Annex B - Research Proposal

IRS  2012

INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH PROPOSAL

Instruction to Participants:

1. Discuss with your mentor the planning and implementation issues of your project before completing this form.
2. Submit the completed form to your mentor, teacher-advisor, and School-coordinator by 21 Sept 2012.

STUDENT NAME (S): Ni Xu Gang Metta William Ming Teo Ji Hao Avani Jain	SCHOOL/TEAM SCHOOL OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, SINGAPORE
MENTOR Mr Ng Guo Hui	PROGRAMME/INSTITUTION INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH PROPOSAL

TITLE OF PROJECT A study of the relationship between stress, happiness and grades in SST students.

CATEGORY (Tick appropriate category)

Chemistry Biochemistry Botany Microbiology Zoology

Environmental Science Medicine & Health           ✓ DNA Science Space Science

Computer Science Physics Mathematics Engineering:  (Specify which area of engineering)       Others:

PURPOSE OF RESEARCH For social sciences/exploratory research Aim of research Our research aims to find out the wellbeing of SST students. By finding out their level of stress and happiness, we aim to find out whether the stress caused by the curriculum at SST is affecting the students negatively with regards to their happiness and grades and also whether the happiness level of the students affect their grades. Subject(s) of study The subject of study is the 2012 Sec 1 cohort of SST.

RELEVANCY OF RESEARCH Why is your research important? Too much stress may cause us to be unhappy. This may lead to a worse academic performance or a worse relationship with family and friends. (Reuben, n.d.). Thus, our research will confirm these two hypotheses. We will also find out whether the students are overstressed. Parents who are aware of their children’s stress level can help them to cope by either talking to them to make them feel better, or limit work given to them, therefore able to help their kids lower their stress levels. How does it contribute to existing body of knowledge? There has been suggestions that a less stressful and happier child actually perform better in school. (My stress management, 2008). We would like to confirm this hypothesis. How does your research contribute to/impact the society or community? We will know if the students are overstressed or under stressed. Thus, parents and teachers can help the overstressed students relieve their stress. Through stress and happiness surveys, we are able to know better what kind of approach is better for students. (Cranfield School of Management , 2009, October 12).

SCOPE OF RESEARCH We are only conducting the survey on 2012 cohort of Secondary One students. The other pupils are not surveyed because we are not able to guarantee the success and accuracy of this survey yet. If this first round of survey is proved effective and accurate, we will extend it to include the other levels.

LITERATURE REVIEW What are the current research available/ you have come across? This blog entry has shown that you can control your happiness level, good relationships, going out to go shopping or other activities of the same kind will increase your happiness level. People who are satisfied are usually living longer and healthier. (Grohol, n.d.). Summarise the research articles that you have encountered which may be useful to your research. Bhutan has placed the Gross National Happiness as a holistic approach which balances material and non-material values. Although the economy development is slow, the other aspects are all equally distributed among the people. They have not lost their identity through the approach and they are satisfied with what they have. (GNHcentreMedia, 2012). This research finds that the meaning of happiness shifts as people age: Younger people are more likely to associate happiness with excitement, while older people are more likely to associate happiness with feeling peaceful—a change driven by increasing feelings of connectedness (to others and to the present moment) as one ages. (Kamvar, Mogilner, & Aaker, May 2009). This video has shown that stress is not necessarily harmful to your health. In fact, we need regular dose of stress in order to motivate ourselves. It is only when there is excessive stress, then it is bad for us. Excessive stress might lead to many health problems like insomnia, depression, obesity, etc. This is when we need to reduce stress and take action. (vholistics, 2011, September 20). This paper investigated the interrelationship among academic stress, anxiety, time management, and leisure satisfaction among 249 university undergraduates by age and gender. Time management behaviors had a greater buffering effect on academic stress than leisure satisfaction activities. Significant gender differences existed among all the measures. Females had more effective time management behaviors than males, but also experienced higher academic stress and anxiety. Males benefited more than females from leisure activities. (Misra et al, 2000). This paper has shown that stress was more in girls as compared to boys. The main stressor was related to academic examinations. Also, it has concluded that a high stress level may affect not only academic performances but also all aspects of student health. The stressors should be identified and discussed with individual students in order to reduce stress of the students. (Sharma et al, 2011). The purpose of this article is to provide a discussion on stress and how it can prevent students from being successful in fulfillment of their educational goals. Although college students are faced with a unique set of stressors that may be overwhelming,  they are still able to alter the ability to cope with the situation. Strategies to reduce stress have also been associated with academic success in college students. (Murff, 2006, February 15).

