Potential Research Project Topic
Have you ever faced a scenario whereby you did not have enough bid points to secure a place for a particular module? Or you had been out-bidded in the process of bidding? Many a times, I face with such problems. Often, I have to re-schedule my nicely planned timetable by looking for other suitable modules. As we all know, bid points are accumulative. Therefore, students who matriculated earlier generally have more bid points than those who matriculate in a later year. This may be unfair to the students who matriculated late. This is because with lesser bidding points, it is harder to secure places for the modules they want.
Moreover depending on the bidding round in which one bids for the module, successful bid points could differ among students for the same module. For example, one may spend one thousand points while the other may spend only one point for the same module.
My general research question would be ‘Do NUS students think that the bidding system is biased and thus should be abolished?’I think that most NUS students would agree with me that the bidding system we are adopting now is a biased one.
An attitudinal survey would be important in order to study this topic to test and confirm my hypothesis. Views of students could be reflected and made known to the Office of Student’s Affair (OSA). We can also gather ideas from students on how to make the allocation of modules a more impartial process to replace the current bidding system. Having a survey aids in convincing the OSA to change the way we are allocated our modules.
3 comments:
In your survey, I think you need to avoid the so called "volunteer bias", which means those have strong opinions on the issue will respond emotionally. So when you are surveying the students, it is necessary to know how each of the participant "suffer" from the bidding system. And of course, all of your participants cannot be those who suffered quite a lot from the bidding system.
I think it is necessary to understand the policy behind this system. Is it just merely a way to arrange the timetables of students? Or is there something more? Maybe the school is trying to teach us how to "outwit, outlast and outplay"? For this gives us a taste of the outside world where we are supposed to plan our own lives. If we were to abolished this system, what would be a suitable substitute for it? OSA might be more negotiable if we provide them with alternatives to the current system...