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Spirituality as a scientific construct: testing its universality across cultures and languages
Douglas A MacDonald1, Harris L Friedman2, Jacek Brewczynski3
1University of Detroit Mercy, Detroit, Michigan, United States of America.
Plos One
|March 4, 2015
Summary
The Expressions of Spirituality Inventory (ESI-R) shows reliable and structurally invariant factors across cultures, though measurement invariance was not fully supported. This study validates a key spirituality assessment tool globally.
Area of Science:
- Psychology
- Cross-cultural psychology
- Psychometrics
Background:
- Spirituality is a complex construct with various measurement tools.
- The Expressions of Spirituality Inventory-Revised (ESI-R) is a 30-item measure assessing a five-factor model of spirituality.
- Cross-cultural validation is crucial for psychological instruments.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate the factorial reliability, validity, and structural/measurement invariance of the ESI-R across eight countries.
- To confirm the five-factor structure of spirituality measured by the ESI-R.
- To assess the cross-cultural applicability of the ESI-R.
Main Methods:
- Utilized data from 4004 participants across Canada, India, Japan, Korea, Poland, Slovakia, Uganda, and the U.S.
- Conducted exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses on the ESI-R.
- Performed cross-cultural comparisons to assess structural and measurement invariance.
Main Results:
- The five ESI-R factors demonstrated reliability and structural invariance across cultural samples.
- The five-factor model showed superior fit compared to a four-factor model.
- Measurement invariance was not supported due to significant differences in item and dimension scores across samples.
Conclusions:
- The ESI-R is a reliable and structurally invariant measure of spirituality across diverse cultures.
- While structural invariance is supported, further research is needed to address measurement invariance issues.
- Findings support the convergent validity of the ESI-R with other spirituality measures.
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