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Emerging principles for the allocation of academic work in universities

Faculty of Education, University of Tasmania, Locked Bag 1307, Launceston, TAS 7250 Australia

Andrew Edward Fluck

Internationally, much has changed in the governance of universities since the adoption of corporate management approaches. A strong focus on efficiency, productivity and accountability arising from these approaches has been well documented in the literature. Reductions in government funding have caused universities to become more competitive and entrepreneurial. However, little is known about the impacts of these changes on the working lives of individual academics. This paper is part of an ongoing study exploring the lived experiences of 2526 Australian academics who responded to a national questionnaire. This paper builds on earlier work by holistically drawing together the earlier findings which separately analysed the teaching, research and administration/service aspects of their work. In examining the effectiveness of universities through the ability of their academics to undertake their roles, we found the voices of academics that need to be heard in the development and implementation of key policies, such as academic workload and performance, to preserve the essentially self-managed nature of their work. By combining the learning from the project through the literature review, the statistical analysis and themes from the open-ended questions, we developed a set of principles to underpin these policies in universities. These principles can guide universities to shift towards a more collaborative working relationship with academics, based on trust, and actively encourage them to play be more active in institutional decision-making, especially in relation to policies that directly affect their work. These results have implications for improving the productivity of academics and the institutions in which they work.

Introduction

In many countries, neo-liberalism has impacted how universities function, through greater external accountability and an expectation to be more entrepreneurial and competitive (Bolden et al. 2012 ; Fredman & Doughney, 2012 ; Furlong, 2013 ). In universities in Australia and the UK, this resulted in a shift from collegial self-governance to top-down corporate approaches and “increasingly marketised and competitive environment” (Guthrie et al., in review , p.5; Furlong, 2013 ).

In Australia, reduced government funding for universities is coupled with an expectation to become more efficient and productive (Marginson & Considine, 2000 ; Norton et al., 2018 ). Yet, while numerous efficiencies have resulted from these changes (Hénard & Mitterle, 2010 ), deeper questions have arisen about the core-purpose of universities (Barry, 2019 ; Harman & Treadgold, 2007 ) where “productivity” is often conflated with “efficiency”, despite these being fundamentally different concepts (Marginson & Considine, 2000 ). As productivity (effectiveness) relates to the core-purpose of an organisation, it involves value judgements about what should be done, while efficiency relates to doing it with minimal effort and cost. Thus, considerations of effectiveness should precede those of efficiency (Kenny, 2009 ).

Accompanying these changes, researchers have noted the loss of power of academics within their institutions and intensification of their work (Bolden et al. 2012 ; Boyd, 2014 ; Coates & Goedegeburre, 2012 ; Henkel 2005 ; Mitchell, 2015 ; Ryan et al. 2013 ). Much of this literature has focussed on the effects of change on universities, as institutions. However, as Gill ( 2014 ) noted, their effects on the working lives and careers of individual academics have gone “almost entirely undocumented” (p.13).

Our goal has been to address this gap, by exploring the effects of these sector-wide policy changes from the perspective of individual academics across Australia. To our knowledge, there is no equivalent analysis at this level of detail in the published literature. To begin, we draw on the literature to understand what academic work entails.

Literature defining academic work

An academic’s workload comprises a complex mix of teaching, research and service/administration duties, but the proportions of these duties can vary considerably for individuals according to their experience level and discipline. Studies have suggested time-based approaches to allocating academic work are most credible, provided: academics have been involved in their development, they contain a holistic and realistic array of time allocations for the tasks, the work allocation process is transparent, and the budget process ensures the adequate allocation of resources (Burgess et al., 2003 ; Kenny et al., 2012 ; Kenny & Fluck 2014 ; Vardi, 2009 ). However, this earlier work lacks detailed guidance on appropriate time allocations for various tasks.

Our research set out specifically to address this situation. A questionnaire was sent to academics at every university in Australia. It gathered detailed information from 2526 academics about, their work, including quantitative time estimates for many tasks associated with their teaching, research and service/administrative roles. This was supplemented by qualitative data, as open text comments, on their lived experiences with academic workload allocation and associated performance policies in their institutions.

The first phase of this research involved extensive analysis of these data resulting in tables of detailed time estimates for a wide-range of teaching, research and service/administrative tasks, respectively (Kenny & Fluck, 2017 , 2018 , 2019 ). As, in the published literature there is no equivalent analysis, at this level of detail describing the work of Australian academics, this paper necessarily builds on this work. We further contend the findings will be relevant for academics more globally.

This paper concludes phase one of the research and has two aims: first, to provide a holistic view of the issues; and second, to use the overall findings and literature, to identify underlying principles for the allocation of academic work and associated processes. These principles should serve the interests of academics and their universities and be applicable to a wide-range of individual circumstances. They should be able to inform policies and processes related to managing academic work and performance, in a manner that is credible and reflective of the work academics undertake.

Policy impacts on academic work and their institutions

In many countries, productivity demands require universities to compete for funding and meet external performance metrics, such as Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) (Kwok, 2013 ). This drive to maximising research output and reputation creates pressure to publish in the “higher-ranked” journals, limits what “counts as research”, and devalues non-traditional outputs, such as creative materials and live performances (Fredman & Doughney, 2012 ; Kenny, 2017 ; Kwok, 2013 ).

With less control over their work and how their performance is judged (Cannizzo & Osbaldiston, 2016 ; Houston et al., 2006 ). This is compounded by increased use of short-term contract employment (Ryan et al. 2013 ) in teaching, and research, resulting in a “devaluing of the critical teaching-learning-research-practice nexus in education institutions” (Yielder & Codling, 2004 , p.321), and the commodification of knowledge (Fleissner, 2006 ; Kauppinen, 2014 ).

A fundamental “clash of values” is evident between bureaucratic and academic approaches, in the reduced influence of academics over decision-making within their institutions (Mitchell, 2015 ; Roberts, 2013 ; Yielder & Codling, 2004 ). The subsequent loss of academic voice on important questions undermines the autonomy and intrinsic motivation typically associated with academic work (Boyd, 2014 ; Fredman & Doughney, 2012 ; Houston, Mayer & Paeweai, 2006 ). In this climate, the notion of academic freedom is challenged and individual competition can distort the research process and lead to “gaming” strategies (Söderlind & Geschwind, 2019 , p.76).

Robert’s ( 2013 ) prediction of an “emerging academic dystopia” is revealing itself in Australian universities. The rate of casualisation in the Australian higher education sector was reported as the third highest of all sectors (Ryan et al., 2013 ). Langford ( 2010 ) reported relatively high levels of stress for university staff in comparison to other industries. More recently, Vesty et al. ( 2018 ) identified “burnout” in academics from Australia and New Zealand due to workload pressures and loss of control over their work. The Queensland Office of Industrial Relations ( 2018 ) reported an increase of serious compensation claims in the tertiary education sector of 18.9% per annum between 2009 and 2014. Nationally, these rises have occurred against a backdrop of a 17% decrease for all industries (Safe Work Australia, 2021 , p.32).

Indications are that the intensification of academic work, in the name of efficiency, has its limits. High levels of stress are likely to undermine the delivery of high-quality teaching and research, and therefore diminish the effectiveness of universities. This suggests that the working relationship between academics and their institutions needs some serious re-thinking.

A path forward: institutional effectiveness and the work of academics

If university governance should serve teaching and research as their core business (Harman & Treadgold, 2007 ), then universities need to re-think “the structures, relationships and processes through which…policies for tertiary education are developed, implemented and reviewed” (Hénard & Mitterle, 2010 , p.26). However, Roberts ( 2013 ) warns against a “return to a romanticised version of the university of the past”, arguing instead for a governance model capable of “acknowledging the importance of the tension between ideals and realities” (p.41). But if, “traditional collegial decision-making” remains “so important to the university idea” (Bebbington’s, 2021 , p.159), universities need to go beyond mere “acknowledgement” of these tensions and explore ways to work more effectively with academics.

Others identify trust as the cornerstone of a better relationship between academics and their institutions (Barry, 2019 ; Harman & Treadgold, 2007 ). Trust, however, needs to be fostered by processes which genuinely allow a voice for “the academic profession who perform the work of the academic ‘core’ and who possess specific professional norms and behaviour” (Harman & Treadgold, 2007 , p.25). Barry ( 2019 ) went further, imploring academics “to re-engage, and be encouraged to re-engage, in governance where their expertise best fits”. However, in corporate universities, this adjustment to the existing power dynamic clearly presents a challenge to both academics and their managers.

From the above discussion, sectoral policies on funding and productivity translate into institutional policies that directly affect how academics work. Thus, care must be taken to ensure these policies protect the essence of academic work. More specifically, Barrett and Barrett ( 2008 ) argued, “given the centrality of staff to the success of universities”, the way institutions determine and judge academic work, should be seen as “major strategic process which if not done well can disable the organisation” (p.6).

These ideas challenge the typically dismissive view of academic workload allocation as a low-level operational issue. Barrett and Barrett ( 2008 ) maintain it is central to a university being effective, so its implementation needs to be coherent with other key policies and resourced accordingly. It is also central to building trust and needs to be developed in consultation with academic staff to ensure its credibility and acceptance. Indeed, if this is “effectively and authentically handled universities can create strong socio-temporal contracts with their staff that embody the vision of the university” (p.6).

Others have demonstrated a lack of coherence in related institutional policies through widespread adoption of individual performance management, without its adaptation to suit the intrinsically motivated, highly cognitive and autonomous nature of academic work (Franco-Santos et al., 2014 ; Kenny, 2008 , Morris, 2011 ; Pink, 2010 ). Indeed, for example, Kenny ( 2017 ) and Kenny and Fluck ( 2018 ) identified that 94% of academics see a clear link between workload allocation and their research performance.

Important contextual background to this paper

All Australian universities negotiate an enterprise agreement to determine working conditions for their employees. Each agreement includes an academic workload clause, which typically states an annual maximum number of hours of work (derived assuming a working week of about 38 hours) that can be allocated to an individual academic. However, how this is done, and the times allocated for the tasks undertaken in an individual’s workload, remains largely a matter for local workgroups to decide (NTEU, 2020 ). This results in some form of local or institutional workload allocation process. Earlier workload studies claimed that the processes by which the academic workload and performance processes are developed and implemented are crucial (Burgess et al., 2003 ; Vardi, 2009 ). However, as Papadopoulos ( 2017 ) noted, too often these models have been manipulated, particularly with the power imbalances in universities alluded to earlier. Failure to properly consult with academics on the impacts of change leads to “major changes to educational practices” being “introduced through alterations to (workload) models” rather than by consultation and consideration of the impact upon academic workers” (Papadopoulos, 2017 , p.522). Thus, while the existence of a workload allocation model is necessary for fairness, it is not sufficient.

Given that there is limited published data in this area, we will briefly summarise the major findings from our three published papers, as important background and a link to the purposes of this paper.

The first paper, Kenny and Fluck ( 2017 ), after extensive statistical analysis, presented tables giving median hours for a wide-range of specific teaching-related tasks, including, for example, unit coordination, preparation of lectures, tutorials, studio classes, student assessment and consultation. It also explored how factors such as experience and discipline affected these figures. It found differences due to the mode of teaching (online or on-campus delivery), which is particularly pertinent for monitoring the impact on workloads, due to the shift to online learning across the sector during the COVID pandemic, also, in dealing with the workload impacts on remaining staff due to the subsequent loss of 17,300 jobs in higher education (Universities Australia, 2021 ).

