Reaching the heart : Assessing & nurturing spiritual well-being via education
- Authors: Fisher, John
- Date: 2008
- Type: Text , Thesis , EdD
- Full Text:
- Description: Several quantitative measures of spiritual well-being were developed with primary and secondary school students and teachers, and university education students, namely the Spiritual Health And Life-Orientation Measure, Feeling Good, Living Life, and the Quality Of Life Influences Survey. Spiritual dissonance was revealed by comparing respondents’ ‘ideals’ with ‘lived experiences’ in four domains of spiritual well-being. Teachers and university education students reported a decline in help being provided in schools to develop the relationships which foster school students’ spiritual well-being.
- Description: Doctor of Education EdD
- Authors: Fisher, John
- Date: 2008
- Type: Text , Thesis , EdD
- Full Text:
- Description: Several quantitative measures of spiritual well-being were developed with primary and secondary school students and teachers, and university education students, namely the Spiritual Health And Life-Orientation Measure, Feeling Good, Living Life, and the Quality Of Life Influences Survey. Spiritual dissonance was revealed by comparing respondents’ ‘ideals’ with ‘lived experiences’ in four domains of spiritual well-being. Teachers and university education students reported a decline in help being provided in schools to develop the relationships which foster school students’ spiritual well-being.
- Description: Doctor of Education EdD
Importance of relating with God for spiritual well-being
- Authors: Fisher, John
- Date: 2014
- Type: Text , Thesis
- Full Text:
- Description: The importance of relating with God for Spiritual Well-Being Twenty years of research in spiritual health/well-being culminate in this thesis. My PhD (1998), University of Melbourne, presented a Four Domains Model of Spiritual Health/Well-Being. This formed the theoretical base for several spiritual well-being questionnaires, presented in my EdD (2009), University of Ballarat. The main instrument, Spiritual Health And Life-Orientation Measure (SHALOM), proposed a novel method of assessing quality of relationships which are posited as reflecting spiritual well-being. These relationships are of each person with themselves, others, the environment and/or with a Transcendent Other (God). Instead of just investigating lived experiences, SHALOM asks for two responses to each item. Each respondent’s lived experience is compared with their stated ideals. Studies presented herein show that this double-response method, comparing ideal with actual, provides a statistically stronger measure of quality of relationships than lived experiences alone, thus spiritual well-being. Eighteen publications included in this thesis relate to studies of spiritual well-being in educational, healthcare and general community settings. A total of 52 studies, using SHALOM with 41686 people from 27 countries, have shown that, of the four sets of relationships measured by SHALOM, relating with God explains greatest variance in spiritual well-being, so is therefore most important. An international study with people involved with, as well as some opposed to, spirituality and religious education led to a generic form of SHALOM, in which the theistic words were replaced by ‘Transcendent’, with 19 alternatives provided from which to select preferred Transcendent, or none. This project revealed that relating with God, as Transcendent, provides greatest support for a person’s relating with self and others, in contrast to help provided by non-theistic and non-religious Transcendents and not believing in Transcendents. This research implies that researchers need to investigate relationship with God in any study of spiritual well-being, whether or not it fits their personal worldview.
- Description: Doctor of Philosophy
- Authors: Fisher, John
- Date: 2014
- Type: Text , Thesis
- Full Text:
- Description: The importance of relating with God for Spiritual Well-Being Twenty years of research in spiritual health/well-being culminate in this thesis. My PhD (1998), University of Melbourne, presented a Four Domains Model of Spiritual Health/Well-Being. This formed the theoretical base for several spiritual well-being questionnaires, presented in my EdD (2009), University of Ballarat. The main instrument, Spiritual Health And Life-Orientation Measure (SHALOM), proposed a novel method of assessing quality of relationships which are posited as reflecting spiritual well-being. These relationships are of each person with themselves, others, the environment and/or with a Transcendent Other (God). Instead of just investigating lived experiences, SHALOM asks for two responses to each item. Each respondent’s lived experience is compared with their stated ideals. Studies presented herein show that this double-response method, comparing ideal with actual, provides a statistically stronger measure of quality of relationships than lived experiences alone, thus spiritual well-being. Eighteen publications included in this thesis relate to studies of spiritual well-being in educational, healthcare and general community settings. A total of 52 studies, using SHALOM with 41686 people from 27 countries, have shown that, of the four sets of relationships measured by SHALOM, relating with God explains greatest variance in spiritual well-being, so is therefore most important. An international study with people involved with, as well as some opposed to, spirituality and religious education led to a generic form of SHALOM, in which the theistic words were replaced by ‘Transcendent’, with 19 alternatives provided from which to select preferred Transcendent, or none. This project revealed that relating with God, as Transcendent, provides greatest support for a person’s relating with self and others, in contrast to help provided by non-theistic and non-religious Transcendents and not believing in Transcendents. This research implies that researchers need to investigate relationship with God in any study of spiritual well-being, whether or not it fits their personal worldview.
