By Anna Qin:

Student Executive Council (SEC) Activities Director Lisa Hall and Advanced Placement (AP) Statistics teacher Daisy Renazco have teamed up with the statistics class to make the upcoming series of focus group surveys concern various aspects of school life. According to Hall, the surveys attempt to collect current information on issues students care about. “Nine survey groups are involved and they are researching hot topics such as the recent dance and general dancing styles and what the student population is comfortable with,” Hall said.

Each survey group involves three or four members of SEC, as well as the same number of students from G period AP Statistics. “Our class is in charge of creating a simple random sample of the population, forming the overall research questions and analyzing the data,” junior Aishwarya Majumdar said. “Then SEC takes the analysis and sees what can be done.”

According to Hall, SEC has met many difficulties in the survey aspect of this research in the past. “The weakest part of the research is the survey, as SEC leaders are not trained to do surveys and to account for bias,” Hall said. Furthermore, they have also had trouble reaching the population intended for the research. “One of the first years we did the survey, only 25 people were surveyed,” Hall said.

Ultimately, the research is used as SEC’s semester final project  to raise any potential concerns to the administration. “SEC will usually give presentations on findings to the board and administration in February,” Hall said.