A similar analysis in Kenny and Fluck ( 2018 ) provided median times for a wide-range of research-related tasks such as preparing a grant application, preparing a refereed journal article for submission and supervising research students. As a workload analysis, it drew a clear distinction between research workload (or input) and research productivity (or output). More specifically, research workload refers to the time needed to undertake a range of research activities, whereas productivity concerns the outcomes of this work, such as published articles, thesis completions or successful grants.

This inputs-based approach to research workload is very different from what typically happens in Australian universities, where the research component of academic work is usually determined retrospectively, based on research outputs. Which, Papadopoulos ( 2017 ) argues:

“…take past performance (construed narrowly as outputs) as indicative of future potential, and reallocate academic time according to judgements which precede consideration of aspirations or underlying constraints...” (p.523)

Kenny and Fluck ( 2019 ) identified a wide-range of academic administrative and service activities. Respondents provided indicative times for many examples of both formal and informal tasks. Service work was also categorised as internal or external to the institution, strategic or operational in nature. It confirmed the centrality of this work for the proper functioning of universities and the sector as a whole, but noted that often, these tasks were not adequately accounted for in individual workloads. Many academics reported the administrative demands on their time had increased significantly.

Together, these findings provided a detailed and holistic set of quantifiable time-based metrics for a wide-range of activities, encompassing teaching, research and administration/service. Some combination of these forms is the basis of any individual academic’s workload (Vardi, 2009 ). Holistic and detailed data concerning academic work has not been published before for Australian universities. Contrary to criticism of previous approaches to workload (Papadopoulos, 2017 ), these data have proceeded “from the real” (p.514), because the allocations were derived from data supplied by the participants in the study.

Methodology

Grounded Theory (Glaser & Strauss 1967 ; Strauss & Corbin, 1990 ), a methodology by which theory emerges from the data, through inductive analysis underpins this research project. This supports the emergence of underlying principles from the data, as a step towards a theoretical foundation for these claims. To be comprehensive, the questionnaire was open to academics, regardless of their discipline, experience, academic level or career focus, and consisted of 80 questions.

This paper builds on our previous work by providing an analysis of the respondents’ experiences with workload and performance policies, as expressed through their written responses to the final four questions:

  • In your experience, what are the main strengths of the current approach to the allocation of academic work at your institution?
  • In your experience, what are the main challenges to the fair allocation of academic work at your institution?
  • In your experience, what are the main reasons for the challenges you mentioned in the previous question?
  • Please make any final remarks on academic workload and/or performance management based on your experience.

Details of the sample

A total of 2526 academics responded to the questionnaire. This paper is concerned with the sub-sample of 1047 (41.5%) who responded to at least one of the four questions above. We cannot claim this sub-sample to be fully representative, as there were differences with the government data available for the sector at the time (Australian Government, 2017 ), as outlined below.

The gender distribution, with 437 (41.7%) males, 604 (57.7%) females and six reporting as “other”, was consistent with the national proportions (43.5% male and 56.5% female). Differences were noted, however, in the spread of academic levels and workload categories between the national data and the sub-sample.

Table ​ Table1 1 shows the professoriate (Levels D & E) accounted for 20.1% of respondents, which is lower than the 28.8% reported nationally for full-time equivalent academics at the time. Most respondents in the sub-sample (74.1%) were mid-career academics (Levels B and C), which is much higher than the national proportion of 47.4%. Only 5.5% of this sample were sessional staff which is lower than the 17.5 % reported nationally.

Distribution of respondents by increasing seniority (academic level) and workload category

Comparing the spread of workload categories with the national data was more difficult. The national data reported on only four categories of academic “function” (Teaching only, Research Only, Teaching and Research and Other) indicating only 33.5% of academics have a research role, with “Other” at 53.2% and “Teaching Only” at 12.6%. However, our sub-sample has five categories and most academics had some level of research or scholarship expectation within their role.

Table ​ Table1 1 shows the largest group of academics were “teaching and research” (75.4%), who typically have approximately 40% of their time allocated to research and teaching. The other categories, either teaching or research was emphasised (e.g., “teaching intensive” staff typically have a 60% teaching load). In general, all respondents had a nominal 20% of their work allocated for service/engagement and administration duties.

While we acknowledge the limitations of self-reported data, the fact that the respondents were anonymous, voluntary and there was no power relationship involved, makes it likely they would frankly describe their individual experiences of the workload and performance management practices in their institutions.

Individual experiences of academic workload and performance at their institutions

Coding was used to generate a list of themes which were tallied. The resultant frequencies for the top four or five themes related to each question have been tabulated. In the discussion following, quotes have been used to illustrate typical responses, with each responder given a unique identifier, beginning with an F or M to indicate their gender, and ending with letters A-E, indicating the academic level in ascending order, where A = Associate Lecturer, B = Lecturer, C = Senior Lecturer, D = Associate Professor and E= Professor.

Of the 1047 who responded to at least one of the four questions, 475 responded to all four questions. A Chi-square analysis for each question showed homogeneity of respondents across all four questions, with no significant difference, at the p=0.05 level, by discipline ( X 2 (15) = 3.001, p = .999), academic level ( X 2 (12) = 1.55, p = .999), gender ( X 2 (6) = 1.116, p = .981), years of experience as an academic ( X 2 (12) = 2.623, p = .998) or work category ( X 2 (12) = 1.136, p = 0.999). This allows for direct comparison across the question groups.

The respondents included academics from all but one of the 41 universities in Australia. The number of responses from any given university ranged between 72 and one. Twenty-three universities provided 20 or more respondents while thirty-six provided 10 or more. Of the respondents, 92.5% claimed they could not meet the requirements of their academic roles within the standard 38-hour working week. The average number of weekly working hours reported was consistent with other research at 50.8 (Tight, 2010 , NTEU 2020 ).

The themes below emerged from the responses to each question. Table ​ Table2 2 gives a summary of the 885 responses to the first question. It shows that overall, 398 (44.8%) identified specific strengths associated with the workload model at their institution. Of these, 178 specifically mentioned its transparency either directly, by referring to its visibility, or the clarity of the documentation. Two aspects of transparency were described: some mentioned transparency of the process, where they were confident that the same formula was used to determine the workloads of all individuals in their work area; others commented on transparency of outcome, where the estimated workload commitments of their colleagues were publicised.

Summary of emergent strengths in the process to allocate academic work at an institution.

Transparency was clearly the major factor in building trust in the process for these staff because it increased their confidence that the workload policy was being applied consistently and fairly:

My boss is transparent, everyone knows each other’s loads and role. Very fair. [F4399965574B]

These comments were typically associated with a local workgroup model, where collegial trust was indicated in the responses, but respondents were less confident in their institutional workload process, where one existed. Consistent with Kenny ( 2018 ), 72 (8.1%) of these academics felt the workload model enabled genuine discussion with their managers to negotiate reasonable workload outcomes and performance expectations:

Enables me to identify areas of overload and negotiate changes in performance management discussions with my supervisor…. Fairly well thought out and transparent. [M4442037887C]

This was particularly important for planning the more self-managed aspects of their workload, such as their research:

It is transparent, provides a good teaching/research balance, and leaves enough scope for my independent planning of my teaching and research agenda. [M4385737324B]

However, as Table ​ Table2 2 also shows, a further 146 (16.4%) respondents also mentioned serious shortcomings. For example, while genuine attempts to capture their work were appreciated, the results were generally seen as inadequate, or seriously under-estimating the time required for many tasks:

…there is an attempt to put numbers on some of the tasks we do......but it is uninformed and unrealistic. [F391260690C]

Often, the respondents noted their model estimated their teaching quite well, but was of little use for other important aspects of their work, such as their service and research roles:

Teaching is handled well. Research time allocation is abysmal. [M4398728328D]

This suggests that when developing workload models a holistic perspective on academic work is needed. The respondents saw consultation in the development of the model as important to getting the balance right:

…that it is specifically mentioned in the industrial agreement, so it can be enforced. That it was developed by a joint committee of staff and management. That it applies across the university. [M4369824359C]

However, consultation does not always translate into outcomes:

The process was highly consultative and collaborative; however, we are yet to see whether the outcome represents the input…Budget pressures mean many managers try to avoid implementing it fully. The process is not always as transparent as it should be. [M4332247869B]

These comments suggest that individuals find the allocation process credible if it clearly acknowledged all aspects of their work (i.e., was holistic) and was genuinely transparent, equitable and consultative.

Others commented on the need for more flexibility to suit individual circumstances as an equity issue. For example, the contracted academic below, felt the workload allocation process was inequitable because it ignored many implicit demands on her time as she tried to establish her career:

... as a staff member on a fixed term contract and establishing myself in a new field without a research team and building a research network from scratch there are enormous time requirements in place that must be met to secure ongoing employment. This creates… pressure, even if it is not explicit. [F4332345222A]

From above, while many of the 885 respondents pointed to specific strengths associated with the workload allocation process at their institution, the majority (55.2%) of respondents also identified serious shortcomings or were unsure how it worked. Notably, of these, 283 (31.8%) specifically commented that there were basically “no strengths”.

The workload has NO relationship to hours actually worked. So we just are all equally under the same pressure. [F4335273806B ]

This indicated widespread dissatisfaction with aspects of the workload allocation process overall, a point which was picked up more specifically by Question 2.

Question 2 drew the largest number of 1004 responses (96%) and the themes are summarised in Table ​ Table3 3 .

Summary of emergent challenges posed to the fair allocation of academic work

Of these, 275 (27.4%) commented on the inadequacy of their model to capture their work, either because it under-estimated, or omitted time associated with certain activities altogether:

There is a lack of recognition of how much time it takes for effective teaching, coordination of units, mentoring sessional staff and administering to students’ needs. [F4332326891B]

Many staff felt their managers did not fully understand the complexity of their work or set unrealistic expectations, especially in relation to research:

The amount of time awarded to activities is clearly insufficient; there are unrealistic expectations about research output, particularly since our institution provides minimal support. [M4335613377C]

More involvement of academic staff in its design and implementation would seem to be a way of ensuring the workload model more realistically captures the complexities of academic work. Indeed, several respondents suggested this approach:

More consultation is required with the staff who actually complete the tasks to gain a realistic idea of the actual time needed for specific tasks.

[M4444439140C]

Consistent with Papadopoulos ( 2017 ), these data indicate the existence of a workload model was insufficient to guarantee fairness. Attention needs also to be paid to how it was been designed and implemented.

