Developing meaning in life among undergraduate Iraqi students : repeated measures design

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of a novel meaning-in-life (MiL) intervention—developed based on a tripartite model of MiL—on the reported meaning in life among Iraqi university students. Using a repeated measures design, the study additionally examined the effects of religiosity and personality traits as moderator variables in this context, as well as the effect of post-meaning in life on academic achievement. The intervention was administered over five weeks across five time points. The subjects were 60 Iraqi university students, 68.3% female and 31.7% male, who were in their first and second years of study at the Department of Psychology of Salahuddin University in Iraq. They were randomly assigned to the treatment (n = 39) and control (n = 21) groups. Data were analyzed using mixed ANOVA, independent samples t-test, and simple linear regression. The results show that the MiL intervention statistically and significantly enhanced students’ reports of meaning in life. The effect of the MiL intervention was significantly moderated by religiosity, while personality traits only moderated the effect on two dimensions, i.e., emotional stability and openness to new experience. The study found no effect of post-meaning in life on academic achievement. The results have important implications for the promotion of meaning in life among university students and the development of their overall well-being, which subsequently impacts their academic achievement