The Nexus between Happiness and Academic Performance of Undergraduates (with Special Reference to the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Ruhuna)

Abstract

Happiness is an especially important feature in each and every person. There may be different factors which affect the happiness and at the same time happiness affects other fields either positively or negatively, specially students. The main goal of undergraduates is to have success in their academic life. Their short-term and long-term academic plans are focused on achieving higher Grade Point Averages (GPAs). If they fail in their academic life, they become most stressful people. Then it will make someone addicted to drugs and other bad habits or perhaps attempt suicide as well. Therefore, the main purpose of this was to investigate whether there is an impact of happiness on the academic performance of the undergraduate students of the faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Ruhuna, Sri Lanka. The Ordinal Regression and Spearman’s Correlation were used to achieve the main goal. The study results concluded that there is an impact of happiness on the academic performances of undergraduates. It is a positive impact and not a very strong correlation. With regard to academic performance, the study indicated that the highest number of students were from the third GPA category which represent a GPA between 3.3 and 3.7 scores. The study found that there is an impact of happiness on the academic performance of undergraduates. Then suggestions can be employed to increase the happiness level of undergraduates within the university. And also, by investigating the other factors which affect both happiness and academic performances implications can be done to develop the behavior of undergraduates.