Investigation of Prospective Teachers' Spiritual Well-Beings and Life Satisfactions in Terms of Specified Variables

Bunyamin Cetinkaya

doi:10.12973/ijem.6.4.691

Abstract

<p style="text-align:justify">This study was conducted to investigate prospective teachers' spiritual well-beings and life satisfactions in terms of specified variables. 298 students from various departments of universities participated in the study. The Spiritual Well-Being Scale developed by Paloutzian and Ellison, and adapted to Turkish by Eksi and Kardas, the Life Satisfaction Scale developed by Diener et al. and translated and adapted to Turkish by Koker and a Personal Information Form prepared by the researcher were used in the study. This study was a descriptive study based on survey model. The study data were subjected to normality tests and analyzed accordingly. Mann Whitney U Test, Kruskal-Wallis H Test and Spearman Rho correlation coefficient were used to analyze the data. Results of the study, indicated that spiritual well-being levels of prospective teachers significantly varied by gender, year of study, field of study and educational status of father. Life satisfaction levels of prospective teachers significantly varied by field of study. Furthermore, there was a moderate positive correlation between total score for spiritual well-being and life satisfaction.</p>

Highlights

Spirituality has been accepted as an important element in the science of psychology, of well-being since the 1970s
The Spiritual Well-Being Scale developed by Paloutzian and Ellison, and adapted to Turkish by Eksi and Kardas, the Life Satisfaction Scale developed by Diener et al and translated and adapted to Turkish by Koker and a Personal Information Form prepared by the researcher were used in the study
This study aimed to address the relationship between spiritual well-being levels and life satisfaction of prospective teachers

Summary

Introduction

Spirituality has been accepted as an important element in the science of psychology, of well-being since the 1970s. The reason for that is the presence of spiritual needs in human life and that psychology, in turn, cannot remain indifferent to the effects of such needs as a research subject. The reason for the fact that spiritual well-being has become the subject of research recently is that World Health Organization recognizes spirituality, along with physical, psychological and social health, as an important indicator of health. “Maneviyat” (Spirituality) in Turkish, recognized as an indicator of health, is essentially a word of Arabic origin which means "something that can be perceived by senses, the opposite of material, and the unseen". Myers et al (2000) describe spirituality as an awareness of force or presence beyond the material structure of life, a human characteristic that involves an inherent sense of loyalty and integrity toward the universe, in which aspect they say spirituality is existential. Bash (2004), who described the concept of spirituality as nontheistic, theistic and the form between nontheistic and theistic, brought a different perspective to this discussion

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