{"id":30968,"date":"2022-08-25T13:00:56","date_gmt":"2022-08-25T05:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/?p=30968"},"modified":"2022-11-22T15:39:29","modified_gmt":"2022-11-22T07:39:29","slug":"a-lot-of-swot-good-or-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/2022\/08\/25\/a-lot-of-swot-good-or-not\/","title":{"rendered":"A lot of swot \u2013 good or not?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-30969\" src=\"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2022\/08\/study-buddies.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1024\" srcset=\"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2022\/08\/study-buddies.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2022\/08\/study-buddies-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2022\/08\/study-buddies-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2022\/08\/study-buddies-768x768.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">Photo: \u2018Study B<\/span><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">uddies\u2019 by Allison Seow Li Ting from SRN\u2019s SG Photobank<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400; font-size: 12pt;\">In the Asia-Pacific region, Singapore is synonymous with long working hours and perhaps also long studying hours. This may be due to the widely-held belief that studying more guarantees better grades and better future prospects.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In \u201cAsk NUS economists: a lot of swot \u2013 good or not?\u201d (<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Straits Times<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, August 2022), Dr Kelvin Seah (NUS Economics) explains that longer out-of-school study hours do not always translate to better student performance. He analyses data about mathematics study time from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development\u2019s 2015 Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa).<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Within the Pisa survey itself, out-of-school study hours were defined to include the total hours for homework, additional instruction and private study. Interestingly, in 2015, students in Singapore studied longer each week than the average employee worked (according to a report from the <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Singapore Business Review<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">).<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400; font-size: 12pt;\">Dr Seah found that while more time spent on out-of-school study is initially associated with better mathematics academic performance, the benefits seem to diminish the more time given to this. Beyond 35 hours of study per week, out-of-school study appears to become counterproductive for academic performance, even after controlling for other factors such as gender and socio-economic status.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400; font-size: 12pt;\">Dr Seah highlights two main insights from the data. Firstly, there is an optimal level of study time, beyond which students may grow tired and stressed, hindering them from absorbing the content effectively. Secondly, this may be driven by \u201creverse casualty\u201d, because weaker students (with lower academic performance) may devote more time to study in a bid to catch up.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400; font-size: 12pt;\">Hence, Dr Seah recommends studying hard, but doing so in moderation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Read the full article <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.straitstimes.com\/opinion\/ask-nus-economists-a-lot-of-swot-good-or-not\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">here<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Photo: \u2018Study Buddies\u2019 by Allison Seow Li Ting from SRN\u2019s SG Photobank In the Asia-Pacific region, Singapore is synonymous with long working hours and perhaps also long studying hours. This may be due to the widely-held belief that studying more guarantees better grades and better future prospects.\u00a0 In \u201cAsk NUS economists: a lot of swot [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":235,"featured_media":30970,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[4540,4529,4609,4604],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economics","category-news","category-singapore-research-nexus","category-visible"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/235"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30968"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31227,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30968\/revisions\/31227"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}