A Student-Oriented Study: Analyzing the Relationship between Happiness and Satisfaction with Life

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to analyse the happiness and life satisfaction levels of university students by various factors and to reveal the relationship between those two terms. The sample group of the study is composed of Necmettin Erbakan University Physical Education and Sports Teacher Department and Pamukkale University Sports Sciences Faculty students, who are 801 in number, 394 of them male and 407 of them female, and with an average age of 23.58±2.98. In the study the “Life Satisfaction Scale,” which has been developed by Diener et al. (1985) and adapted to Turkish by Durak et al. (2010), and the “Oxford Happiness Scale Short Version,” which has been developed by Hills and Argyle (2002) and adapted to Turkish by Doğan and Akıncı Çötok (2010), has been used. To determine the personal information distribution of participants percentage and frequency methods, and to determine whether the data has normal distribution or not Shapir Wilks normalcy test has been used and after establishing that the data is suitable for parametric test conditions, to analyse the data the independent t Test, Anova and Pearson Correlation tests have been used. According to the analysis results, a significant difference in life satisfaction has been observed with respect to age and regular exercise parameters (p < 0.05). According to the happiness scale a significant difference has been observed with respect to gender, department, grade and department satisfaction parameters (p < 0.05). Finally, a positive and meaningful relationship has been observed between the two scales. Consequently, it could be argued that life satisfaction and happiness levels of participants show significant differences with respect to some parameters and that the higher their life satisfaction, the higher their level of happiness.