VIRGEN DEL PILAR SCHOOL

SISTERS OF CHARITY OF ST. ANNE

Iloilo St., Burgos, Rodriguez, Rizal
S.Y. 2018-2019

ELUCIDATING THE HAPPINESS OF THE GRADE 9 STUDENTS OF VIRGEN DEL

PILAR SCHOOL SY 2018-2019 IN GOING TO SCHOOL EVERYDAY

A research paper

Humanities and Social Science

Trisha Lee C. Castillo
Bea Rose C. Gelindon
Julian Philip Vergara
Khai Anne Cate Culala

January 2019
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1
Introduction
Introductory Paragraph
Statement of the Problem
Significance of the Study

Chapter 2
Background of the Study
Literature Review
Definition of Terms
Theoretical Framework

Chapter 3
Methodology
Restate Purpose and Research Questions
Population and Sampling
 CHAPTER 1
Introduction
According to the HappinessInternational.Org., happiness is when your life
fulfills your needs, gives you satisfaction, and is a feeling of contentment that life
is just as it should be. For students to contain happiness, their performances should
be reflected on their grading sheets, academic achievements, and the school
environment. However, there are factors that alter the students’ capability to be
happy.

Introductory Paragraph
The qualitative study mentioned was conducted at the Junior High School
building of Virgen del Pilar School, sections 9A St. Teresa of Avila, 9B St.
Thomas of Aquinas, and 9C St. Therese of Lisieux. This school specializes God-
centered and quality education, and hones globally prepared students. In addition
to that, our diligent teachers are the root and causes of that fruitful product.
Us, the researchers, would like to study about elucidating the happiness of
Grade 9 students of Virgen Del Pilar School which aims to address these concerns
to the teachers, staff, and the whole student body. Since students are having a hard
time to find their voices about this matter, this study will serve as their voice.
Statement of the Problem
This research intends to look for solutions into the worries of the
students that hinder them from being happy.
Their vexations will be addressed by the following inquiries:
a. What are the possible contributors that makes students feel like they are not
doing enough in their school life?
b. How do these students cope with the different stressors?
c. How does it affect them?

Significance of the Study

This qualitative research is designed for students, particularly to the junior
and senior high school students, to look into the silver linings of education and to
disperse this matter. According to Semanticscholar.Org., The education today aims
to produce quality students to become good citizens who are mentally and
physically healthy in order that they can live with others happily. Therefore,
teachers are important persons who can make the students to have such
qualifications. Teachers need to create an atmosphere for happiness learning. The
happiness learning is to create a relaxed atmosphere in which the students feel free
and easy to involve themselves into the classroom activities. The teachers must
accept and understand the differences among students in order that students can
develop their learning potentials.
 CHAPTER 2

