(9) Estimation of Out-of-Class Time Expected for Students to Complete Assignments, Exams, and Preparation

Objective : Evaluate hours of assigned required activities students are expected to complete outside of class time for each didactic course.

Methods: Syllabi from required pharmacy courses were reviewed for student work required outside of normal class times. For each activity (e.g., assignments, exams, readings), time needed to complete each was estimated. Time for different activities was based on the authors’ knowledge of course activities and set by consensus; conservative estimates were used. Other sources of assignments (e.g., Moodle supplement) were not included. Each author analyzed course syllabi from AY21-22 of the pharmacy program (P1, P2, and P3 years). Results were summarized with descriptive statistics.

Results: A mean of 13.3 h/wk of outside work was expected across all three years, with the highest demand in Fall semester P2 year (17.75 h/wk). The highest percentage of time was related to lecture courses including exam preparation (35.5%), readings (28.5%), and out-of-class exams (13%). Courses with the highest number of hours for external work were P2 Pharmacokinetics (6.2 h/wk) and P1 Biochemistry (5.2 h/wk). The highest number of hours for external work per credit hour was in P2 Pharmacokinetics (2.1 h/cr/wk) and P3 Drug Literature Evaluation (1.8 h/cr/wk).

Conclusions: Although these results underestimate the total hours of assigned out-of-class work, they still indicate the varying levels and types of expectations faculty have across different courses. These results raise new questions about whether course instructors are competing for student time outside of the classroom, whether there is an appropriate workload level for out-of-class work across the curriculum, and whether students actually spend that much time on the assigned activities.