Trevor Moodley

Factor Analysis of the Spiritual Well-being Questionnaire Using a Sample of South African Adolescents

AbstractIn 2003 Gomez and Fisher developed the Spiritual Well-being Questionnaire (SWBQ) based on a theoretical model of spiritual well-being proposed by Fisher. According to Fisher, spiritual well-being comprises the personal, communal, environmental and transcendental domains, which are interrelated and cohere to create a global spiritual well-being dimension. Their study showed that the SWBQ was reliable and valid. A further study in 2005 using item response theory analysis of the SWBQ suggested general support for the psychometric properties of the SWBQ. However, there were indications that certain items in the questionnaire needed to be improved. The present study was undertaken to do a factor analysis of the SWBQ using a sample of South African adolescents to gauge its suitability. Gomez and Fisher’s recommendation was considered and certain items were added to the SWBQ for factor analysis with the aim of replacing some of the original items. The factor structure that was found in this study corresponds with that in Gomez and Fisher’s study. Acceptable coefficients of internal consistency for the different subscales (factors) and for the global score of the SWBQ were found. Moreover, in line with Gomez and Fisher’s recommendation, this revised SWBQ scale seems to have been improved in terms of its psychometric properties and appears to be a reliable instrument in measuring the spiritual well-being of adolescents.

The Ways in Which Adolescents Cope and their Relationship to Age, Gender and Specific Religious Variables

This study investigated the roles of age, gender, the importance of religion/spirituality, attending church activities and frequency of prayer on the types of adolescents’ coping strategies. Participants were drawn from ten public high schools. Data on coping strategies, personal variables and religiosity and spirituality were collected using the Adolescent Coping Orientation for Problem Experiences (A-COPE) coping inventory. Scheffé posthoc tests were used to evaluate associations between the coping strategies used by adolescents and the identified personal and faith-oriented variables. Gender and age explained some differences in types of coping strategies preferred. Specifically, females used the developing social support coping strategy more than males; older adolescents used the avoiding problems coping strategy more than younger adolescents. Adolescents for whom religion/spirituality is of lesser importance, obtained a significantly higher mean score for the avoiding problems subscale. Both personal variables (age and gender) as well as one of the faith-oriented variables (importance of religion) were identified as important role players in using developing social support and avoiding problems as coping strategies by adolescents.

Crossing the Border: Science Student Teachers Using Role-play in Grade 7

Drama is used to build knowledge and understanding in science as part of a socio-linguistic, constructivist approach. Role-plays, where learners act as analogues for components and processes, help access abstract ideas. However, a problem restricting many science teachers using these approaches has been that they lack sufficient pedagogical knowledge of drama. Our question was, therefore, to what extent do student teachers who are science majors make the necessary ‘pedagogical border crossings’ from drama into their personal pedagogies for science? We observed and recorded the lessons of six volunteers who taught science using drama in grade 7. Our analysis of lesson features that are critical for successful outcomes, based on an adapted version of Tripps critical incident method, and student teacher interviews show that role-plays can be powerful border-crossing objects between science and the arts. Findings show that some development is needed to link learners’ actions to concepts and provide more suitable analogues and sufficient learner autonomy. We see drama as an important tool in science teaching and suggest conditions necessary for the initial training of science teachers that could make them better users of drama as role-play to teach science.