Last year, Singapore’s two prominent local universities, NUS and NTU, announced that admissions for incoming prospective students would shift away from a purely grades-based criteria, and instead evaluate students’ applications as well as interviews more holistically. This marks the first official and publicised shift in these universities’ perspectives on admissions, as the tacit assumption from …

University admissions not solely about grades: Some surprise results Read More »

In “Income Robustly Predicts Self-Regard Emotions” (Emotions, 2021), Associate Professor Eddie Tong (NUS Department of Psychology) and his co-researchers found that income was a directly proportionate indicator of greater positive self-regard emotions and lower negative self-regard emotions. The relationship between income and other-regard emotions (feelings we have for other people), however, was less strong and …

Income Robustly Predicts Self-Regard Emotions Read More »

  In ‘A class apart? Meritocracy, social mixing and effects on national unity’, Grace Ho (Senior Political Correspondent, The Straits Times) reflects on Singapore’s efforts to manage meritocracy and strengthen national unity across social classes. She draws insights from a new book written by Associate Professors Vincent Chua and Tan Ern Ser (NUS Department of …

A class apart? Meritocracy, social mixing and effects on national unity Read More »

As part of the Book Box series, the Straits Times highlighted The Votive Pen, a newly published biography of Emeritus Professor Edwin Thumboo (NUS Department of English Language and Literature), by acclaimed author Nilanjana Sengupta. Although Prof Thumboo says he was at first reluctant to have a biography written about himself, he feels that Sengupta’s …

Thumboo as schoolboy, scholar and acclaimed poet Read More »

In the Straits Times article titled “Efforts taken to address nutritional gaps among children”, Minister of State for Education and Social and Family Development Sun Xueling commented on an NUS study led by Professor Jean Yeung (NUS Sociology and Centre for Family and Population Research) which found that poor nutritional habits in young children were …

Efforts taken to address nutritional gaps among children Read More »

As part of the Ask NUS Economists series in The Straits Times, Professor Lorenz Goette and Mr Chen Zihua (NUS Department of Economics) write about the link between being resistant to installing digital contacting tracing (DCT) applications and being vaccinated, as well as possible factors that contribute to both. Through an experiment conducted on a …

What’s behind the resistance to digital contact tracing apps and vaccination? Read More »