Recommended study hours

Hello,

Apologies if previous threads exists on this - I couldn't find anything recent.

I find the recommended number of study hours per credit (150 hours for 15 credits) quite outlandish!

(These are just a example guidelines from a random UK university, not the one I attend: https://catoolkit.herts.ac.uk/toolkit/study-load-understanding-and-managing-your-studies/.)

Where do these guidelines come from? Why do they involve so many more hours than are required for a first? I reckon they are at least 20% above any beyond what's required. Am I missing something?

Reply 1

Keele University

13

Hi there,

As far as I am aware it's actually different for every course that you do - for a lot of the science courses where it is expected that you will do lab work there is a requirement of fewer study hours as a lot of your time will be in the labs as well as lectures and seminars - although I assume that perhaps that time is also included within those hours perhaps ?

For my degree (philosophy) we had 8 hours contact time in lectures and seminars, then it was expected that we did around 40 hours research extra a week - totaling 48 hours within the week altogether.

^Rose

Reply 2

transnerd

6

Hi there!

These recommended hours are to prove that the course is full-time. They have to meet a certain number of "study" hours to warrant that module being worth that number of credits. There are not enough hours in the day to do the recommended study time. It's not even "recommended", it's more of a formality. With science subjects where the contact hours are higher, they less emphasis placed on the independent study as more hours are covered by classes, but arts and humanities often have an outlandish number of private study hours attached to them. They aren't the hours required to excel in that subject, but more to show that there is enough "learning" in that module.

Reply 3

IzzyOfThePeak

OP

9

Original post by transnerd

Hi there!

These recommended hours are to prove that the course is full-time. They have to meet a certain number of "study" hours to warrant that module being worth that number of credits. There are not enough hours in the day to do the recommended study time. It's not even "recommended", it's more of a formality. With science subjects where the contact hours are higher, they less emphasis placed on the independent study as more hours are covered by classes, but arts and humanities often have an outlandish number of private study hours attached to them. They aren't the hours required to excel in that subject, but more to show that there is enough "learning" in that module.

That answers my question perfectly, thank you.

Reply 4

IzzyOfThePeak

OP

9

Original post by Keele University

Hi there,

As far as I am aware it's actually different for every course that you do - for a lot of the science courses where it is expected that you will do lab work there is a requirement of fewer study hours as a lot of your time will be in the labs as well as lectures and seminars - although I assume that perhaps that time is also included within those hours perhaps ?

For my degree (philosophy) we had 8 hours contact time in lectures and seminars, then it was expected that we did around 40 hours research extra a week - totaling 48 hours within the week altogether.

^Rose

Hello, Keele University,

Thanks for sharing this. For comparison, I probably do about 25-30 hours personal study/week on a joint honours French/History course alongside 10 hours contact - just for anyone else reading this.

IzzyOfThePeak

Recommended study hours

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