Primary validation of Children Spiritual Intelligence Scale in a sample of Latvian elementary school pupils

ABSTRACT

The paper aims to describe the development of the Children Spiritual Intelligence Scale (CSIS), focusing on the stage of primary validation of the scale. Based on the five components of the theoretical model (Creation and awareness of personal meaning, Self-understanding, Mastery of self-control, Awareness of personal authenticity and uniqueness, and Social mastery), a 63-item scale with validated content was developed to measure children’s spiritual intelligence. The validation sample consisted of 200 pupils from grades 1–4 representing comprehensive education schools situated in different regions of Latvia. The exploration resulted with the psychometric properties of CSIS, showing the item difficulty and discrimination indices of items, interpretation of the factorial structure and internal reliability of the scale. The final set of 23 CSIS items, measuring children spiritual intelligence in a framework of a one-factor model with four included subcomponents, showed acceptable psychometric properties, enabling to pursue the next steps of scale development.

KEYWORDS:

• CSIS
• elementary school pupils
• primary validation
• spiritual intelligence

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to all the teachers who assisted us in the data collection, managing the questionnaire completion process in their classes.

Ethics approvals

The study involving human participants were reviewed and approved by the Scientific Council of Daugavpils University, Daugavpils, Latvia, Protocol No12.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ina Grasmane

Ina Grasmane holder of master’s degree in psychology, currently the doctoral student at the Faculty of Social Sciences at the Daugavpils University. Head of the ‘House of Love’ of the General Education Private School and psychologist – therapeutic counsellor. Research interests: educational psychology, spiritual development, and well-being, spiritual development of children. Address: Daugavpils University, Parādes 1, Daugavpils, LV 5401, Latvia. Phone number: [phone], Email: [email protected]

Vitālijs Raščevskis

Vitālijs Raščevskis – Dr. psych. is a docent at the Psychology Department of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the Daugavpils University, sertified psychologist. Research interests: social identity, identity of researcher, social representations,social communication theory, quantitative methodology of scientific research. Address: Daugavpils University, Parādes 1, Daugavpils, LV 5401, Latvia. Phone number: [phone], Email: [email protected]

Anita Pipere

Anita Pipere – Dr. psych., is a professor of Psychology and senior researcher at the Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Daugavpils University, Latvia, an expert in Psychology and Pedagogy and member of the Committee of Social Science experts at the Latvian Council of Science. Research interests: the identity of the teacher, identity of researcher, education for sustainable development. constructivism, teacher beliefs, dialogical self, health psychology, educational psychology. Address: Daugavpils University, Parādes 1, Daugavpils, LV 5401, Latvia. Phone number: [phone]. Email: [email protected]