Here, the lack of a workload planner that is constructed in a realistic way that accounts for all of these activities is a real problem, especially given the failure of management to see and understand the investment in time building research capability takes. [F4332345222A]

On the process to determine their workloads, 154 (15.3%) reported a lack of transparency, with comments often related to the level of discretion their managers had when interpreting the model. This is also consistent with observations in the literature (Papadopoulos, 2017 ) and cast doubt on the credibility of the process:

The workload model is not available to staff - we receive a spreadsheet with made up numbers to fit 1725 hours per year, so it looks good on paper, but the reality is it does not fully reflect work required. [F4403502109B]

A further 149 (14.9%) claimed their workload model lacks the flexibility to cater for individual circumstances or disciplinary differences:

Discipline groups should have greater autonomy over what it takes to do academic work within their disciplines. A one-size-fits-all [approach], is always going to be problematic. Some disciplines will come out on top, whereas others will suffer. [F4387756057B]

Many believed their managers were under financial pressure from senior management, and the lack of transparency enabled workloads to be manipulated so that fewer staff were needed:

Obscure (non-transparent) workload model not developed in consultation with staff, with values that are changed to suit the budget. Ever decreasing budgets… Insufficient staff to do the work. [M367041176C]

Twenty specifically linked these pressures to poor management practices such as nepotism, favouritism, bullying or unrealistic expectations:

The process is not transparent, which means that nepotism and favouritism play a strong role in workload allocation. [F4441780015B]

The lack of trust evident in many of these responses supports calls for an institutional approach linking workload allocation to staffing decisions and budget considerations to ensure adequate resourcing (Barrett & Barrett, 2008 ). Key principles emerging suggest consultation is needed to achieve a transparent, holistic and flexible approach to allocating academic work so that it realistically captures the work done.

The third question explored the respondents’ opinions of the challenges to workload allocation (Table ​ (Table4). 4 ). It drew 882 responses, with the most frequent theme being “poor management” by 166 (18.8%), linked to under-funding/budget concerns (136 or 15.4%).

Summary of emergent reasons for the challenges in allocating academic work

Further, many academics specifically expressed a lack of trust or confidence in the senior management of their university, who they felt were “out of touch”.

Top-down approach, lack of consultation with staff. Instructed on tasks to be included without consideration of the impact on the quality of teaching; the individual or the ability to manage given tasks at a given time. [F4390495615B]

When coupled with the diminished power of academic staff within their organisations, tensions arise because they feel exploited, leading to a lack of trust in the process:

The university system is increasingly based on systemic exploitation of workers. Management knows that academics will do research (and other work) in their own time and exploit that. [M4334809455B]

The experience of many respondents is of universities as financially stressed organisations, where there is little incentive for managers to ensure realistic estimates of the time needed for academic tasks:

It is getting well out of hand the teaching load and research expectations. It is not possible to juggle in 38 hours per week. We are losing administrative supports and the worst part is that the university administration is not listening to our feedback about the changes. It's a quite frustrating and sad time to be an academic at this institution. I feel we are losing our professionalism and next will be our reputation as quality teachers which has historically been a strength for us. [F4441938933B]

They felt the workload process was manipulated to control the budget rather than genuinely capturing the work done or ensuring adequate staffing:

Management appears to take the view that research is not a significant priority and is something that staff have to do in their own time outside of teaching and admin duties. It is not genuinely recognised as being part of the academic role. One of the reasons is saving money on casuals - getting full-time staff, especially ECRs 1 , to do as much teaching as possible. [F4395035907B]

These data confirm “conflicts between bureaucratic, corporate and scholarly logics” (Papadopoulos, 2017 , p.515). Many academics felt that their dedication to their work is taken advantage of and linked this to a lack of consultation in framing their workload allocation and performance processes, which are not reflective of the realities of their work. Further, when concerns have been raised, they were either not addressed, or were suppressed:

The allocations against the lived experience of teaching and research are completely inadequate. There is also little transparency between staff or forums to raise any concerns about inequitable workloads…Zero consultation or dialogue. Bullying from senior management when concerns have been raised. [F4413222093B]

For credibility, both university managers and academics need to be clear that the primary purpose of workload allocation is to provide a realistic and holistic picture of the actual demands on staff. Decisions about what changes need to be made to programmes, on budgetary grounds, should be informed by realistic estimates, not fictitious or manipulated data. This clearly places workload allocation as an important institutional issue (Barrett & Barrett, 2008 ).

An effective workload policy would provide academic staff and performance managers with easy access to, and training in, the use of transparent and realistic mechanisms to accurately estimate individual workloads, so programs could be staffed adequately.

The final question drew 564 responses, with many re-iterating some of the earlier comments (Table ​ (Table5). 5 ). Ninety-seven (16.3%) emphasised workload models need to be holistic and account for research activities as comprehensively as for teaching.

Research needs to be quantified in hours too, not just by outputs. [M4332245943C]

Summary of emergent themes on the processes to allocate academic work and/or judge performance

More generally, the nexus between performance, career development opportunities and workload allocation was emphasised by 92 (15.4%).

I have spent four years trying to get a research track record, working up to 80 hours a week… The last two years my admin load has doubled. As a course coordinator it is impossible to publish at all. I have now refused to continue in the role of course coordinator. [M4439883317C]

Related to this, but less prominent, were 18 comments linking workload to promotion pathways and mentoring. Flaws in the workload meant that much of their work was “hidden”.

What is written on paper in terms of hours re admin or research does not correspond to the actual time spent. It all looks fine on paper but has enormous hidden workloads. [M4464892648B]

This led to inequities and stress, particularly for less experienced researchers, often coping with heavier teaching loads:

It is a winner takes all model - a few successful researchers get to teach nothing and further their research while the rest of us are becoming more and more teaching intensive with less and less opportunity to do research - teaching is being used as a trap - a form of punishment. [M4386370205B]

These findings underscore the need for a holistic approach to estimating workload and judging performance, because a failure to do so can have a direct bearing on an individual’s welfare and ability to perform key tasks, especially research.

I cannot see how setting the minimum performance requirements so high that you demoralize your staff and create permanent anxiety and depression can help performance. I must work through all holidays that I am obliged to take. [F4440006955B]

The associated frustrations and feelings of exploitation were widely held, implying a need for a stronger academic voice in decision-making about these matters that directly affect their work:

The students must be taught, and the show must go on. They play on our loyalty to provide a service to students, and we fall for it every time as we don't want students missing out. I don't know an academic who can half do their job as we never want to let the students down. [M4347370138A]

When specifically asked to explain changes to their workload in recent time, the respondents mentioned increased expectations across the board in teaching and research, with 45% also mentioning increased administrative demands, often linked to the introduction of online systems

High intensification as we move from a paperless university and computer systems become more savvy there is an incredible amount of work that is now done by the academic on the desktop that was not the case 5 years ago

Discussion and conclusions

Our research and the literature suggest that, while the corporate top-down approach prevalent in our universities may have made universities more efficient, it is questionable whether they have become more effective. As confirmed in this project, the lived experience of many academics, from nearly every university in Australia, much of any efficiency gains have been achieved through a deterioration in their working conditions.

Overall, there was a strong feeling that workload models, as they currently exist in universities, do not account for the full spectrum or complexity of academic work (Kenny & Fluck, 2018 , 2019 ; Miller, 2019 ). While some generally accounted for time associated with teaching (but not always adequately), many academics complained that little attention was given to capturing the time spent on research and service-related components of their work. This has clear implications for supporting individuals or judging their performance on a holistic basis.

Our findings confirm that capturing academic work is difficult. While our raw quantitative data showed large variations between individual estimates, we were able to use statistical analysis to derive realistic estimates for many activities. Our analysis of the qualitative data has expanded on a range of issues faced by academics around the country. The self-reported nature of the data, and that the sample was not fully representative of the academic population at the time, means these findings should be interpreted with some caution. However, the sample was large and included data from all but one of the 41 universities in Australia. These findings provide some insights into how the implementation of sectoral changes in universities can lead to perverse outcomes including the following: work overload and stress. They also illustrate how these contribute to a lack of trust by academics in the way corporate universities are managed.

However, while these findings show a negative impact on the working lives of many academics, which leaves them feeling exploited and/or taken for granted by their universities, they also suggest a way forward. First, by reiterating the central role academics play, through their high-quality teaching and research capabilities, in making universities effective; and second, by suggesting ways to improve the working relationship, between university management and their academic staff. Although this presents a challenge for both academics and their managers, it may improve the effectiveness of modern universities.

While calls for more shared governance may be a desirable longer-term goal, a more intermediate step would be to ensure workload and performance policies are strategically designed and resourced to capture the complexities of academic work, as suggested by Barrett and Barrett ( 2008 ). More specifically, this research suggests it is imperative that academics are fully involved in the development and operation of workload, performance and related policies which impact directly on their work. This has been shown to re-empower academics and re-build trust (Kenny 2018 ; Kenny et al., 2012 ). Also, consistent with Barrett and Barrett ( 2008 ), these policies need to be adopted across an institution to ensure coherence of application and interpretation, by linking academic workload allocation and performance with other key policies, such as budgeting.

This leads us to propose some underlying principles which add to the literature by providing clearer guidance on the development and implementation of academic workload and performance policies in universities. The principles approach, first proposed by Aristotle ( n.d. ), argues complex problems need to be considered based on what is known. The power of this method is that it outlines key factors involved, so by implication, if any are not addressed, the effectiveness of the proposed solution will be reduced. Therefore, based on our review of the extant literature, our previous work and this further analysis, we propose that the following nine principles should underpin institutional policies and processes to determine the workload and performance of academics within universities.

These findings show how sector-wide policies can impact on the work of individual academics. Further, given that these data were provided by academics from all but one of the 41 universities in Australia, that these issues are widespread across the sector.

Moving forward into the second phase of the research, our goal is to develop a holistic academic workload estimation tool, incorporating the indicative time allocations derived from our research findings. This will be used in interviews with academics from around the country to validate the figures against their actual workloads and test their thoughts on the principles. This will lead to the refinement of the estimation tool and associated processes. The intention is to develop a transparent, holistic and credible means to enable any academic, irrespective of their institution, career stage or discipline, to realistically capture what they do. From this basis, they should be able to genuinely negotiate reasonable performance expectations with their managers, which acknowledge their individual circumstances and career aspirations.

With the severe financial pressures on universities due to the loss of overseas students because of the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, the subsequent shift to online teaching and staff reductions (Universities Australia, 2021 ), the need for clarity on managing academic work and performance has become even more urgent. As many of these problems that Australian academics face mirror those of colleagues in other countries, these principles may have relevance for higher education sectors elsewhere.

1 ECR means Early Career Researcher, typically up to five years’ experience.

Publisher’s note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Contributor Information

John Kenny, Email: [email protected] .

Andrew Edward Fluck, Email: [email protected] .

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  • Published: 24 February 2024

Physical activity improves stress load, recovery, and academic performance-related parameters among university students: a longitudinal study on daily level

  • Monika Teuber 1 ,
  • Daniel Leyhr 1 , 2 &
  • Gorden Sudeck 1 , 3  

BMC Public Health volume  24 , Article number:  598 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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Physical activity has been proven to be beneficial for physical and psychological health as well as for academic achievement. However, especially university students are insufficiently physically active because of difficulties in time management regarding study, work, and social demands. As they are at a crucial life stage, it is of interest how physical activity affects university students' stress load and recovery as well as their academic performance.

Student´s behavior during home studying in times of COVID-19 was examined longitudinally on a daily basis during a ten-day study period ( N  = 57, aged M  = 23.5 years, SD  = 2.8, studying between the 1st to 13th semester ( M  = 5.8, SD  = 4.1)). Two-level regression models were conducted to predict daily variations in stress load, recovery and perceived academic performance depending on leisure-time physical activity and short physical activity breaks during studying periods. Parameters of the individual home studying behavior were also taken into account as covariates.

