Vietnamese studentss punctuality ( văn hóa đúng giờ của sinh viên)

Figure 1: Students’ frequency of unpunctuality for classes With regard to causes of postponement, the majority of students agreed that transport problems prevent them from attending clas

1 Introduction

Time is a so special resource that people cannot store or save it for the future Everyone has the same amount of limited time to 24 hours a day However, only 20-30% of Vietnamese have punctuality habit (Do 2010) It can be seen that wasting time in Vietnam has become a serious problem It is also one of the factors which contribute to negative impacts to proliferate and integrate of the country

An area in punctuality that is familiar topic relating to daily life but seldom looked into with seriousness is that of university students These academic years in university remark mature age

of students- a period full of changes and challenges They are required to be more independent for both life and study such as time management and financial management; therefore, the issue

is more and more complex because they are provision of balance for studying, working and relaxing

Not until the situation occurs in wide range of students did people concern about it but there have been few formal investigations into students’s punctuality Admittedly, numerous journalists have tried to approach the subject through the articles, but each of them usually reflect only one point of the punctuality, either current situations, causes or solutions In “Unpunctual habit”, Hong stated that unpunctuality is a specific characteristics of Vietnamese and a domino influences (Hong 2013) In addition, Thuy in her article indicated that using “rubber time” deprive many benefits which people should deserver such as the respect of others ( Thuy 2014)

To cope with that issue, a large methods are suggest by (Hong 2013) and (Do 2010) Nevertheless, none of those articles are formal study and focus on punctuality among students at university, just punctuality in general

Bearing this in mind, this research paper which is based on data collected from students of FSD, Hanoi University will answer three main questions First of all, do FSD students are on time or not and what are the causes? Secondly, what are the effects of punctuality and unpunctuality on students? Last but not least, how can they do to be on time ?

2 Method

This research paper is based on primary source of data obtained by conducting questionnaires In the first place, 100 FSD Students at different majors were randomly selected to fill in the

questionnaires All the questions were divided into 3 main groups Firstly, 4 questions were designed in order to assess the level of unpunctuality among students based on the frequency as well as to find out its impacts on their academic life and their daily life Secondly, a scaled question was set up to determine the most popular causes of belated conditions Lastly, the questionnaires also include 4 questions to verify student’s willingness to combat this problem With the fundamental data from the questionnaires, the same questions were designed to confirm our assumptions about the effect of unpunctuality in students The main aim is to investigate further into the reasons for unpunctuality along with some useful method for students to solve this problem

3 Results

The data included in this section was gathered by means of questionnaire to determine FSD students’ punctuality With a view to discover whether unpunctuality is a common situation among students, a question about students’ frequency of unpunctuality for classes was given to

100 FSD students Of all respondents, more than a third of them reported that they are late for classes a few times a week It is noticeable that quotidian unpunctuality accounts for 25% of all students compare to punctuality (merely 3% )

Figure 1: Students’ frequency of unpunctuality for classes

With regard to causes of postponement, the majority of students agreed that transport problems prevent them from attending classes on time, at 71 agreements Similarly, time management is another main reason, consisting of nearly 60 consonances However, time depreciation and university atmosphere are two factors which do not have serious influences on unpunctuality

Figure 2: The reasons for students’ lateness (unit: number of opinion)

As can be seen from Figure 3, nearly two-thirds of participants of this project is willing to tackle unpunctuality by choosing the option “Strongly agree” while the number of students said “Not sure” comprises 25% Whereas, more than one in ten of them deems this problem not necessary

to solve

There are some differences in students’ suggestion for tackling unpunctuality Particularly, better time management accounts for majority of all suggestions (62%) In addition, changing accommodation and means of transport represent 21% and 15%, respectively

