MORALITY AND SCIENCE OF ETIQUETTE AMONG TERTIARY STUDENTS

Abstract

Being Asians especially Malaysians, require us to have good etiquette since  Asians are commonly polite and proper.  However, with the advancement of technology, people nowadays are affected by tik tok videos and podcast shared in social media.  Teenagers especially, spend more time with social media and they indirectly are influenced with what is shared by others.  Thus, this paper tries to determine the etiquette and behaviour of university students in different contexts.  The survey involved 62 diploma students who attended a webinar on ‘politeness strategy.’  They were required to respond to five questions related to manners after the webinar ended.  Findings show most of the respondents were polite and have good manners.  They would say ‘thank you’ to people who have helped them getting things done, they rarely express their anger to people who did not treat them well as they were being patient, they were described as friendly and cheerful, and they rarely cursed in public.  Being teenagers, they sometimes enjoyed laughing at unfortunate incidences happened to others.  Findings of the survey may assist academicians understanding further on teenagers’ manners in the 21st century as these teenagers are more into gadgets that affect how they behave since they usually spend more time alone without mingling around with others. Future research may investigate other samples with heterogenous groups.   By having knowledge on learners’ behaviour and understanding them, they can be assisted to become better humans who are humble and respect others regardless of age, nationality, race, profession, and religion.