Description
The 16-item DSES is included as part of the NIA/Fetzer Multidimensional Measure of Religiousness/
Spirituality booklet (1999). The DSES assesses common daily religious experiences of relationship with God or
the transcendent, and positive feelings such as deep inner peace or harmony, sense of connection with others,
and self-less caring, which many describe as spiritual feelings. There is both a 16-item form (contained within the
MMRS booklet) and a 6-item short version. Response options range on a 6-point Likert-type scale from 1 ‘many
times a day’ to 6 ‘never or almost never,’ except for item 16, where the response range is 1 ‘not at all close’ to
4 ‘as close as possible.’ After reverse scoring of item16, summing the scores gives a range of 16 /C092 for the 16-
item scale. Lower scores indicate more daily spiritual experiences.
Sample
Four samples were involved in establishing the psychometrics of the DSES: 233 adult women from across the
U.S. (60% Caucasian, 53% Catholic and 39% Protestant, mean age 47 years), 45 patients with arthritis pain from
Ohio, 122 adults from the Chicago area (58% students, 61% women, mean age 28, 72% Caucasian, 49% Catholic),
and 1445 from the 1998 General Social Survey (6-item DSE only) (45% women, 79% white, mean age 46 years).
Development of the DSES also included hundreds of qualitative interviews to refine the items and assure con-
struct validity in different populations ( Underwood, 2006 ).
Reliability
Internal Consistency
For the full 16-item version, Cronbach alpha coefficients ranged from 0.91 to 0.95 (based on three samples;
N5233, N5122, and N51445, respectively; Underwood & Teresi, 2002 ). Likewise, the 6-item short-form exhib-
ited alpha coefficients ranging from 0.88 to 0.92 ( Underwood & Teresi, 2002 ).
Test/C0Retest
Two-day test /C0retest reliability (intraclass correlation coefficient) of the full DSES ranged from 0.64 to 0.78 for
the individual items ( Underwood & Teresi, 2002 ). The intraclass correlation coefficient for the 6-item short-form
was 0.73 ( Underwood & Teresi, 2002 ).
Validity
Convergent/Concurrent
DSES scores have been positively correlated with measures of public religious practices (0.58), private religious
practices (0.70), and positive religious coping (0.76) ( Idler et al., 2003 ).
Divergent/Discriminant
Relatively low correlations have been reported with measures of mental health constructs, ranging from 0.16
to 0.39 ( Underwood & Teresi, 2002 ).
Construct/Factor Analytic
A principal components analysis ( N5233) of the items in the 16-item DSES suggested a unidimensional scale.
Underwood and Teresi (2002, p. 30) concluded that, ‘ Preliminary EFAs suggest that this scale is unidimensional .’
Criterion/Predictive
Individuals with no religious affiliation score low on the DSES. Also, there is a predictive correlation with spir-
itual growth (0.57) and a modest (inverse) predictive correlation with spiritual decline ( 20.30) ( Cole, Hopkins,
Tisak, Steel, & Carr, 2008 ). See www.dsescale.org/ to find additional information on predictive validity, or the
Underwood (2011) paper on the scale, which summarizes the results of over 150 studies.
Location
Underwood, L.G., & Teresi, J.A. (2002). The daily spiritual experience scale: Development, theoretical descrip-
tion, reliability, exploratory factor analysis, and preliminary construct validity using health-related data. Annals of
Behavioral Medicine, 24(1) ,2 2/C033.
Underwood, L.G. (2011). The Daily Spiritual Experience Scale: Overview and Results. Religions ,2(1), 29/C050.536 19. MEASURES OF RELIGIOSITY
V. VICES AND VIRTUES