Spirituality as a scientific construct: testing its universality across cultures and languages.
Using data obtained from 4004 participants across eight countries (Canada, India, Japan, Korea, Poland, Slovakia, Uganda, and the U.S.), the factorial reliability, validity and structural/measurement invariance of a 30-item version of Expressions of Spirituality Inventory (ESI-R) was evaluated. The ESI-R measures a five factor model of spirituality developed through the conjoint factor analysis of several extant measures of spiritual constructs. Exploratory factor analyses of pooled data provided evidence that the five ESI-R factors are reliable. Confirmatory analyses comparing four and five factor models revealed that the five dimensional model demonstrates superior goodness-of-fit with all cultural samples and suggest that the ESI-R may be viewed as structurally invariant. Measurement invariance, however, was not supported as manifested in significant differences in item and dimension scores and in significantly poorer fit when factor loadings were constrained to equality across all samples. Exploratory analyses with a second adjective measure of spirituality using American, Indian, and Ugandan samples identified three replicable factors which correlated with ESI-R dimensions in a manner supportive of convergent validity. The paper concludes with a discussion of the meaning of the findings and directions needed for future research.
University of Detroit Mercy, Detroit, Michigan, United States of America.
Douglas A
DA
MacDonald
University of Florida, Gainsville, Florida, United States of America.
Harris L
HL
Friedman
Veteran Affairs and University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, United States of America.
Jacek
J
Brewczynski
The Neurobehavior Center of Minnesota, Edina, Minnesota, United States of America.
Daniel
D
Holland
University of Mysore and Indian Council of Social Sciences Research, New Delhi, Manasagangotri, Mysore, India.
Kiran Kumar K
KK
Salagame
Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda and Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand.
K Krishna
KK
Mohan
University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, Arkansas, United States of America.
Zuzana Ondriasova
ZO
Gubrij
Dongwoo Fine-Chem Co., Ltd. Mental Health Center, Pyeong Taek-Si, Gyeonggi-Do, South Korea.
Hye Wook
HW
Cheong
D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D029181:Spirituality; D055815:Young Adult