4 Discussion

4.1 Current situation

On the whole, unpunctuality for classes is quite common circumstances to FSD students at Hanoi University although they have consciousness of significance of punctuality According to the result of the punctuality quiz (Figure 1,p2 ), most students go to school late frequently which demonstrates that tardiness at school is habit for majority of them no matter how massively negative impacts they can get However, whether students who are late for classes are likely to be late for other events in daily life depends on the event and how important it is for the person Nguyen in her article indicated contradict situation that not only do students fall into lateness at university but also in quotidian life such as hanging out with friends and taking part in clubs (Nguyen 2013) Furthermore, for FSD students, if they are tardy, they will keep studying with the teachers’ approval instead of skipping that lesson They also believe unpunctuality is a problem that needs addressing to make students more active and respected by others

4.2 The causes for being late to students

The punctuality of students at FSD is affected by both internal and external factors According to the questionnaires, students point out that transport problem is main reason which makes them late for school It can be easily seen that students usually go to college at rush hour when congestion happens, so they must confront with that problem which prevents them from being on time Another reason is lack of appropriate time management Students, particularly students living far away from home are known as billionaire of time because they spend most time for

surfing Internet, watching films late at night and hanging out with friends As of lateness, nocturnal streets, recreative clubs become more crowded, and the number of Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites accounts increase remarkably Sleeping after 23 pm is common habit for Vietnamese students and they are reputed as night owls (Cat 2013) That is the reason why they meet difficulties to wake up and go to class on time Significantly, a half of students comes tardy because of unattractive lectures determining that subjects play important role in attracting students and students pay more attention for lectures which they have great passion for Furthermore, teacher comes late and taking advantage of university atmosphere influence student’ punctuality If students go to school on time and they must wait for their teachers, it will lead to depression Besides, Hanoi university just have rule for time beginning class and does not have strong method to unpunctual students to raise their awareness of punctuality for class

4.3 The negative effects of being late among students

According to questionnaires, 80% of FSD students agree that unpunctuality has massively negative impacts First of all, it does harm to students’ academic life Arriving to school after classes beginning leads to missing more than just the introduction to a new lesson While waiting for the "tardy bell" to ring, teachers often share principal information, such as: handouts for the coming tests, assignments’ deadlines and other school-related specifics The late comers may miss out on these details, as a consequence, be unprepared for some future events associating with their subjects Additionally, unpunctuality makes students less willing to study, ultimately build up tension It is proven by the fact that over 60% of the respondents acknowledged that they keep studying even being tardy just because of an academic task Besides, although, 70% of FSD respondents believed that students being late for classes are not really likely to be late for other daily life events, they do not have awareness of longer-term repercussions developed by this issue Professor MS Rao (2009) wrote that if showing up late to school becomes a habit, students may develop the belief that tardiness is an acceptable behavior This one can negatively affect their future work ethic and employment opportunities since these individuals might be reputed as the undisciplined which will create more challenges for them to climb up the ladder of success at the workplace along with other public occasions Last but not least, unpunctuality does not affect one subject but also the group If the whole class is concentrating on a lesson when a student comes late, apparently, he will disturb everyone’s focus, and finally influence the lessons’ quality

5 Recommendations

As mentioned in the result section, more than 70% of answers directed that students are willing

to address unpunctuality and the most common solution they choose is having a better time management Because of this popular tendency, this part discusses how to have a good time management and give some other useful suggestions so that FSD students can combat unpunctuality most effectively Regarding to time management or the way to make best use of self-study time, firstly, students must complete all their academic entrusted tasks before classes

It is said that all FSD students experience a dense curriculum with almost full-time study days, thus to finish their tasks, they ought to make a to-do-list and on it, they schedule high-priority activities This ensures urgent activities and essential maintenance tasks cannot be delegated or avoided To make it most efficient, everyone should set timer when they should be finishing activities like checking emails or Facebook surfing and keep to them to save time for other duties Additionally, it is necessary to use alarm clocks when students need to start getting dressed and also when they must leave the house By doing this, they will not only be less risky in unpunctuality but also acquire more pleasure and readiness for the upcoming duties Besides time suggestions, students would consider to change their accommodation, for instance: living near school, living in dormitory Therefore, the less distance they travel, the more punctual they are Additionally, altering the present means of transport is also among most chosen options Especially, if student’s choice is public transportation, it will be also fruitful for both him and community in terms of reducing traffic congestion, saving natural environment and fuel, etc Furthermore, there is one recommendation specified in questionnaire that is “finding some motivations” I highly indicate that a strongly effective motivation could gain from when students remind themselves how tardiness has cost them to lose opportunities in the past, such as one person made a bad impression at an interview or he annoyed others too much These painful reminders will spur students to do better Moreover, university should give more strict rules to boost students’ punctuality for example Thang Long University and FPT Ho Chi Minh University installed scanners to supervise students’ promptness and teaching hours (Quynh 2012)

