Abstract:
This study aimed to investigate 1) the levels of learning happiness, social support, psychological capital, and self-esteem among clinical dental students in higher education institutions in Thailand and 2) study the causal relationship of learning happiness among clinical dental students in higher education institutions of Thailand. A total of 368 students as the samples were randomly selected by two-stage sampling from different dental institutions across Thailand. Data were collected through the questionnaire. Descriptive statistics, Factor analysis, and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) were used for the data analysis. The results showed that 1) clinical dental students had high levels of social support and self-esteem, and moderate levels of learning happiness and psychological capital ; and 2) the learning happiness of clinical dental students was influenced by social support and psychological capital (path coefficient of 0.82 and 0.54, respectively). Both variables were able to explain approximately 84.0 percent of the variance in learning happiness among the samples. Besides, it was found that social support influenced both psychological capital and self-esteem (path coefficient of 0.66 and 0.54, respectively). Furthermore, the data showed that psychological capital had an influence on self-esteem (path coefficient of 0.59)