How much schoolwork should you really do?

How much time should one spend on studying?

Aleksander Mæland Munkejord Translator

Caroline Lensjø-Alvin Journalist

Emma Andrea Sørensen Photographer

900 hours of work each semester sounds like a lot, even to the most diligent student. Tuntreet met with Pro-principal Solve Sæbø to gain a better understand of the reasoning behind the nominal workload.

How is the nominal workload determined? In our study regulations there is a specified number of expected working hours per credit. Expected workload per year is 60 credits, and each credit takes about 30 hours. That gives us 1800 working hours per year, which we can divide by the students’ number of working weeks. This workload is a little below what a typical employer would expect, but students don’t work for that many weeks throughout the year.

Are we expected to work during weekends and holidays? We do not expect students to work at any particular times, but rather that they are interested in doing what is needed to succeed in the courses. Whether a student works 15 or 40 hours per week depends largely on the student, their study skills and motivation. We cannot regulate this, but we’ve got to have a paragraph determining a nominal workload so that we don’t impose an unreasonable workload on our students. We should rather focus on ensuring high quality tuition, good descriptions of the courses and that our learning activities give efficient and proper learning for as many students as possible.

Taking this spring parallel as an example, the nominated workload is slightly above 11 hours per day, excluding weekends and holidays. What are your thoughts on this? I do not expect a student to work 11 hours every day. That sounds excessive, and I can’t demand that. I hope the students live a life outside of their studies and that they regulate this themselves. We offer organized learning activities and a lot of independent studies, and I’m sure that how much work each student puts in varies a lot. But from my own studies, I remember working approximately an ordinary work week, and the majority finished on time.

How is the credit yield from each course determined? We need to design study programs that in total cover a field of study. It is up to those responsible for the program to divide the total curriculum and the subjects into suitable courses and determine how many credits the courses are worth. They also have to adjust the content and the workload of each course according to the number of credits. It’s an overall assessment, and it also has to go along with our existing semester structure. Each course consists of modules that can be removed or added for adjustment. A module can also be moved to another course, if it’s a consecutive course in the program.

Do you find the requirements of the nominated workload realistic? I think it’s realistic as an estimated workload. But as I mentioned earlier the importance lies in creating good learning activities for the students. It has to be encouraging, relevant and stimulating. Active learning is more effective than lectures, for example. So rather than worrying about the working time, we should think about how the time is spent. If we ensure high study quality and good methods, the workload isn’t necessarily an important matter. Do you think that the label of nominal workload is a bit outdated? I consider it an approximation of how much work each course demands. There are large individual differences in how each student works, and surely there’s a slight variance in the workload of the different courses. So, it is an estimate, but we need that in order to plan the schedules and the workloads so that things don’t crumble completely. Of course, we’re all ears if the students think that the estimated workload of a course is completely amiss. Feel free to bring it up if you feel like a course doesn’t have the right estimate.

Do students have any say in how many credits a course should be worth? All study programs have a program council of student representatives. If it is observed that the workload of a course doesn’t correspond to what’s expected, it’s possible to change this through the councils. Students are also free to tell the teachers directly, and they can mention it in the course evaluations that follow every course. I think the voice of the students is strong here at NMBU, they are highly represented in the councils and committees. The students in Norway have a large influence, maybe larger than they realize.