DEVELOPMENT OF PRAXIS IN ENABLING SPIRITUAL PRACTICES WITHIN A CONTEXT OF SELECTED SCHOOL IN NORTHEASTERN THAILAND

Abstract

The objective of this research were: 1) to develop a praxis for enabling spiritual leadership, 2) to develop tools for assessment of the proposed praxis for enabling spiritual leadership, and 3) to analyze the relationship between the spiritual practices of the praxis for enabling spiritual leadership among teachers in Northeastern Thailand. Praxis is herein defined as intentional right actions executed and reflected upon for correction, learning, and growth. Research questions were: (1) What is the ideal praxis design to enable teachers' spiritual leadership? (2) How can the design of the proposed praxis for enabling spiritual leadership to be assessed? (3) What types of relationships exist between the spiritual practices of the praxis of enabling spiritual leadership? The first question was investigated with a qualitative meta-synthesis of selected studies from many different research disciplines. The researcher created a survey instrument in response to the second question. The third question was answered by data collected using the created survey, which was then analyzed using advanced statistical methods. The survey respondents were all teachers from Udon Thani, Thailand. The findings of this study determined the spiritual practices for enabling the praxis as consisting of three sets of practices identified as belief, know, and do. The results of the statistical analysis of the collected data from participating teachers showed that the practices of belief and knowledge are drivers of the spiritual well-being associated with the practice of doing. Furthermore, findings indicated that knowing partially mediates the positive relationship between believing and doing. This study proposes a unique way of filling a gap in current spiritual leadership research with detailed recommendations for obtaining the best results from spiritual practices.