Abstract
This study examines the influence of Akidah Akhlak learning on the religious character formation of students at Madrasah Aliyah Negeri Palopo. The research is motivated by students' behavior that does not reflect religious values, such as lack of discipline, cheating, and disrespect toward teachers. A quantitative approach with an ex post facto design was employed. The population consisted of 248 twelfth-grade students, with a sample of 72 selected using the Slovin formula at a 10% error level. Data were collected through a Likert-scale questionnaire and analyzed using descriptive analysis, classical assumption tests, simple linear regression, and hypothesis testing with IBM SPSS Statistics version 27. The results show that both Akidah Akhlak learning and religious character formation fall into the medium category. The regression equation Ŷ = 20.485 + 0.617X, with t-count of 5.649 > t-table of 1.667 and significance of 0.001 < 0.05, indicates that Akidah Akhlak learning has a positive and significant effect on religious character formation, contributing 31.3%. These findings imply that improving the quality of Akidah Akhlak learning should be accompanied by exemplary behavior, habituation, and support from the madrasah environment.