6 Conclusion

From all the findings above, it is clearly shown that the vast majority of FSD students is unpunctual Transport problems and lacking appropriate time management are the two most popular reasons among the ones for this issue As a consequence, the negative impacts of

unpunctuality are somehow reflected in student’s academic life, future chances related to career and people surrounding Hence, to orientate students to improve punctuality, recommendation clarify some methods covering other fields (time, transportation, and accommodation, motivation) to actively and effectively handle tardiness

Owing to the breadth of this issue as opposed to the limited scale of this paper, we cannot cover all details What we try to convey in this research is to equip FSD students with vital knowledge

of the role of punctuality Thus, they would highly evaluate the importance of being in time as well as time Hopefully, future researches can investigate further into this topic in order to thoroughly examine all the causes and effects of unpunctuality as well as add more potential ideas to elucidate it

(2030 words)

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APPENDICES APPENDIX A

QUESTIONARE

We are Vu Thi Kim Cuc and Hoang Thi Thuy Mai, ESP students, Foundation Studies

Department, Hanoi University We are doing a research on Hanoi University Student’s

Punctuality This questionnaire is designed to help us obtain data for our research project We

highly appreciate your opinions which are apparently crucial to the completion as well as the quality of our paper Please return the completed questionnaire by 29 April 2016 Thank you for

your cooperation (please () your options)

1 How would you evaluate the importance of punctuality?

 Very important

 Not really important

 Not important

2 How often do you attend your classes late?

Every day

 A few times a week

 A couple of times every few weeks

 Rarely

 Never

3 Do you believe that students who are late for classes are likely to be late for other events in daily life?

 Yes

 It depends on the event and how important it is for the person

 No

4 Do you think unpunctuality have massively negative impacts?

 Yes

 No

5 Reasons for unpunctuality of university students:

Do not manage time properly

Unattractive lectures

Unattractive lectures

Transport problems (eg

accidents, traffic jams,etc)

Do not value time

Take advantage of university

atmosphere (eg.more

independence, self-study

time,etc)

6 What would you do when you are late for class?

( If you tick () the second choice, please go to Question 7)

 I would skip that lesson

 I would keep studying with the teachers’ approval

7 Why you decide to keep studying that lesson?

Like that lesson

 Have an important task (e.g presentation, mini test,etc)

Check attendance

 Others(please specify)

8 Do you believe unpunctuality is a problem that needs addressing?

 Absolutely yes

 Yes, but I don’t think it really needs much attention

 No

9 What would you do to improve your punctuality?

(You can choose more than one)

 Have a better time management

 Live near school

 Live in dormitory ( kí túc xá)

 Change the present means of transport

 Others(please specify)

THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPORATION!

APPENDIX B QUESTIONNAIRE RESULTS

1 How would you evaluate the importance of punctuality?

2 How often do you attend your classes late?

3 Do you believe that students who are late for classes are likely to be late for other events in daily life?

Yes

28%

It depends on the event and how important it

is for the person

69%

4 Do you

think

unpunctuality have massively negative impacts?

5 Reasons for unpunctuality of university students:

6 What would you do when you are late for class?

( If you tick () the second choice, please go to Question 7)

I would skip that lesson 23%

I would keep studying with the teachers’ approval 77%

7 Why you decide to keep studying that lesson?

(You can choose more than one)

Like that lesson 33 options

Have an important task (e.g presentation, mini test,etc) 63 options

Check attendance 62 options

Others(please specify):“Feeling guilty; My house is too far from school; Not waste time”

Transport problems (eg accidents, traffic

Take advantage of university atmosphere

(eg.more independence, self-study time,etc) 25 32 39