Background of the Study

Happiness, along with satisfaction, is something that everyone wants to have
in life. It is something we strive hard to get, and is definitely on the first line of our
desired rewards. According to Edgar Allan Poe, “Happiness doesn’t just happen –
it has to be made, it has to be produced, created, discovered, built from the ground
up. And it has to be a decision in one’s mind: the decision to be happy.” Similar to
the thoughts of Edgar Allan Poe, happiness is a choice that a person is offered to
make.
Students have made several ways in exerting their efforts into their crafts
that they think would made their supervisors happy. In spite of that, some efforts
aren’t given so much recognition and that makes them gloomy. Other alternatives
like special activities and remedial classes are given to them and students tend to
overwork, prioritizing school before anything else. But, as what the previous
author mentioned above, happiness also is dependent upon how one spends their
time. One works for about 8-12 hours, only wanting to achieve the satisfaction he
or she is aiming for.
On the third point, we tend to see happiness in bigger pictures without
appreciating the smallest of its details. We must debunk that type of mindset and
rather, start giving validation to the minute features of the scenery.
Happiness is when we thought we’ve finished something, but satisfaction is
getting the desired outcome of that process. We are saying that happiness cannot
go singlehandedly without the feeling of being satisfied. As to what a famous
quotation has stated, “difficult roads often lead to beautiful destinations.” That
difficult road is what happiness is that leads you to that beautiful destination,
where satisfaction awaits.
To get back on the thesis statement, we, the students, must cherish the fine
points of every curricular activities and what we obtain at the end is what we
deserve.
Literature Review
The review of related literature in our study is intended to gather sufficient
materials such as previous studies and references from researchers that can be
linked in our study; these can also be connected with the theoretical framework.
Students should be trained in all aspects (Keawchuer, 2014). The researcher
also added that the students’ ways of learning are by performing the given
activities, asking questions, and interacting with others. With that, teachers should
build a comfortable and positive environment for students to have the eagerness to
learn.
(Hijazi and Naqvi, 2012) mentioned that there are aspects that affect the
student’s performance, which are time management, his or her class attendance,
financial matters, and mother’s education. When a student has positive
relationships with the given aspects, then the student will keep an exceptional
profile that will have a good progress in his or her future.
Aside from the performance, (Tabbodi, Rahgozar, and Abadi, 2015) gave
out factors that affect happiness: personality that gives an impact to a person
psychologically. That is when happiness depends on luck and it is fixed in short
term and long term; self-esteem where it decreases, happiness also decreases and
vice versa; religious beliefs that strengthens faith of someone that would feel less
abandoned and lonely; leisure time activities that could also a way to create
happiness; and health to boosts the immune system and strong immune system,
improves health (Bahmani, 2000).
(Oswald et al, 2014) worked on “Happiness and Productivity” to answer the
question “does happiness make people productive?” and the answer is yes.
If there are benefits, there are also flaws in this research. (Bartwal and Raj,
2014) conducted a research between stress and social intelligence with urban and
rural students of Punjab, Bathinda. As a result of their study, there are no gender
differences when it comes to academic stress and the samples experienced same
amount of academic stress.
(Calaguas, 2011) examined the insight of academic stress to state college students
in the Philippines that were chosen by systematic random sampling. It shows that
male and female respondents deviate from subject, educator, schedule, and
expectation-related stressors. However, the respondents did not differ in their
insights of enrollment, classmate, and financial-related stressors.
 (Kadapatti and Vijyaluxmi, 2012) performed a research to identify stressors
of academic stress as pre-university students as their respondents, which resulted to
high aspiration, poor study habits, and low socio-economic conditions as the
stressors.
Aside from the given stressors mentioned above, (Conner, Pope, and
Galloway, 2010) also give some other causes of academic stress and a technique to
lessen as told by their respondents. They disclosed being stressed out, overworked,
and sleep deprived. A technique to reduce its difficulty is the GPA or general point
average that can be an instrument to reflect on students’ accomplishments.

Definition of Terms
 Debunk – invalidate.
 Diligent – hardworking, industrious.
 Disperse – to spread out.
 Elucidating – to explain.
 Hinder – creating difficulties resulting delay or obstruction.
 Minute – mini, small.
 Silver linings – to see things with optimism.
 Stressor – cause of stress.
 Vexation – state of being annoyed, frustrated, or worried.

Theoretical Framework

FACTORS:
 The classroom is neat.
 Amazing performance
INDEPENDENT VARIABLE of the teachers.
Happiness of the Students  Getting the desired
grades.
 Great productivity
 CHAPTER 3
Methodology
The method used to gather and interpret the data for this study is conducting
a survey to the grade 9 students. Several questions were constructed by the
researchers and were incorporated in the survey. The survey forms were distributed
in the respective classrooms of 9A, 9B, and 9C personally by the researchers.

Restate Purpose and Research Questions

In the previous chapters, the purpose of this research is to make the teachers
realize the great spaces and differences of every students and how their capabilities
differ from each other. The previous chapter also mentioned the research questions,
which are the following:
a. What are the possible contributors that makes students feel like they are not
doing enough in their school life?
b. How do these students cope with the different stressors?
c. How does it affect them?

Population and Sampling ((((IN NEED OF NUMBER OF 9A AND 9B))))

TOTAL NUMBER OF GRADE 9 STUDENTS

5
4.3 4.4
4.5
4
37
3.5
17
3
2.4 2.5
2.5
2 2
2 20

1.5
1
0.5
0
9A Students 9B Students 9C Students

Total no. of students Girls Boys

 According to the graph illustrated above, there are ____ students who took
part of the survey. The respondents were grouped into their sections, namely 9A,
9B, and 9C students respectively and were separated according to their gender.

