Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Degree

Master of Science

Program

Psychology

Supervisor

Tremblay, Paul

2nd Supervisor

Neufeld, Richard

Joint Supervisor

Abstract

Meditation programs and mindfulness interventions have become increasingly popular over the last 30 years in both clinical and non-clinical populations. However, challenges such as motivating participants in 8-week programs and adherence rates are issues in many mindfulness meditation interventions. The Meditation Intentions Questionnaire (MIQ) was developed as a measure intended to guide participants to set their own goals and intentions for meditation. The MIQ has six subscales with 8 items each. The subscales assess intentions for participating in meditation programs in the following domains: cognitive enhancement, increased emotional control, greater positive affect, stress relief, spiritual discovery and psychological discovery. Items in the MIQ were selected according to previous research undertaken by Pepping et al. (2016), Shapiro (1992) and the author’s previous experience with meditation facilitation. The MIQ was then administered to a sample of 145 graduate students from various Canadian faculties and universities. Both a confirmatory factor analysis and an exploratory structural equation modeling analysis confirmed the hypothesized factor structure of the questionnaire. As a result, a short form of the questionnaire, the MIQ-24, consisting of 4 items per scale was developed, and it was also found to have a strong model fit. We found the MIQ-24 to correlate with theoretically linked constructs in mental health. Overall, as a preliminary measure of meditation intentions, the MIQ-24 has promising psychometric characteristics. Further studies with diverse and larger participant pools are needed to demonstrate the MIQ-24’s efficacy as a general tool to help participants through the process of setting intentions and goals in meditation programs.

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