METHODOLOGY Procedures How are you going to gather data? The data will be gathered through an online survey. The platform for the surveys would be google form. We will have two different surveys; one for happiness and one for stress. The surveys run on a point system. The higher the point for the survey, the happier/less stressed you are. We will inform the chairpersons of every class about the survey. We will ask them to post the survey on their class blogs and announce to the class on a monday. We will also post the links to the surveys on Facebook as some students do not check their blogs. Surveying will stop on the next sunday. The marks will be gathered with help from a teacher who has already agreed to help. How are you going to collate data? The results will be collated using google form. How are you going to sift and sort data i.e. which data is important? The higher number of points and the lower number of points amongst the collected data are more important. However, the middle number of points are also important so that we can make a more accurate comparison. The marks of the people chosen are also needed to make the comparison. Data Analysis How are you going to analyse the data? Using the google spreadsheet functions, we will arrange the results from least stressed to most stressed. If our hypotheses were correct, students with higher stress levels should have lower happiness level. Students with higher happiness levels and lower stress levels should also get higher marks than students with lower happiness levels and higher stress levels. How are you going to present the data? We will be presenting this data through three tables, which compares the happiness level with the stress level of the students, the happiness level and their academic grades, and the stress level and their academic grades.

Bibliography Cranfield School of Management (2009, October 12). What Use is a Happiness Survey?. Retrieved 13 September, 2012 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvINZjEX7nM  GNHcentreMedia (2012, March 19). Advantages of Gross National Happiness for the people of Bhutan - Hon. Prime Minister of Bhutan. [Video file] Retrieved 14 September, 2012 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRqjYIdy1eU&feature=plcp Grohol, J.M. (n.d.) 5 Reliable Findings from Happiness Research. Retrieved 13 September, 2012 from http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2010/04/10/5-reliable-findings-from-happiness-research/ Kamvar, S., Mogilner, C., & Aaker, J. (May 2009). Research Paper No. 2026. The Meaning(s) of Happiness. Retrieved 13 September, 2012. Misra, Ranijita, McKean, Michelle (2000). College Students’ Academic Stress and its Relation to their Anxiety, Time Management and Leisure Satisfaction. Retrieved 14 September, 2012 from http://www.biomedsearch.com/article/College-students-academic-stress-its/65640245.html Murff, S. H. (2006, February 15). The Impact of Stress on Academic Success in College Students. Retrieved 14 September, 2012 from http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/391477/the_impact_of_stress_on_academic_success_in_college_students/ My stress management. (2009, April 14). How stress affects student productivity. Retrieved 19 September, 2012 from http://www.mystressmanagement.net/articles/how-stress-affects-student-productivity.html Reuben. (n.d.). Negative Effects of Depression. Retrieved 30 August, 2012 from http://www.all-on-depression-help.com/effects-of-depression.html Sharma, B., Wavare, R., Deshpande, A., Nigam, R., & Chandorkar, R. (2011). A study of academic stress and its effect on vital parameters in final year medical students at SAIMS Medical College, Indore, Madhya Pradesh. Retrieved 14 September, 2012 from http://biomedres.info/yahoo_site_admin/assets/docs/20-Balkishan-Academic_stress1.198200104.pdf Vholistics. (2011, September 20). Know your stress levels. [Video file] Retrieved 14 September 2012 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VszvptC5zWc

DESIRED OUTCOMES/SKILL ACQUISITION ICT skills Applied Learning skills 21st century skills The Scientific Method Inter-disciplinary Research