ANSWERS OF 9A STUDENTS
40
36 36 35
35 33

28 29 29 29 28 29 28
30 27 26 25
25
21
20
16
15 12
10 11
9 8 8 8 9 8 9
10
4
5 2
1 1
0
Q#1 Q#2 Q#3 Q#4 Q#5 Q#6 Q#7 Q#8 Q#9 Q#10 Q#11 Q#12 Q#13 Q#14 Q#15

YES NO

ANSWERS OF 9B STUDENTS
40
34
35
30 31
29 28 29 29 29
30 27
26 26 26
25 23
20
20 18
16
14
15
11
10 8 8 7 8
5 6 5 5 5
4 3
5
0
0
Q#1 Q#2 Q#3 Q#4 Q#5 Q#6 Q#7 Q#8 Q#9 Q#10 Q#11 Q#12 Q#13 Q#14 Q#15

YES NO
 ANSWERS OF 9C STUDENTS
40
36 36
34
35
31 31 30 30
29 28
30
26 25 26 25
25 22
1918
20
15
15 12 12
11 11
8 9
10 7 7
6 6
5 3
1 1
0
Q#1 Q#2 Q#3 Q#4 Q#5 Q#6 Q#7 Q#8 Q#9 Q#10 Q#11 Q#12 Q#13 Q#14 Q#15

YES NO
 CHAPTER 4
Interpretation of Data

4.1 Introduction
In this chapter of the research paper, us, the researchers, will interpret the
findings of the data in the research. The data that would be interpreted is the
answers of our respondents in our research questionnaires, which is our method on
how we gathered the data. This chapter also reviews the results and analysis of the
qualitative data, the compilation of the questionnaire and the results and analysis of
the quantitative findings of the study. A comprehensive description of the research
methodology was given in Chapter 2.
Going back to chapter one, the research questions that are about to be answered
with this paper are the following:
a. What are the possible contributors that makes students feel like they are not
doing enough in their school life?
b. How do these students cope with the different stressors?
c. How does it affect them?

4.2 Characteristics of the Respondents

The data gathered for the research are summed up from 37 9A St. Teresa of
Avila students, which is composed of 18 girls and 19 boys, 34 9B St. Thomas of
Aquinas students which is composed of 18 boys and 19 girls, and lastly, 37
students from 9C St. Therese of Lisieux which is composed of 17 boys and 20
girls. The age bracket of the respondents landed on ages 15 to 16.

4.3 Presentation of Data

Tabular representation
 GRADE 9 STUDENTS’ RESPONSES
QUESTION # FAVORABLE PERCENTAGE (%)
RESPONSES (YES)
1 84 77.77
2 80 74.07
3 96 88.88
4 85 78.70
5 106 98.15
6 83 76.85
7 81 75
8 89 84.71
9 85 78.70
10 60 55.56
11 85 78.70
12 69 63.89
13 91 84.26
14 76 70.37
15 102 94.44

4.4 Findings
Out of the 108 students that is picked as the sample for the research paper,
84 out of the total population or 77.77% says that they are happy going to school
everyday. Them having that fairly high percentage met our expectations, telling
that they are still satisfied and happy in going to school.
Breaking the data further, 88.88% of our respondents say that they felt the
urge to learn when they enter the classroom. On the teachers’ area of their
responses, 84.71% of them says that their teachers reach their standards and are
happy with the grades they gave to them last quarter. However, the percentage
dropped lower to 78.70% when they were asked if the grading system really fulfils
the efforts they put in their activities. Under the ‘Performance’ bracket, they were
asked if they are happy with the performance they are doing inside the classroom,
falling into a much lower rate of 70.37%.
According to an article released by qz.com, “If you feel good, you learn
better,” said Gabriela Ramos, chief of staff at the OECD. ”It’s not about promoting
high achievement or not; it’s how you do it with the other sets of skills we need to
develop in children.” Add to that point is that the article also mentioned that
teachers, parents, and school culture also have a lot to do with whether or
not students thrive.
There are also past studies that tackled the whereabouts of where do the
happiest students around the world came from. Still basing on the same website,
the 2015 PISA test, students were asked to rate their life on a scale from 0 to 10,
with 0 representing the worst possible life, and 10 the best possible. On average
across OECD countries, students reported a level of 7.3 on a life-satisfaction scale
ranging from 0 to 10. Most teenagers, on average, are relatively happy,
the report reasoned. Among them, students coming from the countries of
Netherlands, Finland, the Dominican Republic, and Mexico are the happiest.
Happiness is indeed subjective and may vary from people to people. Going
back to the results gathered from the study, our Grade 9 students seem happy with
their learning and experience with school, covering up the their performance, their
teacher’s performance, physical environment, and the even the type of activity
being given to them.
 CHAPTER 5

