Investigating the notion that more hours spent studying guarantees higher educational quality

Since 2018, Danish college college students have had to report the yearly amount of several hours they commit in lectures, at analyze and getting ready for exams to the Danish Ministry of Higher Education and learning and Science.

When pinpointing no matter whether a university should really acquire its whole subsidy or no matter whether to shave up to five p.c off of its appropriation, the weekly amount of review hours is a single of the parameters weighed.

The reporting of study hours stems from the Ministry of Better Education and learning and Science’s aim to ensure for superior top quality education.

Nevertheless, in accordance to the researchers driving a new research at the College of Copenhagen, an increased amount of several hours is no assure for better academic high quality.

“Universities have a money incentive to get pupils to spend significant amounts of time at research. Even so, this does not always provide an genuine or honest perspective of educational excellent. Rather, we really should be interested in what learners essentially get out of the time that they shell out,” asserts Lars Ulriksen, a professor at the University of Copenhagen’s Section of Science Education.

Together with section colleague Christoffer Nejrup, Professor Ulriksen observed next-yr learners in four various plans at a Danish university, as effectively as conducting interviews and a series of workshops with 31 learners.

Do the job hrs and discovering are not inextricably connected

In their effects, the scientists identified numerous college students describing how they can easily devote a considerable quantity of time and work on a process or test with out sensation as if they retained everything.

“Pupils report that they generally expend substantial time planning for an test, with no essentially being significantly engaged or immersed in their preparations. At other times, they invest a brief volume of time on anything that leaves a further perception on them,” clarifies Professor Ulriksen.

Moreover, getting a university student is a way of existence in the course of which lectures and assignments marinate inside learners as they engage with close friends, workout and so on.

As such, Ulriksen believes that it can make no perception to measure high-quality and engagement by way of a solitary time parameter:

“If we are curious about knowing how pupils study, we ought to appear at far more than just the total of time they invest finding out. Alternatively, we will need to obtain out what keeps the tutorial fireplace within them burning—and what evokes them. We know that fascination and immersion are fertile grounds for deep studying.”

Swap out targets for qualitative surveys

Lars Ulriksen implies that qualitative surveys could be applied to let for students to verbalize and elaborate on their ordeals with the educational top quality of their applications.

“For now, we have a metric that probably satisfies the economists who use these outcomes to crank out data. In the meantime, we are still left only a shade wiser about what examine engagement and good quality are all about. Of course, qualitative surveys would call for additional assets. But maybe more should be remaining up to the personal college, even though dropping the measurements for a when.”