In the current change project, the results extracted from the sample of students in year 2 and 3 by focus group interviews and log diaries revealed wide range of variations regarding their habits and ways of studying. Furthermore, different modes of independent learning behaviors, regarding where, when and how they study were also identified. Students described many factors affect their perception of workload, e.g.
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personal and social life issues, their interest to subjects, learning approach, and the difficulty of the content material. These opinions are congruent with the findings of Kember (2004) (87) & Kember and Leung (2006) (88), who stated that students perception of workload is not correlated with the actual SWL in terms of hours, and that two major classes of interacting factors could shape their perception of workload, e.g. intrinsic and extrinsic factors. The latter is further divided into academic and environmental factors. High teaching quality and its effectiveness appear to improve SWL perception and their grading of teaching rather than decreasing the amount of SWL (48). The work done by Entwistle and Trait (1990) (165) in Lancaster University affirmed that students learn best when what they are taught is perceived as motivating, relevant to their career profession, and is assessed properly. This matches with the suggestions raised by the interviewed students:
“I think I need more motivation from teachers in order to break the process of boring repetition” (5, Y3).
So, the motivating and engaging teaching methods can spur students to work hard without feeling overly stressed.
Evaluation of the change project has been implemented in the mid-term weeks of the examined units, so it did not measure the amount of assessment workload in isolation. However, the concern of assessment workload was highlighted by students during the focus interviews, and was not planned to be covered in the literature review. It represents a considerable amount of their stress influencing their real and perceptual workload. Here, assessment workload includes the effort and time needed for completing all the assessed tasks, projects, assignments as well as the formative and summative exams in a course. There is general acceptance, across universities that using an assessment framework delineating the general assessment guidelines would help reducing SWL. It has been also recommended that all forms of assessments in a
course should not exceed 20-30% of the notional SWL (166). Other recommendations for
reducing assessment workload are; providing students with helpful and clear information about the content, format and the evaluation criteria of assessment, relevancy of assessment to the stated learning objectives, and distributing assessment
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activities reasonably across the whole course. It is also advised to increase the formative assessments as a learning tool with useful feedback, to match assessment marks with students’ effort, and to consider assigning “assessment weeks” within courses used only for the assessment activities (8, 9). Working within interactive groups tends to develop the analytical and cognitive skills of students, e.g. questioning and critically interpreting of the studying material. It also motivates students learning and encourages exploring gaps in their knowledge and getting feedback from their peers (167, 168)
. This confirms the students statements identified in the focus group meetings. Students mentioned that studying in groups is preferred when they need to fill the gaps in their knowledge and when they need motivation especially in subjects seem not interesting for them. They also stated that study groups stimulate peer discussions while answering questions and in solving problems. Moreover, studying in groups enhances knowledge retention, and is useful for revisions and practicing questions before exams. One of students mentioned that:
“About 90% of my study is within group; it is the only way to retain what I studied for long-term memorization, provided having competitive serious group” (1, Y3).
Other students believe that an isolated environment is necessary for better concentration, and that study groups might waste their time if not properly organized or controlled, or including members with dissimilar learning goals. On the other side, collaborative team work and collegial relationship are essential practices in PBL environment (17, 56, 68). The interviewed students confirmed that team work is inevitable for completing their course assignments when the task responsibilities need to be divided, and being important for their learning and socialization into their profession. The evaluation findings analyzed form the log diaries verified almost all the results collected from the focus group interviews regarding the preferred venues, timings and other behaviors of studying. However, none of log diaries confirmed studying in the transportation. Additionally, the independent SWL measured from the log diaries was about 35 hrs./week; which confirms what was conveyed by the focus group interviews, e.g. 33-35 hrs./week.
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Evaluation of the change project revealed that, although the notional SWL of the examined weeks in year 2 and 3 suitably falls within the recommended ECTS standard guidelines (30), the calculated ECTS credits in the whole unit in year 3 (31 ECTS) however appeared exceeding the limits. According to ECTS guidelines, 60 ECTS are required for a full 30-week academic year; which equates 2 ECTS per week. Considering one ECTS equals 20-30 hrs. of notional SWL, the recommended reasonable notional SWL/week should lie between 50-60 hrs./week. In confirmation with these guidelines, evaluation of the change project showed that the calculated notional SWL measured in the two examined weeks in year 2 and 3 was 55 and 58 hrs./week respectively; which lie within the comfortable required standards as per a week. On the other hand, the same ECTS guidelines recommend 30 ECTS per 15-week semester as a sensible SWL. The results of the change project showed that the calculated ECTS assigned for the whole 15-week unit in year 3 was 31 ECTS, which is higher than that of the unit in year 2 which was 29 ECTS. As the SWL in year 3 unit is clearly observed to exceed the recommended limit of 30 ECTS/semester, modification of SWL must be implemented in year 3 unit in order to keep it within the comfortable limit recommended by the ECTS guidelines. This recalls the role of unit coordinator to implement the corrective actions.