Andi Anto Patak

Spiritual group training for adolescences: Investigating the effect of group training on spiritual well-being

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of spiritual group training on improving the spiritual well-being (SWB) among adolescences. The SWB is one of the factors that determines adolescences’ positive behavior. A number of previous studies have supported that spirituality and juvenile delinquency were negatively correlated. The level of SWB is mostly influenced by the peers’ group interaction and the role of others in the environment. Design/methodology/approach The authors developed a Spiritual Group Training by utilizing a number of relevant literature. The authors constructed the training using the meaning of life, values of life, life goals, life connections, and relation to God. In order to yield empirical evidence, the authors performed a pre- and post-test experimental design. The study recruited 26 randomly selected students from five high schools. The authors adapted a 13-item SWB scale to measure the participants’ SWB. Findings The results showed that Spiritual Group Training significantly improved participants’ SWB (t=9.71, p<0.001). The results confirmed the study hypothesis that spiritual group training enhanced adolescences’ SWB. Research limitations/implications Designing a proper intervention and evaluation was a challenging task for the authors. In this study, the authors evaluated the training by utilizing a simple pre- and post-test design. Future investigations should employ a different evaluation design. Originality/value Most studies support the notion that spirituality is negatively correlated with adolescence’s negative behavior. However, only a few, if any, investigations have focused on developing certain training focusing on SWB. This study contributed an important idea on the use of SWB to develop adolescence SWB.