An exploratory study of the thoughts of Singapore Polytechnic students who skip classes as to why they do so.

Title: An exploratory study of the thoughts of Singapore Polytechnic students who skip classes as to why they do so.

Date: 8th July 2008, AY 2008/09, Semester 2
Conducted by: Group: I.M. - Su, Kwan Teck, Ken, John, Jia Yin, Fiona, Ariff


AIM OF STUDY
The aim of this study is to answer the main research question as below:

Why do Singapore Polytechnic students skip classes?

This main research question is fragmented into the following sub questions:
How often do students skip their classes?
What kind of classes do students skip?
How do students feel when skipping classes?
What are the consequences that they encounter for skipping classes?
What are the reasons for them skipping classes?
How important are lecture and tutorial classes to them?


DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS METHODS
The research is conducted in Singapore Polytechnic by observation of the students of several courses in SP. The research takes a total of three weeks to complete. The research stretches from 8th July 2008 to 29th July 2008.

The forms of data collection for the research are as below:
a) Selected informal open-ended interviews of the fourteen skipping-class students taking an average of 5 minutes per interviews.
b) Attending the classes the students skipped to observe the teaching environment, ultimately to find out what the reasons are behind them skipping these classes.

The forms of analysis used are as follow:
a) Clustering
b) Observational Data - Conducted in several classes of the interviewees.

c) FINDINGS
The findings for this research are as follows:

The psychological categories that evoke their skipping classes are as follows:


1) Boredom
Most of the students seem to have short attention spans, doing something else instead of listening to the lesson. Learning in a dull teaching environment contributes greatly in shortening their attentiveness to the lecture. A further breakdown of this category pinpoints the roles each character in the teaching environment plays in making the class a ‘boring’ one, resulting in students skipping them:

a) The teachers (includes lecturers, tutors and practical-lesson teachers)
In this study, it is shown that teachers with monotonous voices, ‘drawling’ slangs and unconcerned teaching attitudes evoke boredomness towards some of the interviewed students. A lecturer without concerned teaching attitudes will have his students with thoughts of neglection towards the lesson and the subject.

b) Peers
In a few tutorial classes observed, there was no student participation; no student in the classes asked the teachers any questions regarding what was being taught in those lessons, making the teacher the only vocal person in the class; ultimately making the lesson atmosphere dry and dreary, since there was only listening and no conversation.


2) Influences/Distractions
Ø Peers
Observations in a few lecture classes have shown that students commonly skip classes with their close classmate friends. It is noted that it is always the same group of people who are absent in the class observed. Affirmation was provided from interviews with a certain group of class-skippers, saying that they sometimes skip a class to have longer lunchtime.

Ø Leisurely activities
For after-school leisurely activities where time is concerned (eg. catching a movie) students will skip classes to make time for their activities.


3) Inconvenience
a) Timetables
i. Long breaks
When interviewed, some students claim that the reason they skip their lessons is because their classes are not scheduled as effectively in their timetables as they would like them to be. Some students have two- to three-hour breaks in between their lessons, and they do not fancy the idea of waiting in school for hours for their next lesson, since they cannot go home during those breaks.

ii. Lessons too early and/or too late
Some students complain that they have too many lessons starting at 8am every week. Of these students, most of them have trouble waking up early (self-claimed). Students also complained having to attend school from 8am-5pm for some schooldays, claiming these are the ‘long days’ of the week, and because of that, it would be self-declaredly ‘excusable’ for them to skip some classes, most of the time either their 8am-10pm or 3-5pm class.

iii. Schooldays with only one lesson
In the third year cohorts’ timetables especially, there are a few certain days (typically Fridays) where they only have one class for the entire day, be it lecture or practical class. Because of this, students find it impractical to come to school only for two hours of one lesson, especially for those who live further away from the west-side of Singapore, and also those whose everyday-journey to school involves long tedious/tiring MRT train-rides or traffic jams.

b) After-school activities
i. Part-time jobs
A few interviewed students have random-hours part-time jobs on certain days.

4) Ignorance
From this study it is found out that some students skip the classes they cannot understand. They decide that they might as well not attend certain lectures which, in their opinion, they most likely would not be able to absorb anything out of. These might be a few reasons why they do not understand their lectures:

a) Lecturers not clear in explaining
i. Teaching pace too fast
Some students take a longer time comprehending complex concepts, ideas, techniques, workings and/or formulas.

ii. Incomprehensible accent
Some lecturers, especially engineering lecturers, have accents that are difficult to understand. In a certain interview with a 3rd year engineering student, he said that he and his classmates always skip one particular lecture class conducted by a China-accented lecturer, and together they would crash a different lecture of the same module with a different class every week.

b) Students not trying hard enough to concentrate

i. Some students admitted in their interviews that they do not understand their lecturers because they are not concentrating hard enough in their lectures in the first place. But they assure that when the time comes they will study whatever they are required to know on their own before their exams. Therefore skipping their classes is not a problem.

ii. Procrastination
Although these students do not understand their lectures and do not attend them, they still procrastinate learning what they were supposed to have learnt should they have gone to their lectures. This cycle of procrastination will only lead to ignorance of the particular module which lectures they keep skipping.


5) Self-assurance
Self-assurance is a trait some class-skippers have. A few interviewed students, who are relatively doing well in their studies so far, say that they only skip lessons, provided that they really know and understand what is going to be taught in the lecture. They will (or try to) ensure themselves that they will not be at a losing end ultimately.

DISCUSSION

From a social psychological point of view, the bigger part of the reason why students skip classes is due to their own characteristics, although the teaching environment in which they are, can be at fault to a smaller extent. Most students have small attention spans, and learning in a dry learning environment contributes greatly in shortening their attentiveness to the lesson. While one can argue distractions are everywhere and that it is just a matter of whether the student can overcome it or not, boredom acts as a great catalyst in aiding a student to succumb to the distractions in his present teaching environment, eventually boredom creates dislike of the student towards his/her lesson, ere go skipping it next time. While peers can be great motivators and tutors to students, they can also become distractions, and strong influences for students to skip their lessons. While school is the staple livelihood of students, students still have other things to do besides school, some of which for entertainment’s sake, others necessities. Either way students might skip class to attend to these activities. A student who is not good at a subject and yet is forced into learning it can be discouraging for him/herself, because students are generally averse to the subjects they dislike.

CONCLUSION

In order to provide the most effective solution to a problem, there is a need to understand the problem thoroughly. This applies for the case of Singapore Polytechnic students frequently skipping classes. From this study, five categories of psychological factors as to why students skip classes evolve. They are the categories of boredom, inconvenience, influences, ignorance and self-assurance which achieve the aims of avoidance of classes. This student-psychology study is especially important for teachers/lecturers so that they can better understand the thinking of their own class-skipping students thus remind them more effectively how important school must be to them, improve their teaching skills and maintenance of their teaching environment.

However, by doing this it might not be sufficient to solve the problem. A better solution to overcome this problem would be to build a long-lasting and good teacher-student relationship. Relationships are a critical component of learning. More often than not, the type of relationship students have with the teachers will indirectly affect their level of attendance during lessons. It is most likely the case that students will be motivated to attend lessons where they can interact and communicate effectively with people (teachers and fellow peers) whom they respect and feel comfortable with. With a good teacher-student relationship, the probability of students skipping lessons will be relatively smaller as they know their lessons would be enriching and fun.