• Chun Cheong Steve Fong (Macao Polytechnic Institute)
• Hok Ko Pong (Technological and Higher Education Institute of Hong Kong)

This study aims to examine the relationship between the spiritual well-being of university students (major in Accounting) in Macau and their academic successes measured by Cumulative Grade-Point Average (CGPA) using quantitative method. The research consists of 101 accounting students from a tertiary institute in Macau. There are 47 male students and 54 female students. 17 of them are from China, and 84 of them are Macau students. The questionnaire is adapted from the Spiritual Health and Life-Orientation Measure (SHALOM) developed by Gomez and Fisher (2003). A five-point Likert-type scale is used for the 20 questionnaire items in four specific domains: (1) personal, (2) communal, (3) environmental, and (4) transcendental. The score for five questions in each domain ranges from ‘very high’ (5) to ‘very low’ (1). A comparison and analysis of this study with a large scale (n= 1,130) of the similar study carried out by Pong (2017) in Hong Kong would be conducted.

To test the reliability and validity of the research instrument – SHALOM, cronbach’s coefficient alpha and principal component analysis (PCA) have been conducted.  The domains, namely, personal (α = 0.796), communal (α = 0.852), environmental (α = 0.847), and transcendental (α = 0.847), are over 0.7 alpha values, which exceed the critical watershed value.  These scores are highly reliable.   PCA using SPSS version 22 is adopted to analyse the data.  The Kaiser-Meyer-Okin value was 0.94, which exceeded the recommended minimum value 0.6 (Kaiser, 1974).

A hierarchal multiple regression model indicates that among the four domains of SHALOM (peronnal, communal, environmental, transcendental), the personal domain of SHALOM and the demographic data were significant predicators of student performance.  Results indicate a positive relationship the personal domain of the respondents and their academic performance.   The personal domain measures attributes as sense of identity, self-awareness, joy in love, inner peace, and meaning in life of the respondents.  Besides the personal domain, demographic factors like father job level and mother academic level exercise positive contribution to the student’s CGPA.  Yet student working experience plays a negative role towards the CGPA.  The findings of this support the survey findings and contribute to the exploration of how students’ personal domain and their demographic background are correlated.   The other SHALOM domains as environmental and transcendental are found in the resulting positive correlation with the CGPA.

Personal Domain
The majority of the academically outstanding students tend to show good spirits and characters, such as confidence, satisfaction and fulfilment. In contrast, most of academically weaker students may tend to show their lowest spiritual well-being in the personal domain compared with others.

Academically outstanding students are champions in their learning and their growth.  So, they most are assured, optimistic and joyful in life. These students seem to show their highest spiritual well-being in the personal domain. Some of specific features are found, for instance, enthusiastic, self-restraint and concentration.

Nevertheless, academically weak students always get the worst results and they are easily considered as failed learners.  Thus, they can easily get loss in their learning and have pessimistic feelings. These students tend to show their lowest spiritual well-being.

Average students are in between academically outstanding and weak students, so they are always compared with the students in these two groups. They could easily tend to have jealous, discriminatory and suspicious states of emotion. Thus, they tend to have low spiritual abilities and understanding.

This study displays positive relationship and significant difference among university students’ spiritual well-being in the personal domain as a result of their different CGPA. This finding is consistent with the studies by Flannery (2012), Pong (2016; 2017) Walker and Dixon (2002). 

Author Profile(s)
Dr Fong Chun Cheong, Steve, is the Associate Professor at School of Business of Macao Polytechnic Institute in Macau.  He has got 20s years’ experience in teaching Accounting, Finance, and Management at tertiary levels, and brought up numerous graduates who now work in Accounting and Business fields in Macau, Hong Kong, China and overseas.  His major research interests include behavioral aspects of Management Accounting, Accounting Information Management, Accounting Education and Corporate Governance.

Dr. Pong Hok Ko, Joe, is a teaching fellow at Faculty of Management and Hospitality, Technological and Higher Education Institute of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.  He earned his EDD at the Education University of Hong Kong. His research interests include life and value education, spirituality and holistic education.