How do Singaporeans spend their spare time? 1
A Survey on how Singaporeans Spend Their Spare Time
Liu Yan and Wu Huijuan
National Institute of Education
DLS 101: Digital Literacy Skills
Mr. Wilkinson
10 February 2004
A Survey on how Singaporeans Spend Their Spare Time
On the streets in Singapore, people and cars flow all the time .No matter workers or students, both of them pass by you quickly. Working and studying have become the most important things in their lives. It seems like they work like a machinefrom day to night. So we two students wondered how they spend their spare time and how they relax themselves. In order to know the other side of their lives, we did this survey research.
Methodology
Design of Questionnaires
In order to get more information on our topic, we designed one questionnaire containing 10 questions. First, my partner and I did it separately. Then we exchange our idea on the questions. All the questions are suitable for most of the Singaporeans of different ages. The questions contain basic information; where do theyusually go; what do they usually do. Before conducting our survey, we had changed some questions according to the advice given by our lecturer.Also wetried doing the survey in our class to find out weather we have some problems in our questionnaire, and then we make a little change. Eventually, we selected the 10 questions.
Survey and Interview
We did our survey during our spare time. We went toMcDonald’s and ParkwayPlaza near our hostel. There we interviewed the people who were not rushing and had time to think about our questions. We also interviewed the people in NTU.Altogether we interviewed 20 people and most of them were students. All the Singaporeans were very friendly to us. For each question, they thought carefully and answered slowly in order to make us fully understood. Some of them even became our friends after the interview. Thanks to their co-operation; we had a pleasant survey.
How do Singaporeans spend their spare time? 1
Results
We can find that the people at the age of 20-29 have the shorter work or study time,while people at the age of 40-55 have the longer working time. (See Figure 1)
Figure 1
Average working or studying time of different age group
32% of ourinterviewees like watching TV and 19% interviewees like surfing on Internet at home. The thing that the Singaporeans do not like to do issleeping. Moreover, a few interviewees like doing sports, working and reading in their spare time. (See Figure 2)
Figure 2
The popular indoor activities
Form Figure 3,we can easily find that most of females like shopping while the males are quite different when they are outdoor. About 15% males like doing sports and 10% of them like shopping and movies. The Figure 3 may be not exactly because the female respondents a little bit more than the male respondents. (See Figure 3)
Figure 3
The popular outdoor activities
Visibly, most of Singaporeans like to spend their spare time with friends and parents. However, some people at the age of 20-39 like to stay by themselves. Almost all Singaporeans at the age of 40-50 like to spend spare time with workmates. Few people like to stay with neighbors. (See Figure 4)
Figure 4
The people who they usually stay with in their spare time
How do Singaporeans spend their spare time? 1
Discussion
From our finding, we can see that the respondents’ age and gender have a little influence on their responses.
Finding one tells us the Singaporeans who are older than 20 years old will be busier and busier. Most people in 20 -29-agegroup are singles who are studying in universities or preparing to find a job. Sothey have more spare time to manage. The people in 30-39-age group have children normally. In order to look after their children, they have to spend more time.The Singaporeans who are over 40 years old spend more time taking care of their family members.The teenage students need to spend more time on studying.
Finding two shows us that knowledge, information and entertainment have become more and more important with the development of modern society. Singaporeans think highly of them, so they spend much time in doing those things. The reason why Singaporeans sleep little may becausethey think it is waste of time.
From the second finding we can see that shopping is popular to females and sports are popular for males. That some males go shopping perhaps because they have to do some thing that their girlfriends like to. Both the male and female do not like eating so much. Up to now I have understood why the Singaporeans are quite slim.
The final finding tells us thatmost young Singaporeans like spending spare time with friends because they can talk whatever they like. However, for teenage people, some of them need their parents’help, so they still like their parents to accompany. The older people spend more time with family members, workmates and neighbors.
Conclusion and Recommendation
Through the finding and discussion, we can see although Singaporeans are very busy with their work, they live a happy and colorful life. Most of people think their spare time is enough to relax themselves. They do many things and liking staying with others.
