Developing a spiritual health and life-orientation measure for secondary school students
- Authors: Fisher, John
- Date: 1999
- Type: Text , Conference paper
- Relation: Paper presented at Research with a regional/rural focus : proceedings of the University of Ballarat inaugural annual conference, Mt. Helen: Victoria 15th October, 1999 p. 57-63
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- Description: The problem posed in this project was the development of an instrument to give a balanced assessment of young people’s spiritual health. Spiritual health is a dynamic state of being, which can be reflected in how well people relate in up to four domains of human existence, namely with themselves; with others; with the environment; and/or with a Transcendent Other. A convenience sample of 850 secondary students in State, Catholic, Christian Community and other independent schools in Ballarat and western suburbs of Melbourne were surveyed during 1999 to determine how important they considered each of the four sets of relationships to be for an ideal state of spiritual health (called Life-Orientation). They also expressed how each area reflected their personal experience most of the time (called Spiritual Health). Extensive factor analysis enabled the original 60-item instrument to be reduced to a reliable, compact 25-item Spiritual Health And Life-Orientation Measure (SHALOM for short). Analysis of variance and t-tests revealed significant variations between students’ views when compared by school type, gender, and year level. SHALOM has advantages over previous instruments in that it is balanced across the four domains of spiritual well-being, is more sensitive, and it compares people’s stated ideal position, with their lived experience, not others’, in determining the quality of relationships which constitute their spiritual well-being.
Quality of life in the workplace : Spirituality, meaning and purpose
- Authors: Fisher, John , Sellers, Eileen
- Date: 2000
- Type: Text , Conference paper
- Relation: Paper presented at Proceedings of the 3rd Annual Conference on Spirituality, Leadership and Management, Mt Helen : Victoria 1st - 4th December 2000
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- Description: This paper reports on research which aimed to investigate relationships between meaning and purpose in life and workplace expectations. It provides an overview of the methodology and outcomes of a survey conducted at a regional university. Survey methods included the distribution of two valid and reliable instruments to all employees of that university with data analysed using SPSS procedures. Analysis of the Spiritual Health and Life-Orientation Measure (SHALOM), developed by the principal researcher, and a purpose-designed questionnaire pertaining to meaning and purpose in the workplace, provided interesting findings. Overall, participants classified as administrators, professionals, service workers or labourers reported that they feel good about themselves and their relationships with others and the environment. The relationship with a god-type figure was of lesser importance for the spiritual well-being of the majority of participants. The participants do not expect the workplace to provide a major role in their spiritual well-being. They also reported significantly high levels of feelings of turbulence at work, and trends toward high anxiety and discomfort with autocratic managerial practices characterised by a focus on profits over people. The female staff described the workplace as more friendly, warm and caring than the males. The females also reported greater work satisfaction and were less depressed in doing their job than the males. Interpretation of these results indicates that a somewhat anxious and turbulent work place environment prevails. The personal impact of this unrest appears to be mediated by the support of families and friends of employees. The notion that workplace feelings which are negative (eg., anxiety) emanate from administrative practices, while those which are positive are a function of collegial behaviours, merits further exploration.
Assessing spiritual health via four domains of spiritual wellbeing : The SH4DI
- Authors: Fisher, John , Francis, L. J. , Johnson, Peter
- Date: 2000
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Pastoral Psychology Vol. 49, no. 2 (2000), p. 133-145
- Full Text: false
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- Description: This study argues for the assessment of spiritual health in terms of four domains of wellbeing concerned with self, community, environment, and God. This view of spiritual health is supported by data from 311 teachers in the UK. The Spiritual Health in Four Domains Index (SH4DI) developed from these data both provides an overall index of spiritual health and distinguishes among six different spiritual health perspectives represented by personalists, communalists, environmentalists, religionists, existentialists, and globalists. © 2000 Human Sciences Press, Inc.
