Posted on 11/17/2004 7:30:11 AM PST by AreaMan
By ERIC HOOVER
Only about 11 percent of full-time students say they spend more than 25 hours per week preparing for their classes -- the amount of time that faculty members say is necessary to succeed in college. Forty-four percent spend 10 hours or less studying.
Yet students' grades do not suggest that they are unprepared for their academic work: About 40 percent of students say they earn mostly A's, with 41 percent reporting that they earn mostly B's.
Those are among the major findings of the latest National Survey of Student Engagement, a summary of which is being released today. In its fifth year, the survey covered 163,000 freshmen and seniors at 472 four-year colleges and universities.
The survey's organizers measure "engagement" -- the level of student involvement in academics and campus activities -- to provide colleges with a better understanding of their quality than is found in popular rankings, like those of U.S. News & World Report.
The new data on individual colleges are not available to the public. Participating institutions receive detailed reports about how their students' opinions and performances compare with those of students at other colleges. Many of the colleges refuse to release those findings.
Since the inception of the survey -- known as "Nessie," after its initials, NSSE -- college administrators have hoped that they could use the findings to improve student engagement on their campuses. This year, the survey's organizers reported that at least some aspects of students' experience had improved over the past five years.
For instance, seniors reporting that campus administrators were helpful, considerate, and flexible rose to 63 percent from 48 percent. Over the same period, students who said they had held serious conversations with peers espousing different social, political, and religious views increased to 55 percent from 45 percent. Students participating in service learning rose to 19 percent from 12 percent.
"We're pleased to see some more-than-modest bumps," said George D. Kuh, director of the survey and a professor of higher education at Indiana University at Bloomington. "There's been a lot of attention given by campuses to becoming more student-friendly."
Some of the survey's findings, however, suggest that many students are not taking full advantage of their academic opportunities. Two-fifths of freshmen and a quarter of seniors said that they never discussed ideas from their classes or readings with a faculty member outside of class.
The survey also found that:
About 90 percent of students rated their college experience as "good" or "excellent."
Approximately 60 percent of seniors and 37 percent of freshmen did volunteer work.
Only 10 percent of students said that newspapers or magazines were their primary source for local and national news, while more than half said they relied on television for such information.
More than 25 percent of students said they had not attended an art exhibit or play during the current academic year.
Twenty percent of students spent no time exercising. Among the new items in this year's survey was an assessment of "deep learning": the extent to which students engage in self-reflection, the integration of knowledge and different skills, and activities that require higher levels of mental activity than rote memorization. Students who scored higher on this scale spent more time preparing for class, working on campus, and participating in co-curricular activities than students with lower scores.
The NSSE study, "Student Engagement: Pathways to Collegiate Success," is scheduled to be posted online today.
They needed a study to figure this out?
Perhaps things have been dumbed down enough???
Twenty five hours????? Who cares how much time they spend studying if they get good grades? Some people are just more efficient.
Well duh! Like whatever. Ya' know?
25 hours a week studying? I am flabbergasted. Does that mean I have to give my diploma back?
Has to be the result of wildly inflated times to read stuff.
Many is the time for Poli Sci or History classes that were of the "read giant shelf of books, take one big exam at the end" that I did ALL the reading for the class in the last week or two before finals.
I graduated from a state univ in '81. The dumbing down was starting then. Dumbing down is present in K-12 as well.
My rule of thumb was: three hours of study per hour of class time plus extra for projects, reports, programs, exam preparation, etc.
I really hosed myself in the first and fifth semesters by not following this rule.
To this day, if I'm a little down, the thought that atleast I have no homework tonight, always cheers me up.
They won't claim that if they take my classes, or if other professors would grade the way I do: I grade exams (or in some cases the whole class) 'on a curve' aiming at 10% A's 25% B's, 40% C's, 10% D's (a stupid grade--a kind of honorific F+) and 15% F's. My exams are tough enough that I need to cut them slack from the old 10% grade ranges to do this.
Sure there's sometimes some upward drift from those targets--if people do extra credit, which is always tougher than the regular work, or in small classes if everyone does well.
Thirty six hours of study for 12 hours of credit? If you go big time and take twenty one hours you would be putting in 63 hour of study.
I have to question your formula.
Anyone who has succeeded in majors like engineering, math, physics, architecture, computer science-- that is, in fields where there are meaningful and measurable standards of performance-- knows that 25 hours per week is where you start. There were some weeks where I probably doubled that number.
-ccm
I have to disagree. I know many engineering, C.S., and math majors who spent nowhere near that amount of time working outside of class. They all got 4.0 GPAs, graduated, and currently have lucrative jobs. I also know one guy who did put in those heavy hours, scraped by, and is now floundering his way through med school. Natural ability has a lot to do with how much study time is necessary.
bttt
There are 168 hours in a week. Subtracting 5 hours per day for sleep leaves 133. Further subtracting 15 to 20 hours leaves 113 hours minimum. Throw in a couple of hours per day for eating, bathing and other optional activities and there's an easy 90+ hours available.
Sure I goofed off some, but for the most part I worked.
If you can get by on five hours sleep a night go for it. Even when in college I couldn't get by on that amount.
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