INTRODUCTION

Spiritual well-being is not a religion as people thought, it is a belief, a

transcended and actualization of different dimensions and capacities of human

beings which includes a purposeful life. It relates to humans’ life-meaning and

once purpose. According to Scott (2022), spirituality is the board concept of a

belief in something beyond the self. It strives to answer questions about the

meaning of life, how people are connected to each other, truths about the

universe, and other mysteries of human existence. In addition, spirituality or

spiritual wellbeing is related to our sense of life-meaning and purpose. It can

include our connection to culture community, spirituality and/or religiosity and

includes the beliefs, values, mental, models, and ethics one hold.

While Puchalski, et al (2016) defined spirituality as a way or world that

humans use as an experience to relieve their stress or to connect with themselves,

to others or to other divine existences.

Anye 2013, and Musa 2015 cited in tandfonline (2016), the relationships

between the domains of spiritual well-being (meaning/peace, and faith), perceived

social support provided from different sources (families, friends, and significant

others) and life satisfaction. In the previous studies or research in the University

of Jordan majority of the university students moderate their high level of spiritual
well-being. It is reported that 64% of the University of Jordan students had high

levels of spiritual well-being. In Jordan, the high levels of spiritual well-being

among university students were associated with greater spiritual beliefs and

practices. Furthermore, Kneipp (2009) cited tandfonline (2016), also reported that

97.9% of university students in Jordan revealed that spirituality, religiosity, faith,

and meaning of life are important to students’ lives.

According to the Center for Diseases Control (2018), well-being is a

positive outcome that is meaningful for people and for many sectors of society,

because it tells us that people perceive that their lives are going well. Good living

conditions (e.g., housing, employment) are fundamental to well-being. Tracking

these conditions is important for public policy. However, many indicators that

measure living conditions fail to measure what people think and feel about their

lives, such as the quality of their relationships, their positive emotions and

resilience, the realization of their potential, or their overall satisfaction with life—

i.e., their “well-being.” Well-being generally includes global judgments of life

satisfaction and feelings ranging from depression to joy. While in

psychologytoday (2019), well-being is the experience of health, happiness, and

prosperity. It includes having good mental health, high life satisfaction, a sense of

meaning or purpose, and the ability to manage stress. More generally, well-being

is just feeling well. That it is something sought by just about everyone because it
includes so many positive things — feeling happy, healthy, socially connected,

and purposeful.

Spirituality is important to the wellbeing of senior high students because

being spiritually healthy can make them more knowledgeable and there is a

significance in terms of dealing or handling with their attitudes and beliefs. Also,

it is important to study the spirituality among the senior high school because there

is a bigger chance that they may be able to easily handle their attitudes and lastly,

spirituality is the one whom should they care or treasure the most in their lives

because according to the bible, Mark 8:36 “For what does it profit a man to gain

the whole world and forfeit his soul”. Which it means that having a wealthy life is

useless if you lost your soul.

As the researchers observed, majority of the other researchers are focusing

on the environment, community, society or to someone’s real-life situations.

There is rare research about spiritual wellbeing of a person or student. Thus, the

researchers sought to study the spirituality among the students and its effects to

their well-being. The contribution of the study to the school includes the

following: it can help to the enhancement of spirituality to the student’s lives. It

can also be used to discover if or student needs spiritual assistance. Aside from

the subject and from the teaching of the teachers. The school contributes or helps

the students by conducting masses that is held every now and then every
Thursday’s. And this said mass has already started among the automotive students

and should be adopted by other strands.

Conceptual Framework

The study is based on the concept that if the spirituality of the students is

healthy, the wellbeing of the students is as well healthy. This chapter presents the

concepts in the research. It also shows the scope and direction of the research.

Wellbeing

Well-being is the experience of health, happiness, and prosperity. It

includes having good mental health, high life satisfaction, a sense of meaning or

purpose and the ability to manage stress. It provides students with more

opportunities to connect with their “inner selves” facilitates growth in their

academic and leadership skills, contributes to their intellectual self-confidence

and psychological well-being, and enhances their satisfaction with life.

Students Well-being

It is stated by Edtechbooks (2018), that wellbeing improves students'

academic performance, behavior, social integration, and satisfaction. That is if a

student has a very stable and healthy well-being, they can be highly motivated on

doing schoolwork’s along with a strong, supportive relationships that provides the

students with the emotional resources to step out of their intellectual “comfort
zone” and to work along with different groups. Well-being improves teachers'

ability to interact with students, teach concepts, face challenges, and avoid

burnout. Which it means that a stable well-being can motivates each student while

studying. Also, teacher and students’ relationship will be deepened.