While physical activity breaks only positively affect stress load (functional stress b = 0.032, p  < 0.01) and perceived academic performance (b = 0.121, p  < 0.001), leisure-time physical activity affects parameters of stress load (functional stress: b = 0.003, p  < 0.001, dysfunctional stress: b = -0.002, p  < 0.01), recovery experience (b = -0.003, p  < 0.001) and perceived academic performance (b = 0.012, p  < 0.001). Home study behavior regarding the number of breaks and longest stretch of time also shows associations with recovery experience and perceived academic performance.

Conclusions

Study results confirm the importance of different physical activities for university students` stress load, recovery experience and perceived academic performance in home studying periods. Universities should promote physical activity to keep their students healthy and capable of performing well in academic study: On the one hand, they can offer opportunities to be physically active in leisure time. On the other hand, they can support physical activity breaks during the learning process and in the immediate location of study.

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Introduction

Physical activity (PA) takes a particularly key position in health promotion and prevention. It reduces risks for several diseases, overweight, and all-cause mortality [ 1 ] and is beneficial for physical, psychological and social health [ 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 ] as well as for academic achievement [ 6 , 7 ]. However, PA levels decrease from childhood through adolescence and into adulthood [ 8 , 9 , 10 ]. Especially university students are insufficiently physically active according to health-oriented PA guidelines [ 11 ] because of academic workloads as well as difficulties in time management regarding study, work, and social demands [ 12 ]. Due to their independence and increasing self-responsibility, university students are at a crucial life stage. In this essential and still educational stage of the students´ development, it is important to study their PA behavior. Furthermore, PA as health behavior represents one influencing factor which is considered in the analytical framework of the impact of health and health behaviors on educational outcomes which was developed by the authors Suhrcke and de Paz Nieves [ 13 , 14 ]. In light of this, the present study examines how PA affects university students' academic situations.

Along with the promotion of PA, the reduction of sedentary behavior has also become a crucial part of modern health promotion and prevention strategies. Spending too much time sitting increases many health risks, including the risk of obesity [ 15 ], diabetes [ 16 ] and other chronic diseases [ 15 ], damage to muscular balances, bone metabolism and musculoskeletal system [ 17 ] and even early death [ 15 ]. University students are a population that has shown the greatest increase in sedentary behavior over the last two decades [ 18 ]. In Germany, they show the highest percentage of sitting time among all working professional groups [ 19 ]. Long times sitting in classes, self-study learning, and through smartphone use, all of which are connected to the university setting and its associated behaviors, might be the cause of this [ 20 , 21 ]. This goes along with technological advances which allow students to study in the comfort of their own homes without changing locations [ 22 ].

To counter a sedentary lifestyle, PA is crucial. In addition to its physical health advantages, PA is essential for coping with the intellectual and stress-related demands of academic life. PA shows positive associations with stress load and academic performance. It is positively associated with learning and educational success [ 6 ] and even shows stress-regulatory potential [ 23 ]. In contrast, sedentary behavior is associated with lower cognitive performance [ 24 ]. Moreover, theoretical derivations show that too much sitting could have a negative impact on brain health and diminish the positive effects of PA [ 16 ]. Given the theoretical background of the stressor detachment model [ 25 ] and the cybernetic approach to stress management in the workplace [ 26 ], PA can promote recovery experience, it can enhance academic performance, and it is a way to reduce the impact of study-related stressors on strain. Load-related stress response can be bilateral: On the one hand, it can be functional if it is beneficial to help cope with the study demands. On the other hand, it can be dysfunctional if it puts a strain on personal resources and can lead to load-related states of strain [ 27 ]. Thus, both, the promotion of PA and reduction of sedentary behavior are important for stress load, recovery, and performance in student life, which can be of particular importance for students in an academic context.

A simple but (presumably) effective way to integrate PA and reduce sedentary behavior in student life are short PA breaks. Due to the exercises' simplicity and short duration, students can perform them wherever they are — together in a lecture or alone at home. Short PA breaks could prevent an accumulation of negative stressors during the day and can help with prolonged sitting as well as inactivity. Especially in the university setting, evidence of the positive effects of PA breaks exists for self-perceived physical and psychological well-being of the university students [ 28 ]. PA breaks buffer university students’ perceived stress [ 29 ] and show positive impacts on recovery need [ 30 ] and better mood ratings [ 31 , 32 ]. In addition, there is evidence for reduction in tension [ 30 ], overall muscular discomfort [ 33 ], daytime sleepiness or fatigue [ 33 , 34 ] and increase in vigor [ 34 ] and experienced energy [ 30 ]. This is in line with cognitive, affective, behavioral, and biological effects of PA, all categorized as palliative-regenerative coping strategies, which addresses the consequences of stress-generating appraisal processes aiming to alleviate these consequences (palliative) or restore the baseline of the relevant reaction parameter (regenerative) [ 35 , 36 ]. This is achieved by, for example, reducing stress-induced cortisol release or tension through physical activity (reaction reduction) [ 35 ]. Such mechanisms are also in accordance with the previously mentioned stressor detachment model [ 25 ]. Lastly, there is a health-strengthening effect that impacts the entire stress-coping-health process, relying on the compensatory effects of PA which is in accordance to the stress-buffering effect of exercise [ 37 ]. Health, in turn, effects educational outcomes [ 13 , 14 ]. Therefore, stress regulating effects are also accompanied with the before mentioned analytical framework of the impact of health and health behaviors on educational outcomes [ 13 , 14 ].

Focusing on the effects of PA, this study is guided by an inquiry into how PA affects university students' stress load and recovery as well as their perceived academic performance. For that reason, the student´s behavior during home studying in times of COVID-19 is examined, a time in which reinforced prolonged sitting, inactivity, and a negative stress load response was at a high [ 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 ]. Looking separately on the relation of PA with different parameters based on the mentioned evidence, we assume that PA has a positive impact on stress load, recovery, and perceived academic performance-related parameters. Furthermore, a side effect of the home study behavior on the mentioned parameters is assumed regarding the accumulation of negative stressors during home studying. These associations are presented in Fig.  1 and summarized in the following hypotheses:

figure 1

Overview of the assumed effects and investigated hypotheses of physical activity (PA) behavior on variables of stress load and recovery and perceived academic performance-related parameters

Hypothesis 1 (path 1): Given that stress load always occurs as a duality—beneficial if it is functional for coping, or exhausting if it puts a strain on personal resources [ 27 ] – we consider two variables for stress load: functional stress and dysfunctional stress. In order to reduce the length of the daily surveys, we focused the measure of recovery only on the most obvious and accessible component of recovery experience, namely psychological detachment. PA (whether performed in leisure-time or during PA breaks) encourages functional stress and reduce dysfunctional stress (1.A) and has a positive effect on recovery experience through psychological detachment (1.B).

Hypothesis 2 (path 2): The academic performance-related parameters attention difficulties and study ability are positively influenced by PA (whether done in leisure-time or during PA breaks). We have chosen to assess attention difficulties for a cognitive parameter because poor control over the stream of occurring stimuli have been associated with impairment in executive functions or academic failure [ 43 , 44 , 45 , 46 ]. Furthermore, we have assessed the study ability to refer to the self-perceived feeling of functionality regarding the demands of students. PA reduces self-reported attention difficulties (2.A) and improves perceived study ability, indicating that a student feels capable of performing well in academic study (2.B).

Hypothesis 3: We assume that a longer time spent on studying at home (so called home studying) could result in higher accumulation of stressors throughout the day which could elicit immediate stress responses, while breaks in general could reduce the influence of work-related stressors on strain and well-being [ 47 , 48 ]. Therefore, the following covariates are considered for secondary effects:

the daily longest stretch of time without a break spent on home studying

the daily number of breaks during home studying

Study setting

The study was carried out during the COVID-19 pandemic containment phase. It took place in the middle of the lecture period between 25th of November and 4th of December 2020. Student life was characterized by home studying and digital learning. A so called “digital semester” was in effect at the University of Tübingen when the study took place. Hence, courses were mainly taught online (e.g., live or via a recorded lecture). Other events and actions at the university were not permitted. As such, the university sports department closed in-person sports activities. For leisure time in general, there were contact restrictions (social distancing), the performance of sports activities in groups was not permitted, and sports facilities were closed.

Thus, the university sports department of the University of Tübingen launched various online sports courses and the student health management introduced an opportunity for a new digital form of PA breaks. This opportunity provided PA breaks via videos with guided physical exercises and health-promoting explanations for a PA break for everyday home studying: the so called “Bewegungssnack digital” [in English “exercise snack digital” (ESD)] [ 49 ]. The ESD videos took 5–7 min and were categorized into three thematic foci: activation, relaxation, and coordination. Exercises were demonstrated by one or two student exercise leaders, accompanied by textual descriptions of the relevant execution features of each exercise.

Participants

Participants were recruited within the framework of an intervention study, which was conducted to investigate whether a digital nudging intervention has a beneficial effect on taking PA breaks during home study periods [ 49 ]. Students at the University of Tübingen which counts 27,532 enrolled students were approached for participation through a variety of digital means: via an email sent to those who registered for ESD course on the homepage of the university sports department and to all students via the university email distribution list; via advertisement on social media of the university sports department (Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, homepage). Five tablets, two smart watches, and one iPad were raffled off to participants who engaged actively during the full study period in an effort to motivate them to stick with it to the end. In any case, participants knew that the study was voluntary and that they would not suffer any personal disadvantages should they opt out. There was a written informed consent prompt together with a prompt for the approval of the data protection regulations immediately within the first questionnaire (T0) presented in a mandatory selection field. Positive ethical approval for the study was given by the first author´s institution´s ethics committee of the faculty of the University of Tübingen.

Participants ( N  = 57) who completed the daily surveys on at least half of the days of the study period, were included in the sample (male = 6, female = 47, diverse = 1, not stated = 3). As not all subjects provided data on all ten study days, the total number of observations was between 468 and 540, depending on the variable under study (see Table  1 ). The average number of observations per subject was around eight. Their age was between 18 and 32 years ( M  = 23.52, SD  = 2.81) and they were studying between the 1st to 13th semester ( M  = 5.76, SD  = 4.11) within the following major courses of study: mathematical-scientific majors (34.0%), social science majors (22.6%), philosophical majors (18.9%), medicine (13.2%), theology (5.7%), economics (3.8%), or law (1.9%). 20.4% of the students had on-site classroom teaching on university campus for at least one day a week despite the mandated digital semester, as there were exceptions for special forms of teaching.

Design and procedures

To examine these hypothesized associations, a longitudinal study design with daily surveys was chosen following the suggestion of the day-level study of Feuerhahn et al. (2014) and also of Sonnentag (2001) measuring recovery potential of (exercise) activities during leisure time [ 50 , 51 ]. Considering that there are also differences between people at the beginning of the study period, initial base-line value variables respective to the outcomes measured before the study period were considered as independent covariates. Therefore, the well-being at baseline serves as a control for stress load (2.A), the psychological detachment at baseline serves as a control for daily psychological detachment (2.B), the perception of study demands serves as a control for self-reported attention difficulties (1.A), and the perceived study ability at baseline serves as a control for daily study ability (2.B).

Subjects were asked to continue with their normal home study routine and additionally perform ESD at any time in their daily routine. Data were collected one to two days before (T0) as well as daily during the ten-day study period (Wednesday to Friday). The daily surveys (t 1 -t 10 ) were sent by email at 7 p.m. every evening. Each day, subjects were asked to answer questions about their home studying behavior, study related requirements, recovery experience from study tasks, attention, and PA, including ESD participation. The surveys were conducted online using the UNIPARK software and were recorded and analyzed anonymously.

