Happiness among Physical Education Students at the College of Teacher Education Phranakhon Rajabhat University

Abstract

            This research is a survey study with the following objectives: 1) to study the happiness status of students majoring in Physical Education at the Faculty of Teacher Training, Phranakhon Rajabhat University and 2) to examine the relationship between gender, academic year and athlete status on the happiness status of the students. The population used in this study consisted of 52 third- and fourth-year students majoring in Physical Education at the Faculty of Teacher Training, Phranakhon Rajabhat University. The research instrument was the Thai Happiness Assessment (15-item version). The statistics used in the research included frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, and Pearson’s correlation coefficient. The results of the study revealed that: 1) Overall, the majority of students (48.08%) had a higher-than-average level of happiness. When analyzed by gender, 40.39% of male students had a higher-than-average level of happiness, while 7.69% of female students had an average level of happiness. When analyzed by academic year, 11% of third-year students had either average or higher-than-average levels of happiness, while 26.92% of fourth-year students had higher-than-average levels. Regarding athlete status, 26.92% of students had higher-than-average happiness levels. 2) The correlation between gender, year level, and athlete status with students’ happiness revealed that happiness had a slight negative correlation with gender (r = −.167), but it was not statistically significant. In contrast, gender was negatively correlated with year level at the .05 significance level (r = −.350, p < .05). No significant correlations were found among the other variables.