Using Learning Activities in Mathematics: Workload and study time

Abstract

Workload, here taken as the time taken to study course materials, is recognised as an important factor influencing the quality of student learning. This study surveyed the time taken on learning activities by students studying five Open University distance taught mathematics and computing courses. Most students made a serious effort on the activities, taking an average of 1 hour for each. Given the number of activities in course materials, this means that taking them seriously will take students more time overall than the time allocated by course designers. Students whose approach to studying was mainly to learn the subject were more likely to take activities seriously and to spend longer on them than students whose approach was mainly to pass the course. One course had computer-based activities and these took significantly longer than the text-based activities in the other courses.