Measures and covariates

In total, five outcome variables, two independent variables, and seven covariates were included in different analyses: three variables were used for stress load and recovery parameters, two variables for academic performance-related parameters, two variables for PA behavior, two variables for study behavior, four variables for outcome specific baseline values and one variable for age.

Outcome variables

Stress load & recovery parameters (hypothesis 1).

Stress load was included in the analysis with two variables: functional stress and dysfunctional stress. Followingly, a questionnaire containing a word list of adjectives for the recording of emotions and stress during work (called “Erfassung von Emotionen und Beanspruchung “ in German, also known as EEB [ 52 ]) was used. It is an instrument which were developed and validated in the context of occupational health promotion. The items are based on mental-workload research and the assessment of the stress potential of work organization [ 52 ]. Within the questionnaire, four mental and motivational stress items were combined to form a functional stress scale (energetic, willing to perform, attentive, focused) (α = 0.89) and four negative emotional and physical stress items were combined to form dysfunctional stress scale (nervous, physically tensioned, excited, physically unwell) (α = 0.71). Participants rated the items according to how they felt about home studying in general on the following scale (adjustment from “work” to “home studying”): hardly, somewhat, to some extent, fairly, strongly, very strongly, exceptionally.

Recovery experience was measured via psychological detachment. Therefore, the dimension “detachment” of the Recovery Experience Questionnaire (RECQ [ 53 ]) was adjusted to home studying. The introductory question was "How did you experience your free time (including short breaks between learning) during home studying today?". Students responded to four statements based on the extent to which they agreed or disagreed (not at all true, somewhat true, moderately true, mostly true, completely true). The statements covered subjects such as forgetting about studying, not thinking about studying, detachment from studying, and keeping a distance from student tasks. The four items were combined into a score for psychological detachment (α = 0.94).

Academic performance-related parameters (hypothesis 2)

Attention was assessed via the subscale “difficulty maintaining focused attention performance” of the “Attention and Performance Self-Assessment” (ASPA, AP-F2 [ 54 ]). It contains nine items with statements about disturbing situations regarding concentration (e.g. “Even a small noise from the environment could disturb me while reading.”). Participants had to answer how often such situations happened to them on a given day on the following scale: never, rarely, sometimes, often, always. The nine items were combined into the AP-F2 score (α = 0.87).

The perceived study ability was assessed using the study ability index (SAI [ 55 ]). The study ability index captures the current state of perceived functioning in studying. It is based on the Work Ability Index by Hasselhorn and Freude ([ 56 ]) and consists of an adjusted short scale of three adapted items in the context of studying. Firstly, (a) the perceived academic performance was asked after in comparison to the best study-related academic performance ever achieved (from 0 = completely unable to function to 10 = currently best functioning). Secondly, the other two items were aimed at assessing current study-related performance in relation to (b) study tasks that have to be mastered cognitively and (c) the psychological demands of studying. Both items were answered on a five-point Likert scale (1 = very poor, 2 = rather poor, 3 = moderate, 4 = rather good, 5 = very good). A sum index, the SAI, was formed which can indicate values between 2 and 20, with higher values corresponding to higher assessed functioning in studies (α = 0.86). In a previous study it already showed satisfying reliability (α = 0.72) [ 55 ].

Independent variables

Pa behavior.

Two indicators for PA behavior were included via self-reports: the time spent on ESD and the time spent on leisure-time PA (LTPA). Participants were asked the following overarching question daily: “How much time did you spend on physical activity today and in what context”. For the independent variable time spent on PA breaks, participants could answer the option “I participated in the Bewegungssnack digital” with the amount of time they spent on it (in minutes). To assess the time spent on LTPA besides PA breaks, participants could report their time for four different contexts of PA which comprised two forms: Firstly, structured supervised exercise was reported via time spent on (a) university sports courses and (b) other organized sports activities. Secondly, self-organized PA was indicated via (c) independent PA at home, such as a workout or other physically demanding activity such as cleaning or tidying up, as well as via (d) independent PA outside, like walking, cycling, jogging, a workout or something similar. Referring to the different domains of health enhancing PA [ 57 ], the reported minutes of these four types of PA were summed up to a total LTPA value. The total LTPA value was included in the analysis as a metric variable in minutes.

Covariates (hypothesis 3)

Regarding hypothesis 3 and home study behavior, the longest daily stretch of time without a break spent on home studying (in hours) and the daily number of breaks during home studying was assessed. Therein, participants had to answer the overarching question “How much time did you spend on your home studying today?” and give responses to the items: (1) longest stretch of time for home studying (without a break), and (2) number of short and long breaks you took during home studying.

In principle, efforts were made to control for potential confounders at the individual level (level 2) either by including the baseline measure (T0) of the respective variable or by including variables assessing related trait-like characteristics for respective outcomes. The reason why related trait-like characteristics were used for the outcomes was because brief assessments were used for daily surveys that were not concurrently employed in the baseline assessment. To enable the continued use of controlling for person-specific baseline characteristics in the analysis of daily associations, trait-like characteristics available from the baseline assessment were utilized as the best possible approximation.To sum up, four outcome specific baseline value variables were measured before the study period (at T0). The psychological detachment with the RECQ (α = 0.87) [ 53 ] was assessed at the beginning to monitor daily psychological detachment. Further, the SAI [ 55 ] was assessed at the beginning of the study period to monitor daily study ability. To monitor daily stress load, which in part measures mental stress aspects and negative emotional stress aspects, the well-being was assessed at the beginning using the WHO-Five Well-being Index (WHO-5 [ 58 ]). It is a one-dimensional self-report measure with five items. The index value is the sum of all items, with higher values indicating better well-being. As the well-being and stress load tolerance may linked with each other, this variable was assumed to be a good fit with the daily stress load indicating mental and emotional stress aspects. With respect to student life, daily academic performance-related attention was monitored with an instrument for the perception of study demands and resources (termed “Berliner Anforderungen Ressourcen-Inventar – Studierende” in German, the so-called BARI-S [ 59 ]). It contains eight items which capture overwork in studies, time pressure during studies, and the incompatibility of studies and private life. All together they form the BARI-S demand scale (α = 0.85) which was included in the analysis. As overwork and time pressure may result in attention difficulties (e.g. Elfering et al., 2013), this variable was assumed to have a good fit with academic performance-related attention [ 60 ]. Additionally, age in years at T0 was considered as a sociodemographic factor.

Statistical analysis

Since the study design provided ten measurement points for various people, the hierarchical structure of the nested data called for two-level analyses. Pre-analyses of Random-Intercept-Only models for each of the outcome variables (hypothesis 1 to 3) revealed an Intra-Class-Correlation ( ICC ) of at least 0.10 (range 0.26 – 0.64) and confirmed the necessity to perform multilevel analyses [ 61 ]. Specifically, the day-level variables belong to Level 1 (ESD time, LTPA time, longest stretch of time without a break spent on home studying, daily number of breaks during home studying). To analyze day-specific effects within the person, these variables were centered on the person mean (cw = centered within) [ 50 , 62 , 63 , 64 ]. This means that the analyses’ findings are based on a person’s deviations from their average values. The variables assessed at T0 belong to Level 2, which describe the person level (psychological detachment baseline, SAI baseline, well-being, study demands scale, age). These covariates on person level were centered around the grand mean [ 50 ] indicating that the analyses’ findings are based how far an individual deviates from the sample's mean values. As a result, the models’ intercept reflects the outcome value of an average student in the sample at his/her daily average behavior in PA and home study when all parameters are zero. For descriptive statistics SPSS 28.0.1.1 (IBM) and for inferential statistics R (version 4.1.2) were used. The hierarchical models were calculated using the package lme4 with the lmer-function in R in the following steps [ 65 ]. The Null Model was analyzed for all models first, with the corresponding intercept as the only predictor. Afterwards, all variables were entered. The regression coefficient estimates (”b”) were considered for statistical significance for the models and the respective BIC was provided.

In total, five regression models with ‘PA break time’ and ‘LTPA time’ as independent variables were computed due to the five measured outcomes of the present study. Three models belonged to hypothesis 1 and two models to hypothesis 2.

Hypothesis 1: To test hypothesis 1.A two outcome variables were chosen for two separate models: ‘functional stress’ and ‘dysfunctional stress’. Besides the PA behavior variables, the ‘number of breaks’, the ‘longest stretch of time without a break spent on home studying’, ‘age’, and the ‘well-being’ at the beginning of the study as corresponding baseline variable to the output variable were also included as independent variables in both models. The outcome variable ‘psychological detachment’ was utilized in conjunction with the aforementioned independent variables to test hypotheses 1.B, with one exception: psychological detachment at the start of the study was chosen as the corresponding baseline variable.

Hypothesis 2: To investigate hypothesis 2.A the outcome variable ‘attention difficulties’ was selected. Hypothesis 2.B was tested with the outcome variables ‘study ability’. Both models included both PA behavior variables as well as the ‘number of breaks’, the ‘longest stretch of time without a break spent on home studying’, ‘age’ and one corresponding baseline variable each: the ‘study demand scale’ at the start of the study for ‘attention difficulties’ and the ‘SAI’ at the beginning of the study for the daily ‘study ability’.

Hypothesis 3: In addition to both PA behavior variables, age and one baseline variable that matched the outcome variable, the covariates ‘daily longest stretch of time spent on home studying’ and ‘daily number of breaks during home studying’ were included in the models for all five outcome variables.

Handling missing data

The dataset had up to 18% missing values (most exhibit the variables ‘daily longest stretch of time without a break spent on home studying’ with 17.89% followed by ‘daily number of breaks during homes studying’ with 16.67%, and ‘functional / dysfunctional stress’ with 12.45%). Therefore, a sensitivity analysis was performed using the multiple imputation mice-package in the statistical program R [ 66 ], the package howManyImputation based on Von Hippel (2020, [ 67 ]), and the additional broom package [ 68 ]. The results of the models remained the same, with one exception for the Attention Difficulties Model: The daily longest stretch of time without a break spent on home studying showed a significant association (Table  1 in supplement). Due to this almost perfect consistency of results between analyses based on the dataset with missing data and those with imputed data alongside the lack of information provided by the packages for imputed datasets, we decided to stick with the main analysis including the missing data. Thus, in the following the results of the main analysis without imputations are presented.

Table 1 shows the descriptive statistics of the variables used in the analysis. An overview of the analysed models is presented in Table  2 .

Effects on stress load and recovery (hypothesis 1)

Hypothesis 1.A: The Model Functional Stress explained 13% of the variance by fixed factors (marginal R 2  = 0.13), and 52% by both fixed and random factors (conditional R 2  = 0.52). The time spent on ESD as well as the time spent on PA in leisure showed a positive significant influence on functional stress (b = 0.032, p  < 0.01). The same applied to LTPA (b = 0.003, p  < 0.001). The Model Dysfunctional Stress (marginal R 2  = 0.027, conditional R 2  = 0.647) showed only one significant result. The dysfunctional stress was only significantly negatively influenced by the time spent on LTPA (b = 0.002, p  < 0.01).

