ABSTRACT
Subjective happiness is a deeper insight into an individual's wellbeing which adds tangible benefits. Subjective happiness can be a measure of the social capital of societies where communities that are rich in social capital are more likely to succeed and grow. Over the years, this construct has been adopted in various fields as part of policymaking for measuring happiness to understand and gain its economic benefits that aid in the development of a system resulting in flourishing societies. While the education sector acts as an important contributor to the growth and development of a successful society, it becomes necessary to understand and adopt the measures of happiness in academic environments. This study, therefore, identifies the underpinning criteria of Subjective Happiness within an academic environment and shares the results of two separate questionnaire surveys that aimed at determining the student's perception of the importance of these criteria towards their happiness. Thus, this study adopts RII and AHP analysis to identify the most important criteria of happiness for the students through a selective case study of a higher education institute. In addition, a parallel form (alternate form) of reliability is adopted to measure the consistency of the findings of RII and AHP. The results suggest that the findings of both approaches are consistent.
