Whole person development status of students in four universities in Iloilo, Philippines: Inputs for the development of an enhanced learning environment program

Abstract

This descriptive-correlational study determined the whole person development (WPD) status of students in terms of social, spiritual, psychological, intellectual, professional, and physical domains. Nine hundred twenty-six (926) senior high school students were randomly selected to provide information using a standardized questionnaire, Whole Person Development Inventory (WPDI). Findings revealed that generally, students have high status in WPD, and among the six WPD domains, the spiritual ranked the highest while psychological the lowest. Sub-domains that were rated the greatest are spiritual quest, peer relationship, and family relation while the least are emotional health, community care, and civic responsibility which suggest that students need more help in these areas. Academic achievement, gender, number of activities, nature of activities, and availment of peer counselling were found to be significantly related to overall status of WPD; religious affiliation to intellectual and physical domains; living arrangement to spiritual and intellectual; gender to physical; type of university to social and physical; number of activities to all the domains except psychological; nature of activities to spiritual and psychological; and availment of peer counselling to social, professional and physical. A combination of gender, academic achievement, number of activities, nature of activities, and availment of peer counselling service were found to be significant predictors of the WPD status and among these variables, the nature of activities participated in by the students was the strongest predictor of the status of WPD.