An Evaluation of the Spiritual Well-Being Scale: Reliability and Response Measurement

The Spiritual Well-Being Scale (SWB) is a 20 item self-report attitudinal measure of one\u27s religious and existential well-being. It is the most extensively studied of the instruments developed to measure spiritual well-being (Moberg, 1986). Despite the popularity of this scale, it is still in the process of research and development. This study evaluated research done with the SWB scale considering the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (1985). While there has been much progress, two needs that became clear from this examination were for additional studies in the area of reliability and to try to raise the ceiling of the scale because scores tend to cluster near the maximum, especially for highly religious populations. Censored scores are undesirable because they limit interpretation and practical use. This dissertation co:1ducted three studies. The first study designed a, new rating scale with more opportunity for score variability. This study tested the new scale with evangelical Christians looking at correlations with other religious measures and comparing it with the original rating scale. The second study investigated test-retest and internal consistency reliability coefficients for both versions of the rating scale. The second study used two samples: community college students and a Baptist church. Finally, a third study examined internal consistency coefficients and other descriptive data from previously collected data using the original scale. The three samples in this study were (a) Conservative Baptists in Oregon, (b) a church in Salem, OR, and (c) Chinese American Christians in the Northwest. Results supported the initial reliability studies for the scale, suggesting the scale is satisfactory in this area. The experimental scale was equivalent in many respects to the original including correlations with other measures, reliability coefficients, and measures of central tendency and variability. It did not alter the basic shape of the score distribution enough to be of practical significance. There is a need for more research in this area so the scale can discriminate among persons in highly religious populations

\u3ci\u3ePenstemon\u3c/i\u3e ‘Dark Towers’

Penstemon Mitch. (Plantaginaceae Juss. formerly Scrophulariaceae Juss.) is a genus of plants with ≈ 271 species that can be found from low deserts to high alpine areas (Lindgren and Wilde, 2003; Wolfe et al., 2006). It is one of the largest genera of North American wildflowers. Some Penstemon are easy to grow; others are very challenging to maintain (Lindgren and Wilde, 2003). Numerous selections of Penstemon have been named and released (Lindgren, 2006) and many crosses between species have been attempted (Lindgren and Schaaf, 2007). New Penstemon selections are needed that combine valuable traits of multiple species and cultivars. Several nurseries have also expressed the desire to have a plant similar to Penstemon digitalis Nutt. ‘Husker Red’ only with purple and/or red flowers instead of white flowers. Origin A cross was made in 1995 between Penstemon digitalis Nutt. ‘Husker Red’ (Lindgren, 1984) with the pollen parent Penstemon ‘Prairie Splendor’ (Penstemon cobaea Nutt. ×Penstemon triflorus A. Heller) (Lindgren, 1993). Three selections were made in 1997 out of the resultant population of seedlings, DM1, DM2, and DM3. All three selections displayed darker fall foliage color than the parent ‘Husker Red’ and were more similar in appearance to ‘Husker Red’ than ‘Prairie Splendor’. The plants were evaluated in field plots until 2003. In 2004, plants of the three selections were evaluated in an additional site at Canby, OR. Selection DM1 was selected and given the cultivar name ‘Dark Towers’. The name ‘Dark Towers’ was selected because after flowering is complete, the flower stalks have dark stems and seed pods, darker than Penstemon ‘Husker Red’. The flowers of ‘Dark Towers’ are pink–lavender rather than white as found in ‘Husker Red’. A comparison of traits of the parents, ‘Husker Red’ and ‘Prairie Splendor’, with ‘Dark Towers’ is found in Table 1

Seeking the Local Convergence Depth. I. TF Observations of the Clusters A168, A397, A569, A1139, A1228, and A1983

We present first results of an all-sky observing program designed to improve the quality of the I band Tully-Fisher (TF) template and to obtain the reflex motion of the Local Group with respect to clusters to z = 0.06. We are obtaining between 5 and 15 TF measurements per cluster on a sample of 50 clusters at intermediate redshifts (0.02 < z < 0.06). Presentation of the data for seven Abell clusters of galaxies is given here. This data incorporates methods for estimating the true inclination of a spiral disk, an observational parameter undervalued for small angular-sized galaxies or for galaxies observed in poor seeing conditions.Comment: 21 pages, uses AAS LaTeX, 3 tables and 8 postscript figures (only first page of fig. 6 included in this version); to appear in the Astronomical Journa