Conclusion

Happiness comes from within, it’s the best remedy for boredom, a cure for
stress and fatigue. It can always bring out the best in you, a motivation to keep
going despite the difficulty of every task, “whoever is happy will make others
happy.”

Elucidating the Happiness of the Grade 9 Students of Virgen del Pilar

School, a research made to measure the student’s happiness inside the classroom
and the factors that may affect. It aims to look for solutions for their worries and
help them cope up with it. According to the study that was made for students to be
happy, they also need a sense of satisfaction and recognition for their efforts.
Teachers should not only focus on giving works, but to know the strengths and
personalities of his/her students. They also need an environment where in, despite
the workloads, they can still enjoy while learning new things.

Students should also cherish every work that was given. Because as they
perform, it will not only boost their self-esteem, but will also create a comfortable
atmosphere while interacting with their classmates and friends.

To be able to test the rate of happiness and satisfaction of the Grade 9

students in Virgen del Pilar School, a survey was made in order to examine if they
have problems and worries inside the campus. They are divided into 3 sections
namely 9A St. Teresa of Avila, 9B St. Thomas of Aquinas, and 9C St. Therese of
Lisieux.

After the survey test that was made with every section of Grade 9 students of
Virgen Del Pilar, with a population of 37 students in 9A-St. Therese of Avilla, 34
for 9B- St. Thomas of Aquinas, and 37 for 9C- St. Therese of Lisieux, it was found
out that these students have a low satisfaction or response about the performance
that was given along with the grading system that was made, but has a higher rate
when ask about going to school every day and their standards for the teachers.
Therefore, we conclude that the students have the motivation to go to school
and have the positive outlook on it, but performance tasks should improve. It also
shows that the quality of teaching is good, but the students fail to comply with the
requirements on time. We can conclude that most of them lack in time
management.

The fifth question stated that students from the Grade 9 level preferred a
more pleasing environment rather than a messy one; a clean environment that will
give to a peaceful mind and atmosphere inside the room. On the twelfth question,
which asked if the students are complying their requirements on time, got a low
percentage of having ‘Yes’ as an answer. Based from their answers in this
question, it showed that it didn’t spark their interest and was not motivated for it.
Therefore, further improvements and encouragement were needed.

The second question asked if they are happy to follow the rules and
regulation of the school. The question got 80 yeses from the students, and that’s
where we can safely conclude that the grading system inside the campus is not that
bad for the Grade 9 students.

All in all, happiness and satisfaction not only depends on the teacher, but
also to the students. What makes up a better class will come from the two.
Comfortability, awareness, and hard work will always help to build relationship
among the members of one room. No matter how difficult it might be, it can
always makes someone smile at the end of the day as they go through the journey
of memories.

Moreover, we therefore conclude that by the use of survey forms given to

the Grade 9 students of Virgen Del Pilar School, we were able to know reasons
why many students chose to transfer or discontinue to study.
 Furthermore, the happiness of the Grade 9 students relay on the teaching
methods and the mentors themselves. In addition to that, the rules and regulations
of the school conferred a major impact to the students. Most of the students
articulated that the school rules are rigorous for them that they find a hard time
complying with it.
Finally, the Grade 9 students tend to break one of the major house rules of
the school, which is bringing of cellular phones and other gadgets in the school.
Because they said that with the help of their mobile phones and other gadgets, they
could learn more in school.