Spirituality

According to takingcharge (2016), spirituality is a broad concept with

room for many perspectives. In general, it includes a sense of connection to

something bigger than us, and it typically involves a search for meaning in life.

As such, it is a universal human experience—something that touches us all.

People may describe a spiritual experience as sacred or transcendent or simply a

deep sense of aliveness and interconnectedness.

According to Advenhealth (2018), spiritual wellness acknowledges the

search for a deeper meaning of life. As to which if the spirituality is in a much

healthy way, it can be connected to not only to those in a much higher power, but

to those around us and they are accurate when it comes to making everyday

choices and the actions becomes more consistent with their own belief and value.

In addition, spirituality relates to the student’s sense of life-meaning and

purpose. It also includes the connection to culture, community, spirituality and/or

religiosity and includes the beliefs, values, mental models, and ethics we hold

teachintheterritory (2018).
 Spirituality and Students

According to University of Wisconsin (2023), growth in spiritual qualities

such as composure, ethical caring and ecumenical worldview; to which its extents

the interest in different religions tradition, seeks to understand other countries and

culture. It as well enhances students' academic achievement and personal

development with high learning motivation.

Figure 1 shows the diagram about the relation of the well-being of the

students to spirituality which it means that the researchers will know the

relationship of the well-being of the senior high to their spirituality that it includes

the determining what is the important of spirituality to the senior high students to

their spirituality and the challenges they encountered as well as to the contribution

of the school in enhancing their spiritual lives into their well-being.

Independent Variable Dependent Variable

Wellbeing of the Senior High Spirituality
Students

Figure 1 Paradigm of the study.

 Statement of the Problem

This study aims on finding the importance of spirituality to the well-being

of the senior high students in Sto. Tomas National High School. It sought to

answer these following questions:

1. What is the importance of spirituality to the well-being of senior

high students?

2. What challenges do senior high students encounter in relation to

the enhancement of their spiritual life inside and outside the school

campus?

3. What are the contributions of the school to the enhancement of the

student’s spiritual lives?

 METHODOLOGY

This chapter describes the research design and methods that the

researchers used to conduct the research. It includes the population and locale of

the study, the procedure of data collection, and interpretation.

Research Design

This study conducted a quantitative correlation research design which can

be relational and predictive. According to the University of Phoenix (2023),

quantitative correlation research is used in cases when there is an interest to

identify the existence, strength, and direction of relationships between two

variables and used in cases when there is an interest to identify predictive

relationship between the predictor and the outcome/criterion variable.

In addition, quantitative correlational measures two or more relevant

variables and assess a relationship between or among them (University of

Saskatchewan, 2019).

According to wallstreetmojo (2023) quantitative research refers to the

systematic investigation in the case in which a person doing the researcher

collects the data from the different respondents that are based on numerical

figures and data obtained is then analyzed for obtaining the results using different

mathematical, statistical, and computational tools. Which it means that the

research will go through some computation and math matters.

This study used non-probability sampling which is convenience sampling

where the researchers will just give it to the person who is available to be

surveyed. Research Methodology (2011) defined convenience sampling as a

method where the first available primary data source will be used for the research

without additional requirements which it means that the researchers would only

use the first main data that was gathered or focuses only to the target respondents

of the research.

Population and Locale

The participants in this research are the Senior High School students in

Sto. Tomas National High School, where there are 2 tracks Technical-Vocation-

Livelihood Track (TVL) and Academic which includes the following: 11 and 12

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) which it had 16 and 10

students in each strand; 11and 12 Science, Technology, Engineering, and

Mathematics (STEM) which it had 9 and 20 students per strand ; 11 and 12

AUTOMOTIVE which it had 29 and 43 students per strand; 11 and 12

Humanities and Social Sciences (HUMSS) which it had 36 and 41 students per

strand; 11 and 12 Home Economics (HE) which it had 23 and 22 students per

strand; With a total population of 249 students. To know the number of

participants, the researchers will be utilizing the slovin’s formula.

The formula:

249 249 249 249

n= n= n= n=
1+249 ( 0.09 )
2 1+249 (0.0081) 1+2.0169 3.0169

n=82

The study was conducted at Sto. Tomas National High School, Baguio

City. Inside STNHS, there are a total of 8 buildings, but the researchers senior

high school respondents are in the 4 buildings which in building’s 3,4,6 and 7,

where the Plate. 1 shows Sto. Tomas National High School. A public secondary

Plate 1. A satellite image of Sto. Tomas National High School

(wikimapia).
school located at Apugan, Barangay Sto. Tomas, Baguio City, Philippines.

