The Effects of Ānāpānasati Meditation on Emotional Quotient of Students in Buddhist University

Abstract

The objectives of this research are: 1) to study the effect of meditation practice on the emotional quotient (EQ) of students in Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya University; 2) to compare EQ of students before and after meditation practice of the students. The 217 sample students in the Faculty of Education were selected by Stratified Random Sampling, from a total number of populations of 515, based on a sample size calculation of Toro Yamane Formula. The participants were undergraduate students majoring in Social Studies, Teaching Thai Language, Teaching English, and Teaching Buddhism and Psychological Guidance. The research results revealed that (1) before practicing Ānāpānasati meditation (or mindfulness of in-and out-breathing), the students had a low level of EQ (x̅ = 2.50, S.D.= 0.287) while their EQ after the meditation practice increased to the high level (x̅ = 2.98, S.D.= 0.351); (2) the results of the comparison of students’ EQ before and after the Ānāpānasati meditation practice, classified by their personal factors suggested that the student's years of study and age had affected the students’ EQ indifferently; however, differences in grade levels, fields of study and experience of meditation had differently affected EQ with the statistical significance level of .05.