Author Topic: College students in US studying less and less these past 50 years  (Read 2533 times)

Joe Carillo

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According to recent research conducted by two California economics professors, the number of hours that the average college student in the United States studies each week has been steadily dropping—from about 24 hours a week in 1961 to just 14 hours today.

As reported by Keith O’Brien in an article that came out in the July 4, 2010 issue of the Boston Globe, the professors—Philip Babcock at the University of California Santa Barbara and Mindy Marks at the University of California Riverside—found that the decline in study hours infected students of all demographics. “It’s not just limited to bad schools,” Babcock said. “We’re seeing it at liberal arts colleges, doctoral research colleges, masters colleges. Every different type, every different size. It’s just across the spectrum. It’s very robust. This is just a huge change in every category.”

Babcock and Marks don’t think that the culprit behind this marked decline in studying is the Internet or the advent of new technologies. Their theory is that one cause is a breakdown in the professor-student relationship. They suggest that instead of a dynamic where a professor sets standards and students try to meet them, the more common scenario these days is one in which both sides hope to do as little as possible. “No one really has an incentive to make a demanding class,” Marks said. “To make a tough assignment, you have to write it, grade it. Kids come into office hours and want help on it. If you make it too hard, they complain. Other than the sheer love for knowledge and the desire to pass it on to the next generation, there is no incentive in the system to encourage effort.”

So, given this disturbing development, what should universities be doing to improve the study habits of students? O’Brien reports that some administrators in recent years have been putting less weight on course evaluations when making tenure decisions. Professors are being told to give explicit tasks to students. And many professors today are using Internet-based systems, like Blackboard, where students are required to log on and write about the assigned reading for all of their classmates to see. Such assignments are expected to help ensure that students are reading and will come prepared for class.

But as the Babcock-Marks survey shows, the universities aren’t coming close to meeting their own expectations for what the level of studying of their students should be. “That,” O’Brien quotes Dan Bernstein, director of the Center for Teaching Excellence at Kansas University, as saying, “is one of our dirty little secrets.”

Read Keith O’Brien’s “What Happened to Studying” in the Boston Globe now!

« Last Edit: July 10, 2010, 09:38:32 AM by Joe Carillo »