According to wikimapia (2013), Sto. Tomas National High School is one of the

annexes of Baguio City National High School, but it now has become an

independent high school in 2013.

Plate 2. An image of building 3 where Plate 3. An image of building 6

grade 11 and 12-HUMSS, 11 and 12- where 11 and 12 -AUTOMOTIVE

STEM, 11 and 12-ICT, and 11-HE are located.

learners are located.

Plate 2 shows the building 3 of the senior high students. While in Plate 3, shows

the first floor in building 6 where the grades 11 and 12 automotive takes their

classes.

Data Collection Instrument

 A survey questionnaire is the main instrument that the researchers used to

accumulate data. The conductors made a questionnaire where the importance of

spirituality to the well-being of the students will be calculated. The first part of

the survey is the profile of the subjects, the second part is the importance of well-

being to the spirituality of the students, the third part is the challenges that the

students encounter in relation to their enhancement inside and outside of the

school campus, and the contribution of the school to the enhancement of student’s

spiritual life.

Data Collection Procedure

The researchers used survey questionnaires in gathering the needed

information for the research. Since the questionnaires is constructed by the

researchers, the researchers now already validated the questionnaires by the

validators. The researchers made a letter that is addressed to the respondents as to

why the study is being conducted.

The distribution process was handled by giving the survey questionnaires

to the respondents personally and it was answered according to their will. The

process was distributed randomly to the respondents that are available or

accessible. After answering the questionnaires, it was retrieved for the tallying of

data that was translated and interpreted.

Treatment of Data

The gathered data were computed, analyzed, interpreted, and transcribed

to present the relationship between the spirituality and importance of spirituality

to the well-being of the senior high students.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

This chapter discusses the results of the study. Below are the results and

findings after the survey questionnaires were gathered, tallied, and interpreted. It

discusses the importance of spirituality to the well-being of the SHS students, the

challenges encountered in relation to the enhancement of their spiritual life in and

outside the school campus and the contributions of the school to the enhancement

of the student’s spiritual lives.

The Importance of Spirituality to the Well-being of the Senior High School

Students

University of Wisconsin (2023), the importance of spirituality to the well-

being of the students enhances the students' academic achievement and personal

development. Spiritual wellness includes having compassion, the capacity for

love and forgiveness, altruism, joy, and fulfillment in addition, by

rollinggreenvillage (2018). Table 1 presents the importance of spirituality among

the senior high school students in Sto. Tomas National High School. Among the

listed importance of spirituality, the highest is the enhancement of academic

achievements of the students which gained 63.41%. Which shows that students

being spiritually well are highly motivated on learning and highly active on

academic achievements and it is stated by EPRA Journals (2022), spirituality has

been found to have a positive effect on academic performance of students because

highly spiritual students are associated with high learning motivation. The second

highest is spiritual health and important to the student’s well-being which gained

59.75%, which indicates that students are aware that having a healthy spirituality

can affect their well-being in which it has a protective effect and acts against

stress and leads to gain physical and psychological healthy life and supportive

behaviors, having goal and meaning in life, hopefulness, optimism and improves

individuals psychological.

Very Important Not Not Very RA

Important Important Important NK
1. Spiritual well-being and 52 27 1 (1.21%) 2 1
enhancement of academic (63.41%) (32.92%) (2.43%)
achievements.
2. Spiritual well-being and 46 35 1 (1.21%) 4
improving mental health. (56.09%) (42.68%)
3. Spiritual well and enhancing 43 36 3 (3.65%) 5
self-esteem. (52.43%) (43.90%)
4. Spiritual and important in 47 32 3 (3.65%) 3
well-being. (57.31%) (39.02%)
5. Spiritual health and 49 28 3 (3.65%) 2 2
important to well-being. (59.75%) (34.14%) (2.43%)
Table 1. Importance of spirituality to the well-being of the senior high students.

The Challenges that the Senior High Students Encounter in Relation to the
Enhancement to their Spiritual Life Inside and Outside the School Campus

The challenges that the senior high students encounter in relation to the

enhancement to their spiritual life inside and outside the school campus is their

spiritual struggles. According to Bowling State University (2021) some of the

college students had one of the spiritual problems that has received considerable

attention is spiritual problems. This means that major life stressor affects people

not only psychologically, socially, and physically, but spiritually as well. Spiritual

struggles in coping represents efforts to protect or transform peoples’ relationship

with whatever they hold sacred, including the connection to God/Higher Power,

their spiritual identity, and the connections to a religious community. The table 2

shows the results of the challenges encountered by the senior high school

students. Among the listed challenges the highest challenges that student’s

encounter is the differences in discussion about their own faith or beliefs which

