Do University Students Prefer to live in Boarding

Places?
First K. Sarujan, Second P.Ko gul raam , Third Wijesinghe J.K., F o u r t h
Gunathilaka H.L.M.P, and Fifth M.B.Mohanraj
Abstract - This study measures resident student analysis of oncampus & off-campus living and study environments including the Sri Lankan Institute of
Information and Technology (SLIIT) residence and their activities to student academic performance. Data were obtained from a stratified random sample of
resident students with hostels (individual dormitory) across Malabe and some parts of Colombo. Student perceptions of living and study environments were
obtained from a survey. Inferences were made from the sample to the population concerning: student preference of the adequacy of the campus safety, and
differences in preference between students living in old-style and new-style hostels and many more.
Keywords: stratified random sample, individual dormitory
I.

INTRODUCTION

The research goal of our project is to identify whether the university

students prefer to stay at boarding places or come from home. This
report includes the details of how the survey was conducted and
analysis and the statistics obtained.
Three main methods were conducted, and in addition to the three, a
minor online survey was also conduction for comparison purposes. The
three main were, distribution of surveys, personal interviews and
collection of data through telephone calls, the combination of these
three results provided an answer to the question Do university student
prefer boarding places?

II.

OBJECTIVE

The research goal of our project is to identify whether the university

students prefer to stay at boarding places or come from home. In order
to achieve this certain research methods were chosen to obtain data
from the specific sample. There were certain challenges faced while
collecting data. We were limited to a certain area to be analyzed, so we
had only a few ranges of hostels and boarding places available for our
research to be conducted. There was also another challenge as some
students were not willing to share their personal experiences with us for
the research. Qualitative and quantitative research methodologies were
chosen as we are interested in the experiences of the student who lives
in the boarding places and we were intended to interpret statistical
explanations.
To summarize the objective:

Why some students prefer and why some do not prefer

hostels,
To find out the problems in hostel life,
And are the students satisfied with the facilities.

III.

LIMITATION

The study is limited to those students receiving their tertiary education

at the University of Colombo and SLIIT (malabe). First and the second
year students can also be included in the study since they must have at
least spent the first month in a boarding as to be able to give a good
contribution of the prevailing conditions and to our questionnaires.
Some surveys, questionnaire and several methodologies was designed
to collect data from these students.
IV.

LITERATURE REVIEW

There been a limited number of studies on this topic, but articles and
website are spread all over the internet without a solid name of an
author, therefore it is unable to be obtained due to the copyright law,
and as well as the information provided on the internet might not be as
well all true, therefore, we have not obtained any information about
past researches on the topic Do university students prefer to live in
boarding places.
V.
METHODOLOGY
The research for the project on Do University students prefer
boarding was conducted in two different methods to collect more
accurate data, one was the questionnaire, and the other was the online
poll method. Nowadays social media is filled with tons of people from
different regions of our country, and we decided to get the opinion from
them too so that a broader idea could be obtained on this field, therefore
an online poll was made and the links to that poll were shared with
many people, to do this, FACEBOOK was chosen as the social media.
Facebook was chosen because of its popularity even around the rural
areas of Sri Lanka. Data could have been collected internationally, but
due to the lack of time, the research had to be restricted within Sri
Lanka.The link to the poll was given to many people, and was posted
on many groups in to get a clear picture of what students around the
island think about staying in boarding.

The link was basically created using an online application on Facebook,

which automatically generates a bar chart based on the number of
people who has answered the questions. And the questions for the poll
were initially made using EXCEL, and then transferred to the
application, and finally shared among people.
When consider the questionnaires we can obtain more information than
polls that is because we cannot expect every individual to have internet
facilities so distributing feedback sheets will allow them to give their
opinion.

students with specific questions that helped us collect the sample for the
statistical analysis.
The questionnaire we produced had answers for the students to choose
from. We handover the questionnaire forms to random number of
students and they choose the answers and tick them. Using these data
we can create statistical analysis and proceed with the research and
present the conclusions.
VI.

ANALYSIS

The questionnaire consists of 13 multiple choice questions, and each

has different sets of answers (mostly 5). Distribution of questionnaire
was a difficult task due to the fact that limited number of students lived
in a hostel, and they could not be identified properly. Many people had
to be met and spoken before handing over the questionnaire.

The research, as mentioned was done in three different methods,

distribution of Questionnaires, online polls, and over the phone.
Through these methods, information were collected from more than 100
people overall, and these information were analyzed, and Microsoft
Excel was used to draw bar charts.

We also had to visit one of our friends (boy) hostel to distribute the
questionnaire among them, and since a girls hostel could not be
visited, one of our friends help had to be taken to distribute the
questions.

Bar charts are one of the most essential ways of analyzing data related
to numbers since a direct comparison can be obtained.

Due to this lacking factor, the above mentioned online poll has to be
made too to collect more statistical data on the research.
A.