Hypothesis 1.B: With the Model Detachment, fixed factors contributed 18% of the explained variance and fixed and random factors 46% of the explained variance for psychological detachment. Only the amount of time spent on LTPA revealed a positive impact on psychological detachment (b = 0.003, p  < 0.001).

Effects on academic performance-related parameters (hypothesis 2)

Hypothesis 2.A: The Model Attention Difficulties showed 13% of the variance explained by fixed factors, and 51% explained by both fixed and random factors. It showed a significant negative association only for the time spent on LTPA (b = 0.003, p  < 0.001).

Hypothesis 2.B: The Model SAI showed 18% of the variance explained by fixed factors, and 39% explained by both fixed and random factors. There were significant positive associations for time spent on ESD (b = 0.121, p  < 0.001) and time spent on LTPA (b = 0.012, p  < 0.001). The same applied to LTPA (b = 0.012, p  < 0.001).

Effects of home study behavior (hypothesis 3)

Regarding the independent covariates for the outcome variables functional and dysfunctional stress, there were no significant results for the number of breaks during homes studying or the longest stretch of time without a break spent on home studying. Considering the outcome variable ‘psychological detachment’, there were significant results with negative impact for both study behavior variables: breaks during home studying (b = 0.058, p  < 0.01) and daily longest stretch of time without a break (b = 0.120, p  < 0.01). Evaluating the outcome variables ‘attention difficulties’, there were no significant results for the number of breaks during home studying or the longest stretch of time without a break spent on home studying. Testing the independent study behavior variables for the SAI, it increased with increasing number in daily breaks during homes studying relative to the person´s mean (b = 0.183, p  < 0.05). No significant effect was found for the longest stretch of time without a break spent on home studying ( p  = 0.07).

The baseline covariates of the models showed expected associations and thus confirmed their inclusion. The baseline variables well-being showed a significant impact on functional stress (b = 0.089, p  < 0.001), psychological detachment showed a positive effect on the daily output variables psychological detachment (b = 0.471, p  < 0.001), study demand scale showed a positive association on difficulties in attention (b = 0.240, p  < 0.01), and baseline SAI had a positive effect on the daily SAI (b = 0.335, p  < 0.001).

The present study theorized that PA breaks and LTPA positively influence the academic situation of university students. Therefore, impact on stress load (‘functional stress’ and ‘dysfunctional stress’) and ‘psychological detachment’ as well as academic performance-related parameters ‘self-reported attention difficulties’ and ‘perceived study ability’ was taken into account. The first and second hypotheses assumed that both PA breaks and LTPA are positively associated with the aforementioned parameters and were confirmed for LTPA for all parameters and for PA breaks for functional stress and perceived study ability. The third hypothesis assumed that home study behavior regarding the daily number of breaks during home studying and longest stretch of time without a break spent on home studying has side effects. Detected negative effects for both covariates on psychological detachment and positive effects for the daily number of breaks on perceived study ability were partly unexpected in their direction. These results emphasize the key position of PA in the context of modern health promotion especially for students in an academic context.

Regarding hypothesis 1 and the detected positive associations for stress load and recovery parameters with PA, the results are in accordance with the stress-regulatory potential of PA from the state of research [ 23 ]. For hypothesis 1.A, there is a positive influence of PA breaks and LTPA on functional stress and a negative influence of LTPA on dysfunctional stress. Given the bilateral role of stress load, the results indicate that PA breaks and LTPA are beneficial for coping with study demands, and may help to promote feelings of joy, pride, and learning progress [ 27 ]. This is in line with previous evidence that PA breaks in lectures can buffer university students’ perceived stress [ 29 ], lead to better mood ratings [ 29 , 31 ], and increase in motivation [ 28 , 69 ], vigor [ 34 ], energy [ 30 ], and self-perceived physical and psychological well-being [ 28 ]. Looking at dysfunctional stress, the result point that LTPA counteract load-related states of strain such as inner tension, irritability and nervous restlessness or feelings of boredom [ 27 ]. In contrast, short PA breaks during the day could not have enough impact in countering dysfunctional stress at the end of the day regarding the accumulation of negative stressors during home studying which might have occurred after the participant took PA breaks. Other studies have been able to show a reduction in tension [ 30 ] and general muscular discomfort [ 33 ] after PA breaks. However, this was measured as an immediate effect of PA breaks and not with general evening surveys. Blasche and colleagues [ 34 ] measured effects immediately and 20 min after different kind of breaks and found that PA breaks led to an additional short‐ and medium‐term increase in vigor while the relaxation break lead to an additional medium‐term decrease in fatigue compared to an unstructured open break. This is consistent with the results of the present study that an effect of PA breaks is only observed for functional stress and not for dysfunctional stress. Furthermore, there is evidence that long sitting during lectures leads to increased fatigue and lower concentration [ 31 , 70 ], which could be counteracted by PA breaks. For both types of stress loads, functional and dysfunctional stress, there is an influence of students´ well-being in this study. This shows that the stress load is affected by the way students have mentally felt over the last two weeks. The relevance of monitoring this seems important especially in the time of COVID-19 as, for example, 65.3% of the students of a cross-sectional online survey at an Australian university reported low to very low well-being during that time [ 71 ]. However, since PA and well-being can support functional stress load, they should be of the highest priority—not only as regards the pandemic, but also in general.

Looking at hypothesis 1.B; while there is a positive influence of LTPA on experienced psychological detachment, no significant influence for PA breaks was detected. The fact that only LTPA has a positive effect can be explained by the voluntary character of the activity [ 50 ]. The voluntary character ensures that stressors no longer affect the student and, thus, recovery as detachment can take place. Home studying is not present in leisure times, and thus detachment from study is easier. The PA break videos, on the other hand, were shot in a university setting, which would have made it more difficult to detach from study. In order to further understand how PA breaks affect recovery and whether there is a distinction between PA breaks and LTPA, future research should also consider other types of recovery (e.g. relaxation, mastery, and control). Additionally, different types of PA breaks, such as group PA breaks taken on-site versus video-based PA breaks, should be taken into account.

Considering the confirmed positive associations for academic performance-related parameters of hypothesis 2, the results are in accordance with the evidence of positive associations between PA and learning and educational success [ 6 ], as well as between PA breaks and better cognitive functioning [ 28 ]. Looking at the self-reported attention difficulties of hypothesis 2.A, only LTPA can counteract it. PA breaks showed no effects, contrary to the results of a study of Löffler and collegues (2011, [ 31 ]), in which acute effects of PA breaks could be found for higher attention and cognitive performance. Furthermore, the perception of study demands before the study periods has a positive impact on difficulties in attention. That means that overload in studies, time pressure during studies, and incompatibility of studies and private life leads to higher difficulties with attention in home studying. In these conditions, PA breaks might have been seen as interfering, resulting in the expected beneficial effects of exercise on attention and task-related participation behavior [ 72 , 73 ] therefore remaining undetected. With respect to the COVID-19 pandemic, accompanying education changes, and an increase in student´s worries [ 74 , 75 ], the perception of study demands could be affected. This suggests that especially in times of constraint and changes, it is important to promote PA in order to counteract attention difficulties. This also applies to post-pandemic phase.

Regarding the perceived academic performance of hypothesis 2.B, both PA breaks and LTPA have a positive effect on perceived study ability. This result confirms the positive short-term effects on cognition tasks [ 76 ]. It is also in line with the positive function of PA breaks in interrupting sedentary behavior and therefore counteracting the negative association between sitting behavior and lower cognitive performance [ 24 ]. Additionally, this result also fits with the previously mentioned positive relationship between LTPA and functional stress and between PA breaks and functional stress.

According to hypothesis 3, in relation to the mentioned stress load and recovery parameters, there are negative effects of the daily number of breaks during home studying and the longest stretch of time without a break spent on home studying on psychological detachment. As stressors result in negative activation, which impede psychological detachment from study during non-studying time [ 25 ], it was expected and confirmed that the longest stretch of time without a break spent on home studying has a negative effect on detachment. Initially unexpected, the number of breaks has a negative influence on psychological detachment, as breaks could prevent the accumulation of strain reactions. However, if the breaks had no recovery effect through successful detachment, the number might not have any influence on recovery via detachment. This is indicated by the PA breaks, which had no impact on psychological detachment. Since there are other ways to recover from stress besides psychological detachment, such as relaxation, mastery, and control [ 53 ], PA breaks must have had an additional impact in relation to the positive results for functional stress.

In relation to the mentioned academic performance-related parameters, only the number of breaks has a positive influence on the perceived study ability. This indicates that not only PA breaks but also breaks in general lead to better perceived functionality in studying. Paulus and colleagues (2021) found out that an increase in cognitive skills is not only attributed to PA breaks and standing breaks, but also to open breaks with no special instructions [ 28 ]. Either way, they found better improvement in self-perceived physical and psychological well-being of the university students with PA breaks than with open breaks. This is also reflected in the present study with the aforementioned positive effects of PA breaks on functional stress, which does not apply to the number of breaks.

Overall, it must be considered that the there is a more complex network of associations between the examined parameters. The hypothesized separate relation of PA with different parameters do not consider associations between parameters of stress load / recovery and academic performance although there might be a interdependency. Furthermore, moderation aspects were not examined. For example, PA could be a moderator which buffer negative effects of stress on the study ability [ 55 ]. Moreover, perceived study ability might moderate stress levels and academic performance. Further studies should try to approach and understand the different relationships between the parameters in its complexity.

Limitations

Certain limitations must be taken into account. Regarding the imbalanced design toward more female students in the sample (47 female versus 6 male), possible sampling bias cannot be excluded. Gender research on students' emotional states during COVID-19, when this study took place, or students´ acceptance of PA breaks is diverse and only partially supplied with inconsistent findings. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, some studies reported that female students were associated with lower well-being [ 71 ] or worse mental health trajectories [ 75 , 77 ]. Another study with a large sample of students from 62 countries reported that male students were more strongly affected by the pandemic because they were significantly less satisfied with their academic life [ 74 ]. However, Keating and colleges (2020) discovered that, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, females rated some aspects of PA breaks during lectures more positively than male students did. However, this was also based on a female slanted sample [ 78 ]. Further studies are needed to get more insights into gender bias.

Furthermore, the small sample size combined with up to 16% missing values comprises a significant short-coming. There were a lot of possibilities which could cause such missing data, like refused, forgotten or missed participation, technical problems, or deviation of the personal code for the questionnaire between survey times. Although the effects could be excluded by sensitive analysis due to missing data, the sample is still small. To generalize the findings, future replication studies are needed.

Additionally, PA breaks were only captured through participation in the ESD, the specially instructed PA break via video. Effects of other short PA breaks were not include in the study. However, participants were called to participate in ESD whenever possible, so the likelihood that they did take part in PA breaks in addition to the ESD could be ignored.

With respect to the baseline variables, it must be considered that two variables (stress load, attention difficulties) were adjusted not with their identical variable in T0, but with other conceptually associated variables (well-being index, BARI-S). Indeed, contrary to the assumption the well-being index does only show an association with functional stress, indicating that it does not control dysfunctional stress. Although the other three assumed associations were confirmed there might be a discrepancy between the daily measured variables and the variables measured in T0. Further studies should either proof the association between these used variables or measure the same variables in T0 for control the daily value of these variables.

