A EXPLORATORY STUDY OF WHY STUDENTS BREAK THE SINGAPORE POLYTECHNIC SCHOOL RULES

A EXPLORATORY STUDY OF WHY STUDENTS BREAK THE SINGAPORE POLYTECHNIC SCHOOL RULES.




DONE BY: (AN admirable solo effort of a researcher who dares to ask controversial questions)



Aim Of Study

The study, titled “why students break the Singapore Polytechnic school rules?” is carried out with the intent of getting a more in depth understanding of why the students break the school rules and how can we go about preventing a repetition of this in the future.

Ultimately, we hope to give a detailed analysis so as to let this issue be resolved more easily, resulting in certain guidelines and regulations that Singapore Polytechnic can adopt to prevent such conduct from taking place in the future.

The main research question is divided into 3 sub questions:
a. Why do the students think breaking of school rules is okay?
b. Why have the school been not able to stop this from happening repeatedly?
c. What causes the students to break the school rules?

Data Collection And Analysis Methods

The research was conducted in Singapore polytechnic. The research took a total of three weeks to complete. The research spans from 12th July 2008 to 26 July 2008.

The method used for this study is as follow:
· Selected interviewing of 4 students who were seen breaking school rules and willingly accepted our invitation. A sample of an interview can be seen in Appendix A.



The forms of analysis used are as follow:
a) Open Coding. Examples of open coding of an interview are shown in Appendix A to Appendix C respectively.
b) Noting habits, patterns
c) Noting relations between variables
d) Clustering


Findings

The findings for this research are as follows:

8.1 Factors involved when students break the Singapore Polytechnic school rules
The main factors as to why the students break the school rules can be summarized into 3 main categories, the type of students, type of lecturers, and the environmental situation. This answers the first 2 questions.

8.1.1 Type of Students

The students tend to be attached in groups or with their girl or boyfriends. Therefore, they are easily influenced into doing things they do not want, for example, breaking the school rules. Therefore, this plays a very a big part in whether students will break the school rules. As we can see in the interviews, many students do not think that breaking the rules is wrong because of the fact that their friends are breaking them too. Next, the students themselves ave very little will power. They are wavered too easily and thus influenced too easily. Thus, this can be a major hurdle in tyring to stop the school rules from being broken.

8.1.2 Type of Lecturers

The lecturers, on the other hand, are sort of the higher authority to the students. However, from the interviews, we can see that they have not really made an effort to actually stop the rules from being broken. This causes the students to think that breaking the school rules is okay because the lecturers are not catching them. Therefore, lecturers have to start exerting their authority on this matter if they want to get this to stop. Next, in one of the interviews, one of the subjects even mentioned they have actually witnessed one of the lecturers breaking the rules themselves. This has got to stop before the situation can be solved. Therefore, for the current situation to stop, we need the lecturers to take a firm stand.

8.1.3 Environmental situation

Students are affected by the environment too. For example, from what they see, they might think that it is acceptable. Thus, the correct environment where the students are placed in will be important. At the same time, parents are also part of the students’ environment. So at the same time, the parents have to be good role models and have to set the perfect example for their children



8.2 Attributes for students who break the school rules
From our interviews, we can see a few of the attributes or characteristics that these students possess or is affected by. This answers the third question.

8.2.1 Theory of planned behaviour
Some of the subjects actually showed their unwillingness to break the school rules at first but later on submitted to the situation. This can be attributed to the theory of planned behaviour as they made themselves think that it is actually okay to break them. Therefore, this is one of the main behaviours that the subjects showed to let them relieve themselves of their guilt when breaking rules.

8.2.2 Social norm
The students who broke school rules think that it is okay also due to the fact that everyone is doing it now. This is the effect of social norm. When someone sees that someone else is also doing it, then it should be okay. This is probably the most dominant cause of students willing to break the school rules. However, this is not something that can be easily solved. Many times, this is the hardest part to erase as it is happening so rampantly and there is really little that one can do to stop it.

8.2.3 Stereotyping
Many times, students will possess a set of believes which results in rigid and overgeneralised images of members of that group. This causes them to have a mindset that the groups that possess rule breakers are okay. Once they stereotype these groups, they will have the same mindset as them, thinking that breaking rules is okay and that they should break rules. This causes them to have the same attitude as the rule breakers and end up like them, breaking school rules.



8.3 Reasons why students break school rules
8.3.1 Oblivious to it
Most students do not even know of the existence of the school rules.

8.3.2 Self-convenience
Most students break school rules due to the fact that it makes their life easier and that some procedures which consume time can be skipped. E.g. Logging into the school computers without booking.

8.3.3 Lack of Punishment
Many students continue to break the school rules as there is no punishment imposed on them.

8.3.4 Social Norm
Many students continue to break the school rules even though they know that it is wrong as everyone else is also doing it.


8. Conclusion

In order to provide a fruitful and effective research, I must understand the whole problem thoroughly. This is also the case for rule breaking in Singapore Polytechnic. From this study, I have developed a few factors, attributes and reasons to explain why the rules have been repeatedly broken. With the knowledge of such factors, attributes and reasons, teachers, counselors and researchers will be able to deal with this situation more effectively and maybe even develop a more advanced why of dealing with the current situation. Furthermore, this can be a platform for other researchers to have further development or expansion. Nevertheless, if the teachers, counsellors and researchers cannot see the significance of mathematics anxiety and refuse to act on it, this study will remain a research article that serves the sole purpose of pleasure reading.