gained 60.97%. This indicates that whenever there are discussions about a certain

belief others tend to seem to be knowledgeable than the believer itself, hence it

causes misunderstanding and miscommunication on both sides. The second

highest challenge among the students is the misunderstanding of religion sect that

gained 56.09%. According to PRESSBOOKS (2023) that another form of

religious violence is between completely different religions. Wars between

Muslims and Christians or Hindus and Buddhists have been framed as wars for

the benefit or detriment of particular religions. What is described as religious

strife, however, is often not. Although some religions are fighting over doctrinal

differences, most conflict stems from more secular causes a desire for political

power, a struggle for resources, ethnic rivalries, and economic competition which

it makes some people go through physical abuse and it led them to

misunderstanding with each other.

# of BLANK RANK
CHECKED
1. Hard to find a church goer friend. 32 (39.02%) 50 (60.97%) 3
2. Bullied because majority of the 10 (12.19%) 72 (87.80%) 5
students is not in the same religious
sect.
3. Misunderstanding of religions. 46 (56.09%) 36 (43.90%) 2
4. Verbal bullying(clothing). 17 (20.73%) 65 (79.26%) 4
5. Differences when you discuss your 50 (60.97%) 32 (39.02%) 1
faith or beliefs to others.
Table 2. The challenges that the senior high students encounter in relation to the

enhancement to their spiritual life inside and outside the school campus.

The Contributions of the School to the Enhancement of the Student’s Spiritual

Lives
 The contribution of the school to the enhancement of the student’s

spiritual lives starts with the lesson taking part from elementary to the secondary

level wherein there is the Edukasyon sa Pagpapakatao (ESP) subject. There is also

in the senior high level in the strand of HUMSS which we have the World

Religion subject. Also, there are activities that are conducted by the Supreme

Student Government and the other clubs like scrapbooking, sharing of bible

verses which spirituality is well understood into their well-being, which it means

that the research of the researchers helps to know the different activities that was

conducted, and it helps the senior high school students improve their spiritual

well-being. Table 3 shows the given suggestion by the respondents that the school

contributes to the enhancement of the student’s spiritual lives of the senior high

students. Most of the suggestions of the respondents is to have mass in every

Thursdays 3:00-4:00 P.M with 19. 51%, which indicates that the senior high

school students engage in activities which help the students in enhancing their

spiritual lives. And the least suggested is sharing of Bible verses with 3.65%

which is where some of the students are being informed and aware in the sharing

of bible verses every flag ceremony and shared through social media that was

implemented by the SSG and Kabataang Sektor ng Pambansang Samahan sa

Edukasyon sa Pagpapahalaga (KPSEP).

RESPONDENTS SUGGESTIONS PERCENTAGE RANK

Mass 16 (19.51%) 1
Bible Study 14 (17.07%) 2
 Scrapbooking 10 (12.19%) 3
Prayer in class 6 (7.31%) 4
Prayer (every flag ceremony) 5 (6.09%) 5
Sharing of Bible verses 3 (3.65%) 6

# OF RESPONDENTS WHO LEFT IT BLANK PERCENTAGE RANK

1. 37 out of 82 45.12% 3
2. 63 out of 82 76.82% 2
3. 73 out of 82 89.02% 1
Table 3. The contributions of the school to the enhancement of the student’s

spiritual lives.

CONCLUSION

Based on the gathered data from the study, the following conclusion were

drawn:

1. Most of the senior high students were aware of their spiritual well-

being. Most of the respondents are believer’s regardless of

different religious sects.

2. Most of the senior high students face different challenges in

relation to their spiritual well-being such as; misunderstanding of

religious beliefs; hard to find a church goer friend; bullied because

 of the different religious sect; verbal bullying (clothing);

differences when discuss the faith and/or beliefs to others.

3. Most of the senior high students are highly aware on the

contributions of the school in enhancing students’ spiritual well-

being.

Recommendation

1. The researchers recommend that the students should be more

familiar with the different activities that were implemented inside

the school campus, especially when it comes to their faith. With

this, teachers should encourage students to participate in religious

activities conducted by the school and school clubs.

2. The researchers recommend that the student must be also familiar

on the SSG and different Club organizations in relation religious

activities. Thus, the SSG should encourage students to participate

in these activities by giving rewards.

3. The researchers recommend that the teachers must also read this

type of research for them to know what is happening into the

spiritual state of their students and for them to guide their learners

in improving and/or enhancing their spiritual lives.

 4. Future researchers can adapt this type of research to evaluate if

there are changes and/or differences between the result of this

research to theirs’. Other researchers can conduct the same

research to other schools in Baguio City to discover the spiritual

well-being of students.

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