Student Workload

Questions What is student workload? How does it relate to contact hours and assigned tasks? How does it impact on the way students learn? How can students be encouraged to work very hard without feeling pressured?

Perception of workload 6 item workload perception scale The workload for this course has been heavier than expected The heavy workload in this course causes a great deal of stress for me Five point Likert scale Mean 18.4 (SD 5.7)

Comparing cases ABCDEmean (SD) N = 266 class (6.0) independent (12.4) total (13.2) workload (5.7)

Student A I st year Studying seven subjects including three languages, quantitative methods and social science subjects Strong friendship group with classmates Good relationships with staff

Student A When you learn something, you have to find information by yourself and you have to ‘digest’ it thoroughly. That is, everyday you have to find your meal, prepare it, take it and clear it up. Do not leave it behind. If you accumulate so many things, you cannot clear them up and there are many new things coming. This is what I am experiencing now. In fact, I am unable to do so since I do not have enough time. I applied it well in form five. I really enjoyed my learning at that time. I faced my exam easily. I only had to read the material once before the exam. This method can help me to learn efficiently. But now I can’t follow this method. I cannot understand although I have read the materials more than ten times. I get confused.

Student B Final year Surface learner Worked for total of 22 hours Spent 6 hours playing cards, 5 hours at church, 3 hours shopping, 27 hours watching TV

Student B to memorise all, to collect all the assignments given by the lecturers and tests as these are always examined in the examination. When I don’t know what it the lecture is about, the only way is to memorise them all, isn’t it? I can pass all the time by this method. The kind of lesson I learn the least from, usually, it is the lecture. It is boring so I cannot follow. That is when I don’t know what it is talking about, I will fall asleep. Then, I won't attend the whole lesson at all.

Student C He was not aiming for distinctions, did not find the work too difficult and said that some subjects were mainly repeating material covered during the last two years of high school. During the week he devoted a total of 17 hours to Taekwondo or socialising with members of the Taekwondo society

Student D The best is that I do revision with my classmates as I can ask them immediately once I don’t understand. It turns out that the problems will be solved at once. … Sometimes, we discuss. If we don’t understand, we will ask somebody else. If we still don’t understand, we will ask the lecturer. But it seldom happens.

Student E Student E did 58 hours of independent study, of which 32 hours were spent on project work the workload of this course is not very great but is time demanding

Correlation with workload scale hours of classes attended NS private study hours –(explains 1.5% of the variance) total study hours NS

Inferences 1 Workload cannot be directly equated to class or study time – though these do influence perceptions There are both individual variations within a class and effects on overall class behaviour from the curriculum The curriculum and learning environment have a major impact Students are prepared to work long hours for courses which are well designed and taught – though there is a limit

Inferences 2 Courses which encourage a surface approach promote perceptions of high workload – and a high workload tends to induce a surface approach Good student-student and teacher-student relationships seem to mitigate to some extent perceptions of workload