The number of males answered were, 32, and

females answered were 10 (Since the group was
unable to go into girls hostels, data were collected
through phone calls, therefore only a limited
number were obtained).
Out of 32 males, 24 males live in boarding, and out
of 10 females, 6 live in boarding.
Out of the 24 males, 23 prefers boarding, and out of
6 female, 4 prefer boarding.
From the analysis (total), 28 students prefer
boarding due to the fact that is easy to travel from
university to boarding or vice versa. 10 students
vote that they get more time to study in boarding, 3
vote towards freedom, and 7 were unanswered.
Cost wise (cost of living) majority of the students
(48%) say it is manageable, 12% say it is hard to
manage, and 26 % say it is fair.
The environment for studies is much suitable says
28 students (majority), 4 says no.
The buildings are well maintained says 24 students,
and 10 says negatively.

Qualitative methods

This type of research methods involve describing in details specific

situation using research tools like interviews, surveys, and
observations. It focuses on gathering of mainly verbal data rather than
measurements. The qualitative research technique we chose is face to
face interview with the university students who reside in a boarding
place as well as student who come from home. We chose to use the face
to face interviews with the students so that we can directly interact with
them and find out what they prefer according to their experiences,
boarding places or travelling from homes.
We prepared a few structural questions based on the research topic to
interview the students and we gathered data from the information given
by them. The questions were simple and based on the student life in the
boarding places and their experiences and challenges faced while in a
boarding place.
B.

By analyzing the data obtained from the survey (questionnaire 1):

(questionnaire had to be done twice due to the lack of data)

Quantitative methods

This type of research methods requires measurable data involving

numerical and statistical explanations. Quantitative analysis hinges on
researchers understanding the assumptions inherent within different
statistical models. It generates numerical data or information that can be
converted into numbers. The presentation of data is through tables
containing data in the form of numbers and statistics. The quantitative
method we used was giving out questionnaires to the university

From this analysis, a conclusion could be drawn that students prefer

boarding more than homes. But due to the fact that just one results is
not suitable enough, many samples were taken, and results given below.
By analyzing the data obtained from the survey (questionnaire 2):
(questionnaire had to be done twice due to the lack of data)

A total of 92 people were surveyed.

Out of the total, 75 people stay in boarding and 17

do not.

When asked whether they like to stay in boarding,

50 of them answered yes, and 42 of them answered
no.

From analysis online polls (Extra work to gather more data), it was able
to obtain more data and reach a more solid conclusion.
Collected from online polls gives a brief idea of what students think
about boarding.

Majority of the people (46) answered that staying in

hostel is because of the travelling difficulty, and
then the second was that people get more time to
study (41 answered).
In this survey too, majority of the people said that
the living cost is fair to manage.

65 people have roommates to avoid loneliness.

From the total majority of the students prefer to stay at

home
And 28 people have voted towards having a roommate,
this is due to the fact to avoid loneliness.
And 23 have voted that boarding is fairly manageable.

After the individual analysis, a total and a final analysis (from second
surey) was done and the results are as below.

A.

Overall analysis (sample size : 92 )

B.
C.

Analysis BOYS results

Analysis GIRLS results

VIII.

RECOMMENDATION

Students do not like to live in hostel, but due to some factors such as
travelling and to gain more study time, they tend to live in hostels, but
yet, students love to be at their homes more than hostel.
So we recommend:

D.

Reasons for students preference

VII.

Hostels that allow visitors,

Hostels without limitations such as electricity and water
supply,
Hostels with proper maintenances,
Hostels with calm and clean environments,

Hostels closer to campus.

CONCLUSION

From the analyzed data, the conclusion which could be drawn is,
people live in boarding because of minor problems such as travelling
long distances and time allocation (get more time to study).If not for
these minor problems, they would prefer home as a medium of shelter.

Out of overall students, most of the students living

at home prefer to stay at boarding places.
And overall students living at boarding places
prefer to stay at boarding places.
Majority of boys living at home prefer to live at
boarding places.
Majority of Girls living at home prefer to live at
boarding places.
Majority of boys living at boarding places also
prefer to live at boarding places.
Majority of Girls living at boarding places DO
NOT PREFER to live at boarding places.
The answer for Do University students prefer
boarding is YES they do , but because of the
minor problems such that as mentioned, hostel life
seems a bit harder than home.

CONTRIBUTION TO THE SOCIETY THROUGH THIS PROJECT

We can inform the boarding owners to maintain

their boardings on time,
We can motivate students to stay in boardings by
batch meetings.
ACKNOWLEGMENT

We owe a grate gratitude to Mrs. Niranga Amarasingha

for encouraging our efforts and giving feed backs on our research
without which we would have not done this research successfully.

We are particularly in debt to our friends who helped us distribute our

survey forms within the campus.
In addition, we would also like to thank the students who agreed to
spend their precious time on answering our survey forms.

Finally, we would like to thank our parents who supported us and stood
by our sides through the hard time and encouraged us by giving hope
on this research.
REFERENCE