Assessing student academic time use: assumptions, predictions and realities

Abstract

Context: In an era of medical education reform and increasing accountability at all levels of higher education, there is a need to understand how the time in which students engage in academic activities can inform evidence-based quality improvement of the curriculum. Time logging provides an opportunity to quantify student use of academic time and guide data-informed decision making in curriculum design.

Objectives: This study aimed to evaluate faculty staff and student predictions of students' academic time use and to assess students' reported academic time use.

Methods: Graduate-level professional students engaged in a time use exercise during the first semester of Year 1 (autumn 2015) and second semester of Year 2 (spring 2017) of a redesigned curriculum launched in autumn 2015. This exercise involved three key activities: (i) prediction of time use; (ii) time logging, and (iii) reflection on time use. Key faculty staff predicted students' weekday time use in both semesters.

Results: Students' predictions of academic time use strongly correlated with their reported academic time use during both the first semester of Year 1 and second semester of Year 2 (r = 0.55 and r = 0.53, respectively). Faculty members' predictions of academic time use did not correlate with student academic time use during either semester. Although 63.8% of Year-1 students reported the time use exercise motivated them to change their time use, students reported spending similar amounts of time on academic activities during the first semester of Year 1 (7.8 ± 1.5 hours per weekday) and the second semester of Year 2 (7.9 ± 2.0 hours per weekday). Most students reported that the exercise had been useful and indicated that their logged time accurately reflected their actual time use.

Conclusions: Although curriculum reform efforts may always require that some assumptions be made, time logging can quantify students' academic use of time. Although students predict their use of time more accurately than do faculty staff, negligible changes in students' academic time use despite reported desires to make changes indicate that students' academic time use may remain inelastic. Educators must consider these findings as they design curricula, identify academic rigour, and establish student expectations of academic time use.