From the beginning to spiritual well-being
- Authors: Fisher, John
- Date: 2015
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: Spirituality : Global Practices, Societal Attitudes and Effects on Health p. 155-172
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- Description: This chapter outlines potential interactions of God with humanity from the dawn of time through to attaining spiritual well-being. It briefly mentions alternative theories of origin, which connect to questions of ultimate reality, origin of human beings and our spiritual well-being. The nature of spirit and its relationship with soul and mind is then canvassed, followed by an account of historical developments in 'spirituality'. The author's Four Domains Model posits that Spiritual Health/Well-Being is reflected in the quality of relationships that each person has in up to four areas, namely with themselves, with others, with nature and/or with a Transcendent Other (commonly referred to as God). A critique of available measures of spirituality and spiritual well-being reveals a decline in the number of instruments assessing human relationships with God from earlier to more recent times. In contrast to this current trend of researchers selecting more humanistic emphases in spirituality/well-being in their research instruments, evidence is provided from recent findings that show that relating with God is the most important of the four sets of relationships for spiritual well-being. Further evidence is provided that God is the most influential Transcendent to enhance people's relationships with themselves and others. Although researchers are free to choose the nature of questions raised in their projects, findings presented here clearly show that any research that cuts God out of the equation is excising the foundation of spirituality/well-being. © 2015 by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.
A critique of quantitative measures for assessing spirituality and spiritual well-being
- Authors: Fisher, John
- Date: 2015
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: Spirituality : Global Practices, Societal Attitudes and Effects on Health p. 91-130
- Full Text: false
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- Description: This chapter provides an analytical review of nearly 300 ways in which people have attempted quantitative assessments of spirituality or spiritual health/well-being (SH/WB) over the last 40 years. They range from single-item to multi-item measures. Each item in these measures has been classified using the theoretical framework provided by the author's four domains model of spiritual health & well-being. Some considered thoughts are presented relating to the purpose and ways of assessing spirituality and spiritual well-being. Types and forms of spirituality and spiritual well-being measures are discussed. Single-item measures are compared with multiple-item measures. A summary table is then presented containing 260 studies with distinct multi-item measures which pertain to spirituality, spiritual well-being and related measures in general populations, university student groups, school students and teachers, and in healthcare settings. These measures are all critiqued for content against the four domains model of spiritual health and well-being. © 2015 by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.
Psychometric properties of the Brazilian version of the lived experience component of the Spiritual Health And Life-Orientation Measure (SHALOM)
- Authors: Nunes, Sandra , Fernandes, Helder , Fisher, John , Fernandes, Marcos
- Date: 2018
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Psicologia: Reflexao e Critica Vol. 31, no. 1 (2018), p.1-13
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- Reviewed:
- Description: This study had the following aims: (i) to translate the Spiritual Health and Life-Orientation Measure (SHALOM) into Brazilian Portuguese and adapt it to ensure the semantic/conceptual equivalence and content validity of the Brazilian version and (ii) to analyse the psychometric properties-reliability, convergent validity, discriminant validity and factorial validity-of the lived experience component, also called the Spiritual Well-Being Questionnaire (SWBQ), in a calibration sample and in a validation sample of Brazilian adults. The calibration sample comprised 436 subjects, 159 men and 277 women, aged between 18 and 79 years (mean age = 32.20 years; SD = 11.46); the validation study sample comprised 388 subjects, 253 women and 135 men, aged between 18 and 59 years (mean age = 30.59 years; SD = 9.44). All subjects completed a sociodemographic questionnaire, the Brazilian SWBQ and the Psychological Well-being Scale (PWBS). The results provide evidence of the reliability and factorial validity of an oblique four-factor model of a reduced 17-item version but revealed some problems with the convergent validity of the communal and personal factors (average variance extracted < .50). Nonetheless, these results provide evidence that the Brazilian version of the lived experience component of SHALOM (or SWBQb) has good psychometric properties and is a valid method of evaluating the spiritual health of Brazilian adults. Further research is required to establish the convergent and discriminant validity of this reduced version. © The Author(s).