Moreover, the measuring instruments comprised the self-assessed perception of the students and thus do not provide an objective information. This must be considered, especially for measuring cognitive and academic-performance-related measures. Here, existing objective tests, such as multiple choice exams after a video-taped lecture [ 72 ] might have also been used. Nevertheless, such methods were mostly used in a lab setting and do not reflect reality. Due to economic reasons and the natural learning environment, such procedures were not applied in this study. However, the circumstances of COVID-19 pandemic allowed a kind of lab setting in real life, as there were a lot of restrictions in daily life which limited the influence of other covariates. The study design provides a real natural home studying environment, producing results that are applicable to the healthy way that students learn in the real world. As this study took place under the conditions of COVID-19, new transformations in studying were also taken into account, as home studying and digital learning are increasingly part of everyday study.

However, the restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic could result in a greater extent of leisure time per se. As the available leisure time in general was not measured on daily level, it is not possible to distinguish if the examined effects on the outcomes are purely attributable to PA. It is possible that being more physical active is the result of having a greater extent of leisure time and not that PA but the leisure time itself effected the examined outcomes. To address this issue in future studies, it is necessary to measure the proportion of PA in relation to the leisure time available.

Furthermore, due to the retrospective nature of the daily assessments of the variables, there may be overstated associations which must be taken into account. Anyway, the daily level of the study design provides advantages regarding the ability to observe changes in an individual's characteristics over the period of the study. This design made it possible to find out the necessity to analyze the hierarchical structure of the intraindividual data nested within the interindividual data. The performed multilevel analyses made it possible to reflect the outcome of an average student in the sample at his/her daily average behavior in PA and home study.

Conclusion and practical implications

The current findings confirm the importance of PA for university students` stress load, recovery experience, and academic performance-related parameters in home studying. Briefly summarized, it can be concluded that PA breaks positively affect stress load and perceived study ability. LTPA has a positive impact on stress load, recovery experience, and academic performance-related parameters regarding attention difficulties and perceived study ability. Following these results, universities should promote PA in both fashions in order to keep their students healthy and functioning: On the one hand, they should offer opportunities to be physically active in leisure time. This includes time, environment, and structural aspects. The university sport department, which offers sport courses and provides sport facilities on university campuses for students´ leisure time, is one good example. On the other hand, they should support PA breaks during the learning process and in the immediate location of study. This includes, for example, providing instructor videos for PA breaks to use while home studying, and furthermore having instructors to lead in-person PA breaks in on-site learning settings like universities´ libraries or even lectures and seminars. This not only promotes PA, but also reduces sedentary behavior and thereby reduces many other health risks. Further research should focus not only on the effect of PA behavior but also of sedentary behavior as well as the amount of leisure time per se. They should also try to implement objective measures for example on academic performance parameters and investigate different effect directions and possible moderation effects to get a deeper understanding of the complex network of associations in which PA plays a crucial role.

Availability of data and materials

The datasets used and analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Abbreviations

Attention and Performance Self-Assessment

"Berliner Anforderungen Ressourcen-Inventar – Studierende" (instrument for the perception of study demands and resources)

Centered within

Grand centered

“Erfassung von Emotionen und Beanspruchung “ (questionnaire containing a word list of adjectives for the recording of emotions and stress during work)

Exercise snack digital (special physical activity break offer)

Intra-Class-Correlation

Leisure time physical activity

  • Physical activity

Recovery Experience Questionnaire

Study ability index

World Health Organization-Five Well-being index

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Juliane Moll, research associate of the Student Health Management of University of Tübingen, for the support in the coordination and realization study. We would like to express our thanks also to Ingrid Arzberger, Head of University Sports at the University of Tübingen, for providing the resources and co-applying for the funding. We acknowledge support by Open Access Publishing Fund of University of Tübingen.

Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. This research regarding the conduction of the study was funded by the Techniker Krankenkasse, health insurance fund.

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Monika Teuber, Daniel Leyhr & Gorden Sudeck

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M.T. and G.S. designed the study. M.T. coordinated and carried out participant recruitment and data collection. M.T. analyzed the data and M.T. and D.L. interpreted the data. M.T. drafted the initial version of the manuscript and prepared the figure and all tables. All authors contributed to reviewing and editing the manuscript and have read and agreed to the final version of the manuscript.

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The study involves human participants and was reviewed and approved by the Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Economics, University of Tübingen (ref. A2.54-127_kr). The participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study. All methods were carried out in accordance with relevant guidelines and regulations.

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Teuber, M., Leyhr, D. & Sudeck, G. Physical activity improves stress load, recovery, and academic performance-related parameters among university students: a longitudinal study on daily level. BMC Public Health 24 , 598 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-024-18082-z

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Shifting from Accounting Practitioner to Academia pp 87–145 Cite as

The Academic Workload

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This chapter takes a comprehensive view as to what might be expected of practitioners that have recently transitioned to a role in the higher education space. Specifically, and important for any aspiring academic to understand, is just how different the workload and workload expectations are in higher education versus private industry or public accounting. Not only is the work itself different, encompassing teaching, service and research rather than preparing financial statements, returns, or issuing opinions, the very nature of the work is also different. Collaboration and cooperation are mainstays of graduate classes and the corporate workplace, be it remote or in-person, but a large component of the work of an academic takes place on an individual basis. Drilling into some of the specifics, including time management and the academic timeline for projects, this chapter seeks to provide a practical and realistic assessment of just what higher education and institutions of higher education expect from faculty, advisors, and practitioners entering the space. In addition, the weighing of different types of work, building on the discussion from Chapter 4, might differ from institution to institution. This chapter attempts to bring together the wide possible array of academic work and do so in a manner understandable as well able to applied practically.

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Reflection Questions

In terms of an academic workload and how it differentiates from the corporate workload, what would appear to be the largest single difference in the expectations of new hires?

Publishing content is increasingly a core component of the academic conversation and dialogue, but is not immune from profit and cost considerations. Given these facts, what does the future of OER resources have for academic publishers and publications?

Since costs and costs pressures are going to be part of the higher education conversation, how important does it appear that grant writing and fundraising will be for faculty members moving forward?

Additional Readings

The Chronicle of Higher Education—“Can Faulty Workload Be Captured In A Database?”— https://www.chronicle.com/article/can-faculty-workload-be-captured-in-a-database/ .

The Chronicle of Higher Education—“10 Tips For Successful Grant Writing”— https://www.chronicle.com/article/10-tips-for-successful-grant-writing/ .

Academia.edu—“Open Educational Resources”— http://www.academia.edu/Documents/in/Open_Educational_Resources_OER_ .

The Times of Higher Education—“Five myths about academic editing”— https://www.timeshighereducation.com/blog/five-myths-about-academic-editing .

Educause—“The Future of Education Is Open”— https://er.educause.edu/articles/2017/8/oer-the-future-of-education-is-open .

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Stein Smith, S. (2021). The Academic Workload. In: Shifting from Accounting Practitioner to Academia. Palgrave Studies in Accounting and Finance Practice. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67546-2_5

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Provost Ray Jayawardhana assembles experienced leadership team

Executive vice provosts stephen gange and lainie rutkow, chief of staff julie messersmith will work closely with the provost to advance the university's academic mission, strategic vision.

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Provost Ray Jayawardhana has tapped three university leaders with more than 50 years of combined experience at Johns Hopkins to bolster his leadership team.

Image caption: Provost Ray Jayawardhana

Image credit : Will Kirk / Johns Hopkins University

Stephen Gange , who joined the faculty at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 1994 and has served as executive vice provost for academic affairs since 2015, will continue in the provost's office as executive vice provost. Lainie Rutkow , named the university's inaugural vice provost for interdisciplinary initiatives in 2022, has been elevated to executive vice provost. She joined the Bloomberg School's faculty in 2010 after earning her PhD and MPH in health policy at the school. And Julie Messersmith , who has worked to support research and scholarship since joining JHU in 2013, most recently as assistant vice provost for research, has been named chief of staff and associate vice provost for strategic initiatives.

"As we pursue bold ambitions for Johns Hopkins, building on excellence and enhancing impact, I'm delighted to partner closely with these exceptional colleagues to advance the university's academic mission," Jayawardhana said. "Given the expansive portfolio of the provost's office, including the pivotal role of our team in advancing the university's Ten for One strategic plan , their collective wisdom, insight, and experience will serve our community well."

Image caption: From left to right: Stephen Gange, Lainie Rutkow, and Julie Messersmith

Gange, a professor of epidemiology at the Bloomberg School with a joint appointment in infectious diseases at the School of Medicine, served as interim provost from May to October 2023. As an accomplished scholar and epidemiologist, Gange played an invaluable leadership role in developing and communicating policies and plans throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and also collaborates across Johns Hopkins to advance a spectrum of institutional priorities, including academic reviews, digital education, lifelong learning, and international affairs. He oversees the Office of International Services , directs the Student Services Excellence Initiative (SSEI), and launched both the University Registrar and Student Enrollment and Accounts Management (SEAM) organizations.

As executive vice provost, Gange will continue to provide leadership in academic affairs, enhancing the educational experience for Johns Hopkins students, and fostering innovations in teaching and learning. In addition to those offices above, his portfolio will include academic affairs, research, graduate and professional education, institutional research, information technology, and risk and compliance, and among the academic and cultural centers, the Center for Talented Youth , the Human Language Technology Center of Excellence , and Jhpiego .

"I'm thrilled to continue partnering with Provost Jayawardhana, our leadership team, and my colleagues across the university in shaping the academic landscape at Johns Hopkins," Gange said. "Together, we will continue to nurture our culture of academic excellence as we strive to fulfill Gilman's vision for the university: To educate its students and cultivate their capacity for lifelong learning, to foster independent and original research, and to bring the benefits of discovery to the world.

Rutkow, a professor of health policy and management at the Bloomberg School and the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies , led the strategic and academic planning for all aspects of the Hopkins Bloomberg Center , the university's new home in Washington, D.C. This included the launch of the Nexus Awards , a $15 million program to support faculty-led research, teaching, and convening anchored at the Hopkins Bloomberg Center, and the Hopkins Semester in D.C. program. She also developed and led the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center and has launched several public-facing series, including the Johns Hopkins Congressional Briefing Series and the Health Policy Forum .

As executive vice provost, she will oversee faculty affairs, student affairs, admissions and financial aid, diversity and inclusion, and institutional equity, and among the academic and cultural centers, the Johns Hopkins University Press , Urban Health Institute , and Berman Institute for Bioethics . She is integrally involved in the creation of the Johns Hopkins School of Government and Policy , the university's first new academic division since 2007.

"I'm looking forward to working with Provost Jayawardhana, Stephen, Julie, and the rest of the provost's office team to advance the goals in the Ten for One , the university's new strategic framework," Rutkow said. "This is a particularly exciting moment for Johns Hopkins, as we pursue discovery and excellence across a host of domains that impact our faculty, students, and staff."

In previous roles within the Office of the Vice Provost for Research , Messersmith directed the Bloomberg Distinguished Professorships program and several research initiatives, including the Catalyst Awards , Discovery Awards , President's Frontier Awards , and COVID research support program. She developed key research development products and processes such as the university's limited submissions program and rank-specific funding opportunity lists, which remain open to the public. She collaboratively developed Hopkins on the Hill with the federal strategy team and launched the Johns Hopkins Wavelengths multimedia initiative in partnership with the JHU Press.

