Basic Practices as Buddhist of Students from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

Abstract

This research aimed to study levels of students’ basic practices as Buddhist from the faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Burapha University, and compare levels of students’ basic practices as Buddhist categorized by gender, and academic levels. The research instrument included 5-point scale questionnaire consisting of 28 items. The discrimination was between .21 to .85, while the reliability was at .92. the samples were first, second, third-, and fourth-year students from the faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Burapha University from the academic year of 2020. The selection was conducted by multi-stage sampling method. With taro Yamane formula, the error was at .05 and representing the samples of 357 people. The data was analyzed by mean, standard deviation, t-test, One-Way ANOVA, and Sheffe’s Method. The research findings are as follows:

1. 1. The level of students’ basic practices as Buddhist was at medium level (2.97), holistically. Individually, it found that most of the students practice themselves along with the five precepts on the precept number 3, which is abstention from sexual misconduct, while the second most practiced precept is the precept number 2, which is abstention from theft, another most practiced behavior is that students also pay respects to parents, teachers, and benefactors, and the last most practiced behavior is that the students take part in Dhamma discussions with monks.

2. The comparison of the levels of students’ basic practices as Buddhist when categorized by gender suggested that male and female students showed no different level of basic practices. When categorized by academic level, it found that students with different academic levels showed no different level of basic practices as Buddhist.