Abstract:
The current study investigates the factors affecting to the research interest of undergraduates in Faculty of Management Studies and Commerce (FMSC) Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (FHSS) of University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka (USJ). The main objective of the present study is to identify the factors affecting to conduct research by undergraduates in FMSC and FHSS in University of Sri Jayewardenepura and the secondary objective is to identify the problems faced by them when conducting researches. This study has been adopted qualitative research strategy and stratified random sampling method is used to select students from each department. Accordingly, 134 students were selected randomly and primary data were collected using a structured open-ended questionnaire. Gathered data has been analyzed qualitatively. The findings of this study revealed that the factors affecting to conduct research by undergraduates were self-confidence, access to data, proficiency in English, ability to manage the time and the availability of resources. As per the secondary objective, the problems face by the undergraduates when conducting researches were lack of proper knowledge to analyze the data, poor guidance of supervisors and the problems related to the time, money and access to accurate data
