Vol. 1, No. 1, February 1996

 

How New Century College Students Plan to Spend Their Time
A Comparison with Other GMU Students

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Introduction

With the establishment of New Century College (NCC) new paradigms for teaching and learning are being established. The NCC experience, that ultimately leads to a BS or BA in Integrative Studies, is characterized by team learning, multiple perspectives, experiential and life-long learning principles, the use of advanced technology, and the demonstration of the attainment of levels of mastery. This report shares information on the first group of NCC students who entered GMU in the fall of 1995. Earlier reports by Institutional Assessment have shown a relationship between how students spend their time and attrition (Topics, Vol. 6 , No. 3 ). This report focuses on planned use of time by NCC students and the 1994 entering students, and actual time spent by the 1994 and 1995 graduating seniors.

Balancing Time In Five Activities

Figure 1 highlights the time freshmen and seniors spent or expected to spend in classes/labs, studying, working for pay, activities/clubs, and interacting with/caring for their family. All figures shown here represent the percentage who plan or are doing that activity. For example, 70% of freshmen plan to work; of these, 17% plan to work 11 or more hours per week. Similarly, 77% of NCC freshmen plan to work their first semester at GMU. Eighty-three percent of 94 graduating seniors and 84% of 95 seniors worked during their last semester at GMU.

NCC freshmen and 1994 freshmen have similar expectations regarding how they will spend their time. Both groups anticipate spending more time in classes (15.6 and 14.8 hours per week respectively) and studying (14.0 hrs/week) each week than working for pay (approximately 12 hrs/week) during their first semester at GMU. Both 1994 and 1995 seniors, however, who reported on actual time spent in these activities, spent more time working (approximately 21 hrs/week) than attending classes/labs or on study/homework. As shown in Figure 1, both 1994 and 1995 graduating seniors, spent approximately 21 hours per week working for pay. Further, the 95 seniors who worked during their tenure at Mason, reported working over 20 hours per week at each class level, including the freshmen year (1995 Graduating Senior Report).

Differences by Group and Gender

Table 1 presents the rank order of those activities on which each of the groups (NCC freshmen, 94 freshmen and 94 and 95 seniors) plan to spend the most (1) to least (5) amount of time. Again, freshmen intend to spend the most time per week in classes and labs, while seniors actually spend the most time of the five activities working for pay. All groups devote or plan to devote the fewest hours per week to student clubs and organizations.

Table 1 also shows that when the groups are analyzed by gender, the pattern for the NCC freshmen diverge from the other groups. NCC freshmen were the only group which showed no significant gender differences in any of the five activities. The 1994 first time freshmen, however, show significant gender differences in expected class time, study time, and family interaction time. Men expect to spend significantly more time than women in class (15.5 vs 14.3 hrs/wk) and studying (14.9 vs 13.4 hrs/wk), while women expect to spend more time than men interacting with their family (9.3 vs 7.6 hrs/wk).

Among 1995 graduating seniors significant gender differences in class time (13.2 vs 12.3 hrs/wk) and time .spent interacting with family (11.1 vs 8.1 hrs/wk) were found, with women showing higher time spent in both categories than men. Among seniors who graduated in1994, women spent more time studying (13.2 vs 12.7 hrs/wk) and interacting with family (13.2 vs 9.2 hrs/wk) than men, while men spent more time in clubs and activities (7.6 vs 6.4 hrs/wk) than women. Thus, while 94 freshmen men expect to spend more time in class and on homework than women; by the senior year it is women who actually spend more time in these activities as evidenced by the graduating senior data.

Summary

NCC freshmen as a group appear to hold the same expectations as other GMU freshmen in regards to the allocation of time to five first semester activities. NCC men and women expect to spend about the same amount of time in these activities. Gender differences, however, appeared between men and women in the 94 entering freshmen class and were reported by 94 and 95 graduating seniors. Both groups of freshmen appear to underestimate substantially the time they will spend working for pay placing it third behind study and class time, while seniors spend more time working than in any other activity. Further, as noted earlier, other data collected by Institutional Assessment show that among 95 graduating seniors, whoever worked for pay while enrolled at Mason, worked 21 hours per week at each class level.