Comparing levels of spiritual well-being and support among pre-service teachers in Hong Kong and Australia

A Chinese version of the Spiritual Health And Life-Orientation Measure (SHALOM) developed in this study was shown to be a sound measure of spiritual well-being (SWB) in which 573 pre-service teachers from Hong Kong reported slightly lower levels of relating with themselves and other people, in Personal and Communal SWB, but higher levels of Environmental and Transcendental SWB compared with a group of 557 similar pre-service teachers at the University of Ballarat, Australia. Using regression analyses, investigation of the relationships between levels of spiritual well-being and helps revealed very similar results in explaining variance for each of the four domains, as well as overall spiritual well-being, for these two groups. Prayer, nature and being happy contributed most to explanation of variance in spiritual well-being in both groups; helping others, friends, self-improvement, music, walks and other religious activities contributed variously as well. Common principles undergirded support provided for both groups of pre-service teachers' spiritual well-being. It was just a matter of degree as to how much they applied. SHALOM revealed more similarities than differences in spiritual well-being in these two groups of pre-service teachers, even though they were separated culturally and linguistically. These results do, however, raise questions about the efficacy of these pre-service teachers to adequately address school students' spiritual well-being.