- Description: Doctor of Philosophy
Beyond the natural : perceptions of spirituality and spiritual nurturing in volunteer pastoral care workers in christian ministry : implications for training
- Job, Kay
- Authors: Job, Kay
- Date: 2018
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
- Full Text:
- Description: Practical and evidence-based research is scarce regarding the perceptions of spirituality and spiritual nurturing of volunteer pastoral care workers. This study set out to explore perceptions of spirituality and spiritual nurturing of volunteer pastoral care workers in a Christian ministry. The aim was to identify what influence their spirituality had on ministry, whether there were links between spiritual experiences, spiritual nurturing and spiritual growth and to develop relevant recommendations to improve training and praxis within the field of pastoral care, an area of increasing interest and demand within the Christian tradition. Thirty participants from an interdenominational volunteer ministry in the Christian tradition, Victorious Ministry Through Christ (VMTC), were interviewed and data were analysed using principles of Grounded Theory to inform subjective spiritual experiences and discover themes regarding spiritual awareness, sensitivity, and effective practice. There were strong indications that a totally dependent, reciprocal relationship exists between spirituality and the ability to minister, suggesting a negation of ability could occur by an absence, unawareness of, or disengagement from the existence of a spiritual dimension. The extent to which an individual was able to effectively and sensitively offer pastoral care was dependent on the degree to which properties of Substantive Spirituality were appropriated, demonstrated through strands of spiritual Sensibility, capacity for Reciprocity, and response to Modification, which combined to form Integrative Spiritual Function (ISF). ISF supported mature functioning of the individual personally, was pre-eminent to formation and effective ministry, and integrative for the whole person. ISF also informed the development of SIFTable; an example of an appraisal tool for use in pastoral care contexts to gauge competency. Recommendations regarding thoughtful and appropriate training of volunteer pastoral care personnel may assist in the formative process associated with ministry to ensure a holistic response to pastoral needs of the volunteer, and the recipient of ministry.
- Description: Doctor of Philosophy
- Authors: Job, Kay
- Date: 2018
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
- Full Text:
- Description: Practical and evidence-based research is scarce regarding the perceptions of spirituality and spiritual nurturing of volunteer pastoral care workers. This study set out to explore perceptions of spirituality and spiritual nurturing of volunteer pastoral care workers in a Christian ministry. The aim was to identify what influence their spirituality had on ministry, whether there were links between spiritual experiences, spiritual nurturing and spiritual growth and to develop relevant recommendations to improve training and praxis within the field of pastoral care, an area of increasing interest and demand within the Christian tradition. Thirty participants from an interdenominational volunteer ministry in the Christian tradition, Victorious Ministry Through Christ (VMTC), were interviewed and data were analysed using principles of Grounded Theory to inform subjective spiritual experiences and discover themes regarding spiritual awareness, sensitivity, and effective practice. There were strong indications that a totally dependent, reciprocal relationship exists between spirituality and the ability to minister, suggesting a negation of ability could occur by an absence, unawareness of, or disengagement from the existence of a spiritual dimension. The extent to which an individual was able to effectively and sensitively offer pastoral care was dependent on the degree to which properties of Substantive Spirituality were appropriated, demonstrated through strands of spiritual Sensibility, capacity for Reciprocity, and response to Modification, which combined to form Integrative Spiritual Function (ISF). ISF supported mature functioning of the individual personally, was pre-eminent to formation and effective ministry, and integrative for the whole person. ISF also informed the development of SIFTable; an example of an appraisal tool for use in pastoral care contexts to gauge competency. Recommendations regarding thoughtful and appropriate training of volunteer pastoral care personnel may assist in the formative process associated with ministry to ensure a holistic response to pastoral needs of the volunteer, and the recipient of ministry.
- Description: Doctor of Philosophy
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