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  • Data used in the present study were obtained from 4325 university student volunteers across eight different countries including Canada (n = 938), India (n = 800), Japan (n = 205), Poland (n = 400), the Slovak Republic (n = 178), South Korea (n = 660), Uganda (n = 518), and the United States (n = 626). The Canadian data were originally used in MacDonald [12] but were included here to permit reanalysis and comparison to the other samples. The remaining data were gathered between 2000 and 2006. Data for the Polish sample were obtained as part of a study on religious orientation but were not used in that study [92]. Finally, the data of 247 participants of the American sample have been used in a study to examine the relation of spirituality to well-being measures [15]. A survey form was used which obtained basic demographic information (e.g., age, sex, religious affiliation). Expressions of Spirituality Inventory-Revised (ESI-R) [73]: The ESI-R is a 32-item self-report questionnaire developed from a longer 100-item parent instrument [12, 76] designed to operationalize a five dimensional model of spirituality created through the conjoint factor analysis of 19 different tests selected due to their perceived representativeness of the content domain of spirituality. While the items for the 100-item ESI were included in the test on the basis of factor and reliability analyses, the selection of 30 of the items for the ESI-R was based upon item content uniqueness and reliability (e.g., corrected item-to-scale total correlations). The last two items are the same as the parent version of the test; item 31 is a face validity item (“This test appears to be measuring spirituality”) and item 32 an honesty-of-responding item (“I have responded to all items honestly”). Each dimension is tapped by six items. The test employs a five point scale ranging from 0 (Strongly Disagree) to 4 (Strongly agree) which is used by respondents to rate the extent to which they agree with the content of the item. For the interested reader, the 30 items for the test appear in a table in the results section. The SAL is a 40 item self-report instrument that utilizes a five point response scale ranging from 0 (Strongly Disagree) to 4 (Strongly Agree). The items were developed from a thematic content analysis of written narrative descriptions of a spiritual person obtained from 50 Canadian university students. In completing the analysis, the test authors first reviewed the written narratives and identified clear descriptors/adjectives. Thereafter, the authors devised items to embody adjectives that were found to be most commonly used across respondents. Items for the SAL in order of appearance on the questionaire are as follows: 1) I have strong beliefs and convictions, 2) I am devoted to what I believe in, 3) I am at peace with others, 4) I am moral, 5) I understand myself, 6) I meditate, 7) I am holy, 8) I am religious, 9) I pray, 10) I believe in a higher power, 11) I am at peace with myself, 12) I am happy, 13) I believe in spirits or ghosts, 14) I am concerned about the meaning of life, 15) I am a positive person, 16) I believe in life after death, 17) I feel a sense of wholeness or completeness, 18) I am in touch with my soul, 19) I appreciate nature, 20) I help others, 21) I take time to reflect on who I am, 22) I engage in private activities which help me feel a sense of connection with a higher power, 23) I attend church services, 24) I believe in supernatural powers, 25) I have a sense of meaning in life, 26) I am optimistic, 27) I believe that my soul will live on after I die, 28) I believe that the mind, body and soul are one, 29) I have a deep respect for all living things, 30) I understand myself spiritually, 31) I have a strong faith, 32) I am dedicated to my beliefs, 33) I am a caring person, 34) I am gentle, 35) I am an honest person, 36) I am in touch with my innermost thought, 37) I believe in God, 38) I am calm, 39) I am content, and 40) I am blessed. The questionnaires were administered to students at universities in their respective countries. In all cases, brief presentations about the study and the need for participants were made to classes by one of the researchers and/or a research assistant under the supervision of one of the researchers. Students who expressed interest in participating completed paper-and-pencil copies of the measures either during class time, during scheduled testing sessions, or were given hardcopies to complete and return to the researcher or research assistant. In Canada, the United States, India, and Uganda, the instrument was given in English. For all the remaining samples save Poland, the test was translated using the standard translation-back translation procedure. For the Polish sample, the test was translated using a committee approach wherein a number of people fluent in both English and Polish collaboratively worked to create the translation [92]. Along with the ESI-R, the SAL was also given to respondents in the Indian, and Ugandan samples and to approximately 300 of the American participants. All