LyndsayLamont

Contents

ONE PAPER

DEFINITION AND BACKGROUND

NOW

RESEARCH

CRITICISMS

MY OPINION

REFERENCES


ONE PAPER

I’m sorry, I’ve not got one for you… this topic was a strange one, I’ve never put a topic title into Google (ordinary not scholar) and got so many results before! Yet all were in my opinion were a bit empty, and for the most part research dealt with school education. I found it hard to get a good overview of the area… its possible that is because of lack of good research on my part, however on this case I’ll put forward that its due to a lack of good quality research in this area.


DEFINITION AND BACKGROUND

The definition of ‘Time-on-task’, can vary from experiment to experiment, with different studies using different definitions, the most general definition is similar to that of engagement; ‘time a student spends actively engaged in learning’ (http://www.education.com/definition/time-on-task/). The more narrow definitions (and in my opinion the more appropriate definition) make a clear distinction between time on task and engagement is “engaged time on a particular kind of task” (Berlinger, 1990). To illustrate the difference between the above definitions;

In a science class, using the first definition a person would be classed as on task if they were engaged in work, even if it was not strictly relevant, for example maths questions. For the second definition for the person to be classed as on task, they would have to be engaged in science problems and more particularly problems in that specific area.

As far as I can make out the concept originated from Carroll’s 1963 paper, his work was initially based on language learning, but he then realised that it could be more broadly generalised, (see fig 1). However, it became more widely popular after Bloom’s work on mastery mentioned it (Bloom, 1968).


NOW

Currently, the concept is huge especially in America and more particularly in their schools (which is what the majority of aforementioned Google hits were about). The reason it is such a big deal for schools is because time is a valuable resource and if ‘time on task’ is a variable which can mediate success, it is something that can be easily manipulated.

In higher education it has become a big deal since Chickering and Gamson mentioned ‘time on task’ as number 5 in their ‘Seven principles for good practice in higher education’ (Chickering & Gamson, 1987). As a random aside this area is where the rest of the multitude of Google hits came from, in particular, online higher education courses.


RESEARCH

Looking specifically at higher education, a recent study by Stoeber and others (Stoeber et al., 2010) finds that time on task is the mediating effect between perfectionist strivings and successful task completion. Their study found that people high on perfectionist striving concentrate more on accuracy than speed…only if time to complete task is unlimited though. In addition, the task was a simple letter search task, so whether this can be generalised to course results is a potential stretch.

Another recent study looked at how attitudes on time devoted to a course (time-on-task) and following results of time-on-task on course performance and overall GPA over a three year period. They found that self reported time-on-task is not correlated with performance (with the exception of ‘C’ grade students) despite student’s belief to the contrary. ( Guillaume & Khachikian, 2009)

Not exactly sure it counts as research… but is hugely cited, Chickering and Gamson’s work was continued by Chickering and Stephen (1996) and has went down the lines of describing how new technologies can be used to implement their 7 principles, including for time-on-task, that universities should utilize to help students increase amount of time they can spend on task. (For example, use emails to communicate, saves students having to come onto campus saving them transport time therefore increasing time-on-task…)


CRITICISMS

*Findings from different studies aren’t really comparable, as;

*Different studies take different measurements of ‘time-on-task’. Schools use observation methods which measure engagement (not time-on-task, see here for an informal account of practical difficulties of such observation studies).

*For higher education the preferred method for recording time-on-task is surveys (asking students to record how many hours they spend ‘studying’ as far as I can see they don’t explain to the subjects what time-on-task is…

*For observational studies many different factors alter findings Karweit and Slavin (1982) done a review of ‘time on task’ findings in schools and all five of the variables they considered significantly mediated the reported results!

* 'Time on task’ will not always necessarily correlate with success rate in a meaningful way… for example doing maths problems, some students may need less ‘time-on-task’ for certain areas (say algebra) for them to understand and be successful in that area. In which case, time- on-task is more reflective of time needed.

*Findings have the status of truisms, (eg, students that study more learn more; (Jackson, 1985; Phillips, 1985).


MY OPINION

That ‘time-on-task’ moderates success is almost common sense… if one isn’t doing work then obviously one isn’t going to be successful. Aside from innately feeling it must hold, I honestly cannot see much supporting evidence. Think its perhaps more important at a school level.

Personally from the evidence I’ve reviewed am not hugely convinced in the concept, think its just as likely that some other factor is underlying time on task… perhaps not necessarily time-on-task mediating success, but instead cognitive process used while spending time-on-task for example deep or shallow processing of information. Or even time-on-task may be a measure of students attitude to course work, and its actually the attitude itself that underlies the effect. Either way findings haven’t been consistent.

REFERENCES

BERLINER, D. C. (1990) What's All the FussAbout Instructional Time? The Nature of Time in Schools Theoretical Concepts, Practioner Perceptions New York and London; Teachers College Press.

Bloom, B. S. (1968). Learning for mastery. Evaluation Comment, 1(2), University of

California at Los Angeles, Center for the Study of Evaluation. Reprinted in C. W. Fisher & D. C. Berliner (Eds.). (1985). Perspectives on instructional time (pp. 73-93). New York and London: Longman.

Carroll, J. B. (1963). A model of school learning. Teachers College Record, 64(8), 723-33.

Chickering, A., and Stephen, E., (1996), "Implementing the

Seven Principles: Technology as Lever," AAHE Bulletin, 3-6.

Guillaume, D. W., and Khachikian, C.S. (2009). The effect of time-on-task on student grades and grade expectations. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education., 1–11,

Jackson, P. (1985). Time-off-task at a time-on-task conference. In C. W. Fisher & D. C. Berliner (Eds.), Perspectives on instructional time (pp. 301-07). New York and London: Longman.

Karweit, N. L., & Slavin, R. E. (1982). Time-on-task: Issues of timing, sampling, and

definition. Journal of Educational Psychology, 74, 844-51.

Phillips, D. C. (1985). The uses and abuses of truisms. In C. W. Fisher & D. C. Berliner(Eds.), Perspectives on instructional time (pp. 309-16). New York and

London: Longman.

Stoeber, J., Chesterman, D., Tarn, T. (2010). Perfectionism and task performance: Time on task mediates the perfectionistic strivings–performance relationship. Personality and Individual Differences 48. 458–462