Professors’ research identifies

trends in academic performance 

April 1, 2005--Worried about your college grades?

A new study by three professors at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro suggests that time spent studying for class may be declining at an alarming rate.

Today, college students spend less than half the time that faculty members believe is required to learn and academically succeed. On average, students spend only 13 hours per week studying, but they also spend close to 12 hours watching television, 13 hours on other forms of entertainment, and 18 hours working.

These results, and others, are some of the findings of research done by management and marketing professors, Dr. Sarath Nonis, Dr. Melodie Philhours and Dr. Gail Hudson, based on a sample of college students.  

The trio has been looking at patterns of academic success for years in the interest of understanding students’ needs, so that they might guide them as they strive in achieving important learning objectives.   

The professors asked the students to keep a diary for one week, and report how much time they spent on 26 different activities including studying, working, and sleeping.

Nonis, Philhours and Hudson knew the best way to reach their students is to understand them. They wanted to understand what is competing for their students’ time, and help them to make good use of the time they have.

There were four objectives in their study: how much time college students spend on various activities and work during a given week; to identify profiles of college students based on their activities; to determine the extent to which the different student profiles have different outcomes such as academic performance; and to determine what extent the different student profiles vary relative to personal variables (gender, race, age, number of credit hours, ability, level of motivation); and situational variables (academic load or whether a student works).

Nonis, Philhours and Hudson began formulating this study some time last year. And, in the fall of 2004, 440 students (freshmen through seniors) were given the dairies, or journals, to document how much time was spent on various activities each day of the week. Yielding an effective response rate of 62 percent, 264 surveys were returned.

At the end of March, Nonis, Philhours and Hudson presented their findings at the Association for Collegiate Marketing Educators conference in Dallas. Through a peer review competition among eight southwestern states, they received the “Best Paper” award in the marketing education track and the “Distinguished Paper” overall, among all marketing disciplines. Competitive papers were received for the regional competition from throughout the United States as well as outside the U.S.  

### 

For more details or to schedule an interview about this study, please call (870) 972-3430 or contact them via email:

Dr. Sarath Nonis at snonis@astate.edu;

Dr. Melodie Philhours at mphil@astate.edu;

Dr. Gail Hudson at ghud@astate.edu.