Question

I NEED TO: Write a 100-word paragraph (in your own words) stating whether the study below is correlational or experimental and explaining why you believe it is correlational or experimental. If you believe it is both or neither, explain your thinking with examples from the article. List three questions that you would want to ask the researcher about the study. Pretend that you are interviewing the researcher! You do NOT need to answer the questions. Just list the questions.

THE STUDY IS LISTED BELOW:

How Positive Psychology Can Improve Student Success?

An Illinois school district uses a program that encourages a positive outlook to boost academic performance. SHAWN ACHOR IS PERHAPS best described as a happiness guru. He has published two best-selling books on the subject, "The Happiness Advantage" and "Big Potential," presented one of the most-viewed Ted Talks ever on the topic and, perhaps biggest of all, worked with Oprah Winfrey. Achor's overarching view is that happiness and mental well-being aren’t just a nice way to go through life. “My research from 'The Happiness Advantage' and 'Big Potential' proves that happiness and mental well-being are precursors to greater success rates,” he says. More important, happiness isn’t preordained – people aren’t just born that way. “Happiness can be a choice if we apply daily habit change,” he believes. “And happiness is not ‘self-help’ – only an interconnected approach to happiness and success yield the highest rates of return on our investment.” Achor has created the Orange Frog program to teach this approach to students and staff members at schools around the country. One such district is Schaumburg Township Elementary District 54, in the Chicago suburb of Schaumburg, Illinois. To kick off the 2016-17 school year, Achor hosted a Happiness Summit and presented workshops for all staff members that focused on positive psychology. Achor believes positive psychology has many benefits: Lead to a happier, healthier and more engaged learning environment Foster student, family and community development Improve student success. [See: 10 Concerns Parents Have About Their Kids' Health.] With his scientific background, Achor strongly believes in measuring results. “Otherwise, we won’t learn what works,” he says. It appears that Orange Frog does indeed work. In the past three years, School District 54 went from the 73rd percentile of academic achievement in Illinois to the 95th percentile, he says. “They are in the top 2 percent of schools now nationwide. And SD54 is not an outlier. The work we did for the poorest school district in Iowa over a five-year period, the graduation rates rose to 91 percent, attendance to 95 percent. For the first time, kids are coming back from the rich counties to attend school in the poorest county in Iowa. Their literacy rates have the greatest percentage increase of any school in Iowa.” Now Achor is hoping to replicate those results in Flint, Michigan, and in economically challenged schools in Kentucky and Wisconsin.

A Unique Test Case “I think it has turned out to be best decision I have made as superintendent of schools,” says Andrew DuRoss, Schaumburg Township Elementary School District 54 superintendent, about working with Achor. The large district, with about 16,000 students and 2,500 employees, has always considered the well-being of kids and staff, DuRoss says. In recent years, he noticed an increase in “stress and strain” in just about everyone. “There are a lot of things at play. The economic stress in our world, the hyper pace, where you never have time to take moment and think through things. I saw an increase in student depression and anxiety, in staff anxiety,” he says.

Answer 1

Few questions I would like to ask the researcher are:

1) How many schools running Shawn Achor's program were studied for improvement in results? Do most of such schools (say > 67%) show an improvement wrt some measurable performance index after the program?

2) Were there other internal programs or external policies running at the same time as Shawn Achor's program, that could have possible impacted the results?

3) Would it be appropriate to measure happiness only in terms of literacy rate/academic achievement, or other psychological happiness factors too should have been studied?