Evaluating Intercultural Behaviour

Cultural norms are behaviour patterns that are typical of a specific group. The following scenario took place when I was on board the MRT on my way home from school one day.

I happen to be near two friends, a local and a caucasian and I overheard them complaining about a friend who was doing a project together with them. Let's call the local Michael and the caucasian Jeffrey. Apparently, this friend had hardly contributed to the team's effort and appeared disinterested in helping out at all. Unevitably, they were unhappy with his attitude and they were complaining about him. Amid their complainings, a particular comment made by one of them caught my attention.

" Of course you know he will be like that one la.. The culture in his race is like that one mah.. Really buay tar han him. Sian sia.." Michael said.

"What is 'buay tar han'?" Jeffrey replied.

"Oh it means cannot stand him la.." said Michael.

"Stand? Do you all always so much of these 'la', 'mah'?" replied Jeffrey.

This particular scenario caught my attention as it is an intercultural situation and also recalling that I need to take note of one for my ES2007S module, I made a mental to note observe what was happening. The culture involved in this context is not that of between races or ethnic groups but rather one that is between countries. Singlish is a local cultural language as it involves a blend of the numerous ethnic groups that reside in Singapore. As such, it has become common for our spoken language to include terms from other languages. While we as Singaporeans may understand this language, our friends from overseas may not be able to do so. This cultural difference can lead to difficulties when communicating with others from other countries and it could serve as a communication barrier.

Another point is regarding Michael's comment. "The culture in his race is like that one ma." I think this is an interesting point as Michael has already built up his own perception of another based on his perceived understanding of their culture and his assumption that this race would have this particular culture. He believes their culture to be such and this understanding could be flawed or inadequate as he does not know the entire culture but rather based his judgement only on the few individuals which he may have met. While those that he have met may exhibit trends he has perceived, it is important to note that it is not a reflection that the entire race share this culture. Cultural differences can exist within races as well and while it could be minute, cultural differences can exist within smaller sub units such as families. This form of prejudice could serve to impede communications as he already has a prejudice against them by assuming something to be their culture and that this culture is inherent to people from his race.

Project Topic

After studying three years in NUS and being fully enrolled into the Modular Credits system, I am increasingly having some reservations on how realistic this system is. In NUS, modular credits (MCs) are assigned to modules to indicate the work load of that module and also the expected numbers of hours to be spent on that particular module per week in a ratio of one MC to two and a half hours per week. Therefore, a module like Professional Communications (ES2007s) which is a four MCs module would requires us to spend an average of ten hours per week. To ensure that students are within a predefined "manageable" level and also for students to have a study and rest balance, the university discourages students from taking more than 25 MCs per semester. Any student who wishes to do more than 25 MCs would be evaluated on a case by case basis. However, in this system where we are further bounded by the Cumulative Point System (CAP), students tend to be grades orientated and as such, usually the number of study hours exceed the average recommended hours per week. This would increase the tendency of students having to spend all their time on studying and much less for rest or play. This could be detrimental to the overall well being of the student.

Some questions which I have included:
1) How many hours are student spending on studies per week?
2) Is this more than the number of Modular Credits that they have?
3) How much time do they spend sleeping each day?
4) How much time do they spend on playing each week?

In this survey report, my general research question would be "Is the modular credit system an understatement of the number of hours students spend studying each week?" and my hypothesis would be that NUS students spend more than the recommended time for the given amount of MCs and that the relation between the number of MCs and the number of hours spend studying is greater than the ratio 2: 5. The objective of this research study is to determine if the hypothesis is correct and my target reader would be the Dean's Office. The objective of the report would then be to increase the awareness of the Dean's office regarding this discrepancy in the amount of supposedly allocated time and the actual time spend and that this could be detrimental to the growth and well being of a student.

An attitudinal survey is essential in this report as students would be able to rate their response to the issue on a scale system thus enabling students to give a more detailed feedback. Furthermore, it would be more affective in nature and thus would be able to accommodate students’ perception regarding the issue. Since this issue is very much open to perception and also varying in everyone’s level of adaptability to work management, such a form of survey would help to give us more insight into the problems which this issue may pose and allow us to formulate constructive recommendations.