Meaning in Life Within an African Context: A Mixed Method Study

Abstract

This article reports on a mixed method study that described and explored meaning in life among 179 university students (53.63% female). Data on their sense of meaning in life were collected using the Life Purpose Questionnaire (Hutzell, 1989), supplemented with qualitative naïve sketches. The data on the Life Purpose Questionnaire were analysed using descriptive statistics while those from naive sketches were thematically analysed. Whereas the life meaning survey data pointed to predominantly uncertain definition of meaning in life among the sample, those from the naive sketched yielded three themes to suggest that participants (1) experience meaning as a beyond-the-self contribution to the world, (2) relationships, education and religion are prominent sources of meaning, and (3) used African metaphors to express the experience of meaning in life.