Perception of University Students About the Important Causes of Student Unrest at The Campuses

The present study was carried out to investigate the causes of student unrest at university campuses. It was assumed that a number of variables such as social, personal-psychological, and environmental might contribute differentially toward student unrest. It was also assumed that students' perception of unrest would be influenced by their involvement in academic activities. A sample of 200 male and 200 female post-graduate students was taken from the four major universities of Pakistan including Punjab University, Lahore; Baluchistan University, Quetta; Baha Uddin Zakariya University, Mullan; and Peshawar University, Peshawar. An U nest Scale comprising of 23 items was developed to explore students' perception about the social, personal-psychological, and environmental causes of student unrest. An empirical measure was also designed to identify the most important unrest variables as rank ordered by the students. Moreover, Index of Academic Activities was developed to measure the involvement of the students in academic activities. The results indicated that the mean scores of the subjects as well as their rank ordering of the items of the Unrest Scale were highest on the social causes of unrest followed by the environmental, and personal-psychological causes. There were also differences between the perception of male and female students about the causes of unrest at their campuses.