section_path: Scientific research/Measurement
section_name: Measurement
paragraph_text: Measurement
  
  Considerable debate persists about – among other factors – spirituality's relation to religion, the number and content of its dimensions, its relation to concepts of well-being, and its universality. A number of research groups have developed instruments which attempt to measure spirituality quantitatively, including unidimensional (e.g. the Character Strength Inventory—Spirituality and the Daily Spiritual Experiences Scale) and multi-dimensional (e.g. Spiritual Transcendence Scale (STS) and the Brief Multidimensional Measure of Religiousness/Spirituality (BMMRS)) scales. MacDonald et al. gave an "Expressions of Spirituality Inventory" (ESI-R) measuring five dimensions of spirituality to over 4000 persons across eight countries. The study results and interpretation highlighted the complexity and challenges of measurement of spirituality cross-culturally.