficial for one's spiritual and worldly improvement is encouraged and advocated.
According to universal integrated perspective, value is first develop cognitively in the mind (aqal), receives its true meaning in the heart (qalbu) and operates in the soul (ruh). This implies that value is inseparable from faith, knowledge, and individual practices. The universal integrated perspective discusses values in the context of adab and akhlaq of the Islamic teachings. Adab refers to the spiritual discipline, thoughts, feelings and actions which guides individuals and position values in life at the right place so that harmony, fairness, and happiness is found in one’s life, making one a person with good characteristics. The act of putting oneself in the proper place in accordance with the requirements of the knowledge concerning the correct and proper places of things is adab, known to be the condition of justice (‘adl). In other words, adab is the right action illuminated by the right knowledge that results in justice establishing the connection between adab, knowledge, wisdom and justice as suggested by Syed Muhammad Naquibal-Attas. Akhlaq in Islam is the situation in which a soul regularly guiding the individuals to act and behave, provide the guidance according to the teaching and Islam.