An exploratory study of the phenomenon of dressing among students in Singapore Polytechnic.

GROUP: MAD COW DISEASE

Title : An exploratory study of the phenomenon of dressing among students in
Singapore Polytechnic.

Date : 3rd January 2008, AY 2007/08, Semester 2

Conducted by : Bernice Seet Seng Gek (P0734404, DEPM/1B/01)
Audrey See Cai Hoon (P0717193, DBA/1B/08)
Zeng Shuhui (P0644684, DPFM/2A/21)
Xu Jia Wei (P0660486, DCSE/2A/22)
Kelvin Yeo (P0620602, DCHE/2A/23)
Zheng Ting Ting (P0738515, DMTM/1A/22)
Nurul Aini Binte Mohd Zaheid (P0535832, DMTM/3A/21)

AIM OF STUDY
The aim of this study is to answer the main research question as below:
Why do student pay special attention to their outer appearance in Singapore Polytechnic?

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS METHODS (TING TING)

This study employs a qualitative social-psychological research paradigm. The research is conducted in a Polytechnic in the eastern part of Singapore. The research takes a total of six weeks to complete. The research stretches from 28th Nov 2007 to 11th Jan 2008

The forms of data collection for the research are as below:
a) Each of our group members approached students in the polytechnic. We interviewed a total of 35 students from different courses. We observed the trends and know more about the way they will want to present themselves to the public. Each of the interviews took around 10-15 minutes.

The forms of analysis used are as follow:
a) Open Coding.
b) Noting relations between variables
c) Finding intervening variables
d) Clustering

FINDINGS
The findings for this research are as follows:

The conditions and the causes that influence the trends and students appearance are as follows:

Types of courses
In this study, it is shown that the types of courses the students are in influence the way that they dress up. For example, engineering students will need to wear covered shoes and simple clothing so that they will not hurt their toes or be hindered by their fanciful clothing while working at the workshop. On the other hand, students taking business courses which emphasize on the interaction with people and presentable self will tend to wear formal clothing as in the business world they will be in later. As for students taking fashion or design courses, they tend to dress up more outstanding and fanciful. Giving another example, it will be inappropriate for a nursing course student to put on heavy make-up. However, there are students whose clothing are not influenced by the types of courses they are in. These students believe their types of clothing are affected by their dressing sense and comfort zone.

Types of peers
Peers also play an important part in influencing students’ dressing. This is especially true for those who are very close to each other. They want to have same design of shirts to show their sisterhood or brotherhood. These peers make them feel that they are recognised in their groups.

Fashion trend
Students may be influenced by the clothing that their singing or movie idols wear. They want to emulate them. This makes them feel that they closer to their idols. At the same time, other students keep up with the trend and dress themselves with ‘IN’ type of clothes.

Types of occasion
Students may dress themselves up on special occasions such as wedding, graduation night and presentation or other important dates in the polytechnic.


CONCLUSION
In order to provide the most effective solution to a problem, there is a need to understand the problem thoroughly. This applies for students studying in Singapore Polytechnic. From this study, we get to know that students do put in effort in dressing up. However, there are some who prefer to wear simply to school and some student dress up only on special occasions. Some students feel inferior when their peers’ dresses are more appealing than them. As a result, they may start to pay attention on their dressing. Some students feel that it is only appropriate for them to emphasise on their dressing if their course requires them to. From our analysis, we are able to conclude that students in Singapore polytechnic emphasise on their dressing. There are many reasons behind this conclusion but the key factors are mainly that they believe first impression counts and good appearance bring confidence. Polytechnics are like a fashion world. Stepping into a lifestyle free from school uniform is a huge jump for most of the students here. Hence, in order to be able to blend into the colourful crowd, most students will have a mindset of putting the best looking front in front of other at all times. In additional, looking good makes one feel better. And as a result, one’s confidence and self-esteem will definitely step up. This makes students easier to socialize around with other.