In 1961, students at four-year colleges studied an average of 24 hours a week. Today? Just 14 hours, according to a new study by a pair of University of California economics professors. The decline is widespread, cutting across all races, genders, majors–even school quality and size. Surely Facebook and other digital distractionsare to blame? That’s not what the data shows. The decline goes back better than 20 years. Philip Babcock of UC Santa Barbara and Mindy Marks of UC Riverside think the growing power of students and professors’ unwillingness to challenge them might be a factors. Whatever the reason one thing is clear, notes the Boston Globe: “The central bargain of a college education — that students have fairly light classloads because they’re independent enough to be learning outside the classroom — can no longer be taken for granted.”
Studying has long been considered a key part of a college student’s growth, both as a means to an end — a deeper understanding of the subject matter — and as a valuable habit in its own right. A person who can self-motivate to learn, academics argue, is not only more likely to be a productive worker, but more fulfilled citizen. As a result, universities for decades have stated — sometimes officially — that for every hour students spend in class each week they are expected to be studying for two hours on their own.
The paper notes that the problem isn’t just a problem on college campuses. Students arrive on campus with poor study habits well in place.
According to survey data gathered by the Cooperative Institutional Research Program, or CIRP, the largest and longest-running study of higher education in the United States, incoming college freshmen have reported declining study habits for at least two decades. By 2009, nearly two-thirds of them failed to study even six hours a week while seniors in high school — a figure that has risen steadily since 1987.
The Atlantic offers eight reasons why students are studying less including professor apathy, more efficient studying methods, and growing student discomfort with long-from reading. Me? I suspect grade inflation might be a significant factor. Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?
What about extra-curriculars becoming more time consuming? I bet that athletes spend more time practicing and that at many colleges and universities there are more student groups than there were in the past. Many of those groups are where I derived my most academically enriching activities.
I noticed race, gender, school size, etc included but I wonder if students these days (who are going to schools that are far more expensive and are generally not as wealthy as previous cohorts) are spending more time working?
Comment by Jason — July 7, 2010 @ 2:14 pm
I was on campus in the 60s, when pass-fail grading and student evaluations of teachers began. I observed that only the most serious students (and the most rigorous degree programs, which did not allow pass-fail) continued to put forth the same effort in the absence of grades. It was the same with student evals; the less serious students valued the easy graders, regardless of what they might or might not have learned. This was also before widespread grade inflation (ed school was an exception – and there was no general studies dept or equivalent).
Comment by momof4 — July 7, 2010 @ 2:24 pm
How can anyone prove grade inflation? I’m a college student and I don’t see evidence of it.
Comment by Anonymous — July 7, 2010 @ 4:26 pm
Dude! Sucks to be you…
Comment by Robert Pondiscio — July 7, 2010 @ 9:39 pm
I was at least a tad surprised by the study’s findings–especially by the finding that the declines were observable in all kinds of schools and that they occurred mostly between 1961 and 1981.
When I went to college in the ’80s, the conventional wisdom was that students were much busier–and worked much harder–than their predecessors had before the ’60s. The college, the thinking went, had been a sort of finishing school for wealthy young men who whose fathers would hand them the office keys upon graduation. Older alumni tended to talk more about their fraternity exploits than about their studies. Alumni tended to be more concerned about the school’s athletic record than its academic record.
That, at least, was the perception. Probably inaccurate, I guess.
Comment by Claus — July 8, 2010 @ 7:25 am
When I was in college, there were freshman courses (sciences and English) designed to weed out the unprepared and lazy; a third of the class flunked or dropped out. At my husband’s engineering school it was explicitly stated, on day one; “look at the kid on either side of you and know that only one of you three will be here on graduation day.” Kids not only were expected to do more studying (3 hours per class hour was expected at my school) but took a heavier course load; 15-18 credits per semester. When my kids were in college, many kids took only 12. In my era, the only kids allowed to tape a lecture were kids with physical handicaps and I never heard of the practice of handing out notes or study guides until my kids entered college. We also had to spend far more time in the library, both on research and on journal reading, since notes had to be taken by hand; there were no copy machines. However, there was not the expectation of internships during the academic year that now exists. Getting good summer internships is facilitated by in-term internships, jobs in your major field and/or being a TA.
Comment by momof4 — July 8, 2010 @ 8:29 am
@momof4 Clearly the dynamic of education changes when the burden of student accomplishment shifts from the student to the instution or the instructor. I don’t think that explains the data in this study completely, but it certainly gives it a decided push in the wrong direction.
Comment by Robert Pondiscio — July 8, 2010 @ 8:34 am
You forget that course requirements will very from teacher to teacher and from subject to subject. Are you saying that an art class SHOULD have the same studying and test taking requirements that a social studies course has?
Comment by Anonymous — July 8, 2010 @ 12:59 pm
I forgot to mention: If grades are supposed to occur over a “normal distribution”, how can you grade objectively when you’re trying to limit the number of high grades despite the fact that everyone in the class did the work and studied? Isn’t the whole point to encourage everyone to get high grades?
Comment by Anonymous — July 8, 2010 @ 3:37 pm