I came across an older article on the Washington Post's website today from 21 May, entitled "Is college too easy? As study time falls, debate rises," by Daniel de Vise. It's one of several I've seen in the last year or two, citing emerging evidence suggesting that the amount of time college students spend studying has gone down significantly over the past five decades. As a fairly recent college graduate, these sorts of stories tend to peak my interest, so why don't we talk about it.
The evidence suggests that in the 1960s college students on average dedicated 24 hours to studying every week. Coupled with 16-18 hours of class time, that brings their total to about 40-42 hours of scholarly work a week, or about the amount of weekly time people in America tend to consider full-time employment.
Today the average seems to have fallen to about 15 hours of study per week, with 16-18 hours spent in class, totalling 31-33 hours of scholarly work a week. Over the course of a 16-week semester, that makes 640-672 hours for the 24-hour/week group, and 496-528 hours for the 15-hour/week group. To be fair the numbers here are iffy, because class time (at least at my college) did not continue all the way up to the final exam in week 16. Presumably however, the time without class could have been spent preparing for an exam or writing a final paper, so for simplicity's sake we'll assume that the drop in class time is made up by a corresponding increase in study time. Drawing out these numbers over eight semesters--the number I spent as an undergraduate--the 24-hour/week study group would accumulate 5120-5376 hours, while the 15-hour/week study group 3968-4224 hours. That's a big difference in work-rate, assuming the numbers and assumptions are true, and based on them alone it's unsurprising this matter is getting so much press. But as the article points out, the issue may be a great deal more complex than it at first appears.
Let's start with the general debate. On the one hand are those who look at these numbers and say college students today are lazier than their peers decades ago. As told in the Post:
"Some critics say colleges and their students have grown lazy. Today’s collegiate culture, they say, rewards students with high grades for minimal effort and distracts them with athletics, clubs and climbing walls on campuses that increasingly resemble resorts."
On the other the hand are those who suggest less study time is the result of busier students, dividing their time between, among other things, jobs and long commutes which today's student endures in order to bear the higher cost of university education. Students today aren't lazier they say; they're busier than ever.
That seems to be the debate in its most basic form, and I admit while in college to have witnessed evidence supporting both sides, (though I wonder what students in the 60s would make of today's incessant e-mail barrage levelled at students and faculty alike). So whose interpretation more accurately captures reality? Let's dig a little deeper.
One important piece of evidence the article mentions is the wide variability in study time, both between different colleges as well as different majors. Drawing upon data gathered through the National Survey of Student Engagement--a service used by universities to gather information about their students--one finds that students from some schools, like Washington and Lee in Virginia, averaged about 20-hours/week, while those at Howard University averaged 13. The remainder of the schools highlighted in the article had averages within that range, with none of them reaching the 24-hour/week load.
In addition, the choice of major seems to effect the amount of time spent in study. According to research cited by the article:
"Architecture students studied the most, at 24 hours a week. Further down the list, in descending order: physics (20 hours), music and biology (17), history (15), psychology (14), communications (13) and, at 11 hours, parks, recreation and leisure studies."
How might we understand all this? It seems clear that something is happening with the amount of time spent studying--traditionally understood--but it seems less clear what that means. Are students today lazy? In my experience some would certainly qualify (and I would at times have included myself in this group). There were also folks I knew who worked and did school full-time, often favoring job commitments at the expense of their studies. Furthermore, some folks I knew seemed to study less because of commitments to sports and/or performance groups, while others made an effort to do school work but ended up on Facebook all night instead.
I admit my experience is limited to the confines of one college among many, but even with these limitations in mind, generalized explanations remain unsatisfying. Variations in study time between schools, even between schools who select from the same types of students, suggest at least some environmental influence on study behavior. In addition, variation among majors suggest that different courses of study make different demands of students. Having recently worked alongside an architecture student at Philadelphia University, I'm fully prepared to believe they study more than many, given the types of demands the major makes. After all, they are expected to design things that don't readily fall down. Other majors do that too, but all things being equal I'd rather a theory or an argument fall apart than the building in which I'm currently sitting.
So while study time may well be decreasing, the ramifications remain unclear. Given the costs of getting (or indeed not getting) a higher-education today, it is I believe a pertinent question, and warrants greater scrutiny. Something to considering anyway.
Happy Thursday, friends :)
No comments:
Post a Comment