Title: An exploratory study of the behaviours of Singapore polytechnic students breaking school rules intentionally.

Title: An exploratory study of the behaviours of Singapore polytechnic students breaking school rules intentionally.

Conducted by: (Webmaster: Another wonderful group of trailblazing researchers at work. Their identities are protected.)

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

Why do students violate school rules in Singapore Polytechnic (SP) even though they know about them?

This main research question is fragmented into the following sub questions:
1. What are the rules that SP students violate?
2. When do they violate these rules?
3. Where do they violate these rules?
4. Why do they violate these rules?
5. How do we stop students from violating the rules?

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS METHODS

This study employs a qualitative social-psychological research paradigm. The research is conducted in a Singapore polytechnic. The research takes a total of three weeks to complete. The research stretches from 11th July 2007 to 25th July 2007.

The form of data collection for the research is as below:
1. Selected informal open-ended interviews of the sixteen school rule breaker students taking an average of 15 minutes per interview. An example of an interview in this study is shown in Appendix A.

The forms of analysis used are as follow:
1. Open Coding. An example of open coding of an interview is shown in Appendix A.
2. Noting patterns and themes (Appendix B)
3. Partition variable (Appendix C)
4. Making Comparison/contrast (Appendix D)

FINDINGS
The findings for this research are as follows:

1. The type of rules violated by SP students is as follow:

Wrong dress code
In this study, wearing the wrong dress code is most commonly violated by SP students. Wearing mini skirts and shorts are commonly seen among female students whereas slippers are common among both sexes. (Appendix A, B)

The above findings answer the first sub research questions for this study.

2. The reasons for SP students violating school rules are as follow (Appendix C):

2.1) Unaware
Some students are ignorant of all the SP rules because rules are not made clear to them on the first day when they entered SP and most students have a ‘cannot be bothered’ mindset to check out SP rules.
SP rules are listed inside a student handbook which is not considered a compulsory item to be bought by all SP students. Hence, the chances of students knowing SP rules are low and chances of breaking of rules unintentionally are therefore high.

2.2) Aware
Students are actually aware of the dress code rules, but simply ignore it and continue violating the rule intentionally. This is because of:
2.2.1) Comfort and Convenience
Students feel that wearing comfortable and convenient attires to school is more important than abiding SP rules. Therefore, they disregard the dress code rule and continue wearing slippers and shorts due to convenience and comfort.

2.2.2) Peer Influence
Peers play an important role in causing students to violate school rules intentionally especially when students encounter peers wearing slippers and shorts and not being caught. Therefore, students deliberately have the wrong dress code since the majority of SP students are wearing it and no actions are taken to correct this wrong dress code.

Peers also play a part in school rule violation. Some people would be influenced by their peers, and thus would break the school rules just to fit in. Sometimes, they would see how cool their friends look with dyed hair or so, and would then follow suit.

2.2.3) Personal grooming/self conscious
While some people go for comfort, others would rather be more conscious about the way they look while they are in school. This usually applies to girls in wearing hot pants and tank tops. They wish to either look more attractive or they feel more secure or self conscious by wearing what they would look best in.

2.2.4) No Strict Enforcement
Students feel that lecturers are not doing much to catch students violating the dress code rule because they feel that lecturers cannot do much in preventing the large portion of SP students from wearing slippers and shorts. The strictest enforcement most commonly used is only the issuing of warning letter, which is not strong enough to deter students from violating the dress code rule. As a result, students violate the dress code rule intentionally since no strict enforcement is taken.

2.2.5) Freedom
Students expect more freedom in polytechnics as compared to secondary schools and junior colleges. They feel that students are treated as young adults in a tertiary education whereby lots of freedom and respects are given to them. Therefore, students tend not to abide the school rules because they long for freedom in polytechnics.

2.2.6) Challenge the Rules
Students find that wearing slippers and shorts/mini skirts does not hinder their studies and is neither offensive nor too revealing. They feel that allowing the wearing of sandals but prohibiting slippers is ridiculous because the difference lies only in one strap. This shows that students will challenge the rules and do what they think is acceptable and reasonable, thereby violating SP rules on purpose.

The above findings answer the fourth sub research question for this study.

3. Students who commonly violate the school rule are:

3.1) Year 2 and 3
It is commonly seen that seniors are the ones wearing inappropriately, either too revealing or too sloppy. This may be due to the fact that wearing conveniently and comfortably i.e. wearing slippers and shorts/mini skirts have already become a habit of them, causing students to have a ‘cannot be bothered’ mentality towards SP rules. As a result, students have no fear towards the disciplinary actions for violating rules as they were not caught in year 1.

3.2) School of Business (SB) - females
Students cited that females in School of Business are the ones that commonly violate the dress code rule. Since there are more females found in SB, chances of females wearing mini skirts/shorts and slippers are therefore higher in SB.

3.3) School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering (EEE) – males
According to students, males in EEE are more likely to have outlandish hairstyle and dress in bermudas with slippers. Since there are a higher percentage of males in EEE, there will be higher tendency for males to violate SP rules in EEE.

The above findings answer the second and third sub research questions for this study.


4. Some possible and effective punishments suggested by students for a more deterring factor include:

4.1) Deduction from GPA
Result shows that people are more concern with their result than monetary matter. They are willing to fork out money even if they break the rule. However, they are reluctant to risk violating the rule if they have to sacrifice their GPA. GPA is accumulated, if punishment implemented, it will directly affect the score that allow them to enter university if they intend to. Therefore, it’s one of the effective ways of controlling.

4.2) Doing CIP
Students, be it male or female, feel that personal image is important. They would do anything in order to secure a good impression of themselves on others. Hence, they would abide by the rules, as it is shameful to be seen doing CIP. Forcing them to do CIP (e.g. picking up rubbish and sweeping the floor) is seen as an effective form of punishment for violating the school rules.

DISCUSSION
From a social psychological viewpoint, rule-breaking increases because of the social norms set in the school’s environment. Rule-breaking is a very important social indicator in school as students who break rules would often cause damage to the school’s reputation. Thus, coupled with the inevitable phenomenon of social comparison among peers that occurs in a school setting, rule- breaking among students would escalate if no appropriate actions or enforcements are taken. Teachers and enforcers, who are unhelpful and unconcerned to rule-breaking students, can increase their anxiety. This reduces their concerns about the rules and as these students starts to break rules, they may begin to feel a sense of achievement. This could potentially affect the students’ future attitude in life. The school should treat this issue more carefully and come up with a better solution.

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 rule violation of students in Singapore Polytechnic. From this study, three categories of rule-breaking behaviours are identified. They are the categorized under ignorance-oriented, self-innocence and convenience, which achieve the understandings of rule-breaking. By the better understanding of such behaviours, teachers and rule enforcers can better understand the behaviours of rule-breakers and diagnose their conditions promptly to treat it effectively. Nevertheless, if the teachers and rule enforcers cannot see the significance in correcting student’s rule-breaking behaviour, and refuse to act on it, this study will remain as a research article that serves the sole purpose of pleasure reading.