data gathering was completed in a manner consistent with standard ethical practices for questionnaire based psychometric research in place at the time of data collection. Approval was obtained prior to data collection either through established institutional research review committees/boards or through institutional officials when such committees did not exist. For the American data, approval was granted by the University of Detroit Mercy Institutional Review Board. For the Canadian data, approval was obtained from the University of Windsor Research Ethics Committee. For both samples, the first author (D.A.M.) was the primary researcher involved with data collection. For the Indian data, permission was obtained from chairpersons and administrative heads of the University of Mysore Faculties of Arts and Humanities, Commence and Management, Education, Law, and Science and Technology. Data collection was completed by the fifth author (K.K.K.S.). For the Japanese data, approval was granted by the Academy of Counseling Japan and the Saybrook University Institutional Review Board. Data gathering was done by research assistants supervised by the second author (H.L.F). For the Korean data, approval was obtained from the Seoul Graduate School of Counseling Psychology and Buddhism research committee. Data collection was done by the eighth author (H.W.C.). For the Polish data, approval was obtained from the Dean of Studies at Kardynał Stafan Wyszyński University. Data collection was done by the third author (J.B.). For the Slovakian data, approval was obtained from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Institutional Review Board and the University Vice Dean at Comenius Medical University. Data collection was completed by a research assistant under the supervision of the fourth (D. H.) and seventh authors (Z.O.G.). Finally, for the Ugandan data, approval was obtained from the Makerere University Institute of Psychology Higher Education Research Board. Data collection was completed by the sixth author (K. K. M.). For the American, Canadian, Indian, Japanese, Korean, and Ugandan samples, written informed consent was obtained prior to the completion of the questionnaires. For the Polish and Slovakian samples, informed consent was communicated verbally. In these instances, only individuals who gave verbal consent were provided with hardcopies of the questionnaires to complete. Verbal consent was considered sufficient by the boards and/or officials at all involved institutions for questionnaire based psychometric research. For all samples, participation was voluntary and no personal identifying information was obtained. The approach to analyzing data for this study was multi-tiered and involved looking at questionnaire scores at both the item and scale level and with the samples combined and separated. First, to ascertain the extent to which the ESI-R demonstrated face validity, responses to item 31 which asked participants to rate the extent to which they viewed the test as measuring spirituality were analyzed via ANOVA and examination of response frequencies. Next, descriptive statistics and reliabilities for the ESI-R items and dimension scores were calculated for all samples combined and then for each country sample separately. ESI-R scores at both item and scale levels were then examined as a function of country via ANOVA. These analyses were done in response to the recommendations of Byrne and Watkins [43] who suggested that examination of score differences across cultures should be included in any evaluation of measurement invariance. Since there is evidence that the ESI-R dimensions may differ as a function of age and sex of respondent [12, 18], product-moment correlations were next calculated with the ESI-R dimensions and these two participant variables across all country samples. Thereafter, inter-correlations between the ESI-R dimensions were computed. Next, both exploratory (EFA) and confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) were completed in order to assess the structural consistency and factor and measurement invariance of the ESI-R dimensions. Both approaches were employed in this study in response to issues raised regarding the use of confirmatory factor in the evaluation of personality inventories [94, 95]. In consideration of the fact that the original ESI was developed using an EFA approach very similar to that employed for creating measures of the Five Factor Model of personality [12, 76], these issues seemed to us to be applicable to this study. The utilization of CFA based techniques to assess structural and measurement invariance was done in a manner consistent with experts in the area of Structural Equation Modeling and CFA [42, 44, 45, 96]. Finally, the SAL was examined across American, Ugandan, and Indian samples using EFA to identify latent factors and to construct subscales based upon similar patterns of varimax rotated factor loadings. Reliabilities of the emergent subscales, subscale intercorrelations, and correlations with the ESI dimensions were then calculated.
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