Through further investigation we find that the things they do and the place they go are quite concentrated. For holiday, some people have plan. Most of them want to go abroad. However, for some of these people especially students have no time and money. But they think their plan can come true in the future. For those who have no plan just do thing as usual in holiday, maybe their daily life is as good as holiday.
Though our study was very small, containing 20 interviewees, but it gave some valuable information. If a similar study could be done, with more partners, using more time, it is better to interview more people from the young to the old and having various jobs, the finding may be more interesting and accurate.
How do Singaporeans spend their spare time? 1
Appendix A
Questionnaire
How do you spend your spare time?
We’re collecting information on this topic to complete a required report. Please choose the answer that best reflects your opinion or attitude. If you don’t wish to answer a question, please feel free to go to the next question.
______
QUESTIONNAIRE
Sex: ____Age: ____Job: ____
1 How many hours do you work everyday?
A. less than 6 hours
B6—8 hours
C8—10 hours
D more than 10 hours
E others______
2 When do you usually relax yourself everyday?
A every morning
B noon /break time
C night
D darning
E others______
3 Do you think you are very busy? Is your spare time enough for you?
4 When you are at home, what do you like to do? Please put the following things in order of frequency.
surf on the Internet watch TV do sports work or study eating read books or magazines, newspapers others______
5 When you are outside doors, what do you like to do? Do it as Q4.
shopping eating do sports visit parks movie others______
6 When relax yourself, who do you usually stay with? You can choose more than one answer.
A parent
B friends
C workmate
D neighbors
E yourself
F others______
7 How much is your income every month?
A less than 500
B 500-1000
C1000-2000
D 2000-3000
E more than 3000
8 How often do you make a plan for your spare time?
A quite often
B often
C usually
D sometimes
E never
9Do you have a plan or just a dream for you holiday? What’s that?
10Does your plan become true? If not, why?
How do Singaporeans spend their spare time? 1
Appendix B
Reflection
How do Singaporeans spend their spare time?
My contribution to this report
Indeed, I nearly devoted myself into this survey because it is worthy. I get together all the information I discovered from the Singaporeans and then synthesize them. I must make much of information because it is really limited for me. From every phenomenon, I tried my best to thought it seriously and get more.
What I learned from undertaking this report
Singaporeans are very busy, especially the people who over the age of 30. It seems like it is really hard for them to stop working. Although most of Singaporeans are very busy, they live in a very happy way. They prefer enjoying themselves than continuing working on holidays, meanwhile, a large amount of Singaporeans planed to go abroad, as an illustration, Australia, Japan, and China. All in all, they spend their lives in their own ways.
The difficulties I found
Overall, I realize that the survey research is not as simply as I thought after I completed. When I survey Singaporeans, I need to overcome lots of obstacle. Time is limited for me, so I had to spend almost my all spare time on the survey. Nearly every weekend, I went to the places where Singaporeans was not rushing, at the same time, had plenty of time contrast with the others. I found how I shy when I wanted to do the survey because it was the first time that I talked to a stranger on my own. It needs more courage. In addition, they gave me some valuable suggest and idea double, that why I could improve my survey and English speaking step by step.
Team work within my survey report
Thankfully, I had a partner who is very responsible and hardworking. At first, we surveyed separately. Both of us interviewed 10 Singaporeans. When we finished that, we exchanged our thoughts and then discussed instruction, result, discussion and conclusion etc. All in all, we tow thought highly of the survey; therefore, we did the survey report carefully. Both of us contribute to this report a lot. It teamwork-spirit that made us completed the hard work satisfactorily. Thanks to my partner.
The advice I give to the next year’s students
The most valuable advice I can give is that you must make a well-plan before you interview. Nevertheless, most students do survey report in a hurry. For instance, my partner and I made the questionnaire very fast without thinking it seriously. Whereas, we regretted when we statistic the information we get, for both of us interviewed too many students but few workman. So in spite both of us made a lot of effort on the report, we still can not get the current result. In closing, you can think fast but do act slower.