Subjective well being among university students

Abstract

The research aims at:

1-    Measuring subjective well-being of university students.

2-    Knowing the significance of differences in subjective well-being of university students according to gender (male/female) and specialization (scientific/humanity).

As for the concept of subjective well-being, the researchers has built a scale for measuring subjective well-being depending on the theory of subjective well-being for Edward Denier . The scale consists of (30) items which have been formulated by using self-report statements. There are five alternatives for answering ( always, often, sometimes, seldom and never), they are given when scoring (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), respectively for positive items and vice versa if the items are negative. After that, the researcher has ascertained the validity of her scale by exposing it to (15) experts in psychological counseling, psychology and educational and psychological sciences, where all the items are accepted.

The researchers has also ascertained the discriminatory power of the scale through  using two methods : the method of two extreme samples and the association of the item grade with the total grade through administering the scale on (400) male and female students chosen randomly categorically from four colleges in the university of Al-mustansiriah, namely, science, engineering, arts and education colleges. As a result the final form of the scale consists of (30) items for measuring subjective well-being.

The researchers has ascertained the validity of the scale by using two indicators, they are: face validity which includes exposing the items in a questionnaire to a number of experts, and by construct validity which includes the association of the item grade with the total grade. The reliability of the scale has been ascertained by using two ways, namely, re-test, where the reliability coefficient is (0,85) and Alph-Cronbach, where  the reliability coefficient is (0,84) when applying the scale on (50) students from the college of engineering, department of electricity and college of education, department of  history in the university of Al-mustansiriah.                                                              

After ascertaining the psychometric properties of the two scales and their items, they are administered on the basic sample of the research which consists of (400) students chosen randomly categorically. The data are analyzed by using the statistical package for social sciences (SPSS). However, the results show:

1-    University students do not have subjective well-being.

2-    There are no statistically significant differences in subjective well-being according to gender (male/female) and specialization (scientific/humanity ) .