As chief of staff and associate vice provost for strategic initiatives, Messersmith will serve as a senior advisor to Jayawardhana, partnering with him and the two executive vice provosts to advance the university's strategic priorities; elevate educational, research, and broader engagement efforts; and enhance partnerships with divisions across Johns Hopkins. She will also work closely with university leadership to develop and launch university initiatives, including those directly related to the strategic plan, the Ten for One .

"The opportunity to contribute to the university's mission in this new capacity is both an honor and a challenge I eagerly embrace alongside this fantastic team," Messersmith said. "This moment in the university's history is not just compelling; it's transformative. I look forward to leveraging my experience in cultivating robust and enduring partnerships throughout the institution to foster collaboration, innovation, and excellence across the university during this pivotal time."

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A Change of Scene: Moving Pedagogical Practice from the Classroom to the Court Room. What Impact Does This Have on Social Work Students’ Feelings of Confidence?

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Lauren Martins, A Change of Scene: Moving Pedagogical Practice from the Classroom to the Court Room. What Impact Does This Have on Social Work Students’ Feelings of Confidence?, The British Journal of Social Work , 2024;, bcae024, https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcae024

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How effectively higher education institutes are in preparing future Social Workers for practice has been questioned by literature. This action research study focuses on one university in England and was inspired by previous Social Work students’ law module feedback. It considers interventions that could assist in enhancing student satisfaction, confidence and readiness to practice with a focus on court skills. The study explores the impact of simulated court skills days on students’ confidence in comparison to students who did not receive the intervention. Students completing the postgraduate social work course participated in the intervention alongside their law module teaching whilst undergraduate students received the intervention later in the academic year. Nineteen students completed questionnaires which were conducted before and after the law module. Results indicate that students who participated in three court skills days felt more confident in a range of court tasks and felt more ready for practice in comparison to those who had not received the intervention. The research highlights how combining traditional didactic lectures alongside more creative pedagogical approaches can lead to students’ feeling more prepared, confident and ready for front line practice.

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academic work xxl

Hearing “group project” is not always something that brings excitement to students. Often that phrase causes an internal groan among students. While working in groups may not be everyone’s favorite part of college or coursework, here are some tips on how to navigate group work in college to make it a better experience:

Introduce yourself

Often you are working with classmates that you may have never met before. Taking a moment to introduce yourself to those in your group can help create a more comfortable environment. This can also be a time where you can decide on the best way to communicate with everyone and to learn schedules so future meetings can be created.

Assign roles

Assigning one student to be the “group leader” gives everyone a person that they can talk to if there are any problems that arise. Assigning the leader can be done by individuals volunteering or with a group vote. This is a great opportunity to build leadership skills, which can be helpful in other classes or in future careers.

Set clear expectations

Once roles have been assigned, make sure the expectations for everyone are clear. This will help discourage slacking off in the group. Everyone will have a responsibility which will help the project to progress.

Set deadlines

While there is a deadline for the project to be completed, setting mini deadlines throughout the project will help to keep everyone on track. Create a reasonable timeline for everyone so the project can be submitted on time. Decide what needs to be done at each step and make sure that each goal for the mini deadline is specific.

Communicate and meet often

Regularly check-in with each other before each “deadline” to make sure everyone is on the same page, things are getting done, and if there are any questions that have come up since the last time you met. This will help keep the project progressing, so there are not any setbacks and if there are any emergencies that may have come up, meeting often will help other members of the group to know what needs to be done and be able to step in as needed. These meetings can be done virtually or in person. Be careful to work around everyone’s schedules, and if a group member is unable to make it to the meeting, make sure to take notes, so group members can be kept informed about new developments to the project.

Keep a positive attitude

Working as a group involves collaborating with others who may have different ideas than you do or different ways of approaching completing the assignment. Be willing to share your own ideas and listen to the ideas of others. Be confident about your project and maintain a positive attitude towards your group members.

Group work is not always easy, but following these tips can make you better prepared to complete the projects with success. Go Cougs!

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Guide to student publishing

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  • Make the most of publishing
  • Get started with the SDR

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What is academic publishing?

Academic or scholarly publishing is a way for researchers (including you!) to describe the research that they have completed and to communicate and disseminate that work to others in their field. Academic publishing creates a record of research efforts that helps to advance knowledge and preserve the work for future use. Academic publishing is also a mechanism for you as the author to be recognized for the contributions you have made to your field of study.

Wall of current periodicals

Traditional academic publishing has meant publishing in a scholarly journal, but these days Stanford students can publish their important course projects, honors theses, capstone projects and more in the Stanford Digital Repository (SDR) . Students benefit by having their work discoverable and published online at a persistent Stanford link which can be reliably cited throughout their academic and professional careers.

Stanford Digital Repository self-deposit home page

By depositing in the SDR you'll be distributing your work out into your broader community for others to find, read, and expand upon. You can refer to your published works in resumes, CVs, and online profiles like LinkedIn or ResearchGate .

Each deposited work is added to the library's catalog, SearchWorks , where it can be discovered along with other works by Stanford students and faculty and will be picked up by search engines like Google for users around the globe to find.

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XXL Mag

XXL Magazines Internship Program

Xxl magazine's internship program.

ABOUT US Ours is a fast-paced exciting publishing environment that combines the rigors of journalism with the energy and creativity of the music industry. We are first and foremost the most respected authority on the international cultural phenomenon that has become hip-hop. But we are also a highly regarded publication that prides itself on its accuracy, objectivity and ability to scoop our competitors for today's hottest stories. In short, XXL is a very cool place to work. ABOUT OUR INTERNS We're looking for motivated college students in their junior or senior years who are interested in journalism, publishing or a career in music. They must be responsible, reliable and have a passion for all things hip-hop. We want individuals who will take full advantage of being part of XXL magazine. THE DETAILS We're looking for a 15-hour per week commitment from each intern for the full length of an academic semester (Spring, Summer, Fall) in exchange for academic credit, lunch and transportation money and the once-in-a-lifetime chance to work at XXL. Interns will participate in a wide range of editorial activities as we work to produce our monthly publication. They will sit in on our weekly edit meetings and listen in as editors make the all-important decisions about who/what gets coverage. They will work closely with editors to transcribe exclusive interviews for our feature well. They will learn the ins and outs of how a magazine come together from staff in the edit, photo and art departments.

Candidates MUST BE ABLE TO RECEIVE ACADEMIC CREDIT from your college in order to qualify for our program. (You will need to make these arrangements for yourself, and provide documentation, prior to starting the internship.) NO EXCEPTIONS.

HOW TO APPLY We are currently NOT taking interns.

EMAILS ONLY. NO PHONE CALLS OR FAXES.

International applicants

For international and English-speaking applicants

At Academic Work we are experts in staffing and recruitment of young professionals. Are you a student looking for a part time job, have recently graduated, or have a few years of working experience and is looking for a new job? Regardless, we believe in you because we know you are ambitious, full of energy and want to grow!

At Academic Work we help companies and businesses around the country and internationally to attract and recruit their new talents. We operate within many business areas, but most of our jobs are within IT, technology, finance, sales, customer service and marketing.

How to apply for a job?

Jobs open to English speaking applicants will be written in English and have the tag “Jobs in English” which you can filter on. See our jobs in English here . When you find the job that you want to apply for, press on the green button, “Apply here” and you will be guided through the application process. Parts of this process will be in Swedish, but you can easily use the Google Translate button by the URL-field to translate the page.

Are there not any available jobs right this moment? Don’t worry! We publish new jobs every day and to stay updated on available jobs we recommend you create a job alert. Based on your criteria’s we will send you an email when we publish a job that could be interesting to you.

academic work xxl

Work permits

If you already have a work permit in Sweden you can easily just apply to one or more of our available jobs right now. If this is the first time applying for a job in Sweden we recommend you to get familiar with the national guidelines and work permits before you start the process. You can find all the information you need here .

According to Migrationsverket, an EU/EEA citizen have the right to work, study or live in Sweden without a residence permit. Read more here .

Being a consultant

When you apply for a job trough Academic Work the job is either a recruitment or a consultant job. The difference between these is that if the job is a recruitment job, you will be permanently employed at the recruiting company. For a consultant assignment you are employed by Academic Work.

Being a consultant comes with many great advantages. It is a great way for you who want to start your career by getting to know several companies or industries, test and identify what you think is most interesting and want to focus your career on and by that means continue learning along the way. As a consultant you have a Consultant Manager at Academic Work helping you at every step. The Consultant Manager is you closest manager and will guide you through your employment, help you develop and ensure that you thrive. In addition will the Consultant Manager ensure that the laws and agreements with your assigned employer is being upheld and will help you take your next career step when the time is ready.

What to expect in the recruitment process?

We screen applications as they come in, which means that we will contact candidates that matches the profile we are looking for ongoing. The first step is a cognitive ability test and a personality test. This is followed by a phone interview, and if we see you are the right candidate with the right competency and motivation you will be invited to a competency based interview with one of our recruiters. This interview lasts approximately one hour, and the goal is to see if your competency and behavior matches what our client is looking for. Next step is an interview with the client in the company you will be working at, and in some cases we will do a reference check. Afterwards we, together with the client, will do an assessment of the candidates and offer the job to one of the candidates. All the candidates will get feedback after the process is ended.

And remember – you can apply for several jobs at the same time.

Do you have any questions?

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to let us know. Send us an email to [email protected] or give us a call on 08-562 448 00.

About Academic Work

Academic Work is a staffing and recruitment company, founded in 1998 in Sweden. Today, we are an international organization with operations in Sweden, Norway , Denmark , Finland , Switzerland and Germany . We are experts in recruiting academics still in their studies or in the beginning of their careers – young professionals. Since we started, we’ve helped more than 170 000 young professionals find a job and start their careers, while also fulfilling our clients' recruitment needs and helping them to grow.

Want to know more? You can always browse the website and our Stories & Insights (in Swedish), or check out our Instagram ( @academicwork ) and LinkedIn pages!

The New York Times

Opinionator | what is academic work.

academic work xxl

What Is Academic Work?

Stanley Fish

Stanley Fish on education, law and society.

In previous columns I have argued that academic work is distinctive — something and not everything — and that a part of its distinctiveness is its distance from political agendas. This does not mean that political agendas can’t be the subject of academic work — one should inquire into their structure, history, etc. — but that the point of introducing them into the classroom should never be to urge them or to warn against them. I have never felt that my attempts to explain this point have been entirely successful, but I am moved to try again by the recent experience of a conference that, I believe, exemplifies the point in action.

The conference was held last weekend at the University of San Diego School of Law . The subject was originalism — that brand of interpretation that demands fidelity to original meaning, identified either with the standard definition of words at the time of drafting and/or ratification or with the intentions of the drafters. The alternatives named in my previous sentence represent “schools” of originalism. When originalists gather or regale one another in print, much of the energy is devoted to debating which version of originalism is the true one. In these debates the contending parties cite examples in support of their position and the examples come from constitutional law cases. Those cases center on substantive questions like “Is the death penalty an instance of cruel and unusual punishment?” or “Do individual citizens have a right to own guns?” or “Does the category of free speech include campaign expenditures?”

At this conference, the emphasis was not on those questions, but on the question of what interpretive method is likely to yield good answers. What was being debated were not outcomes (how would you like this case to turn out) but general principles of procedure. What might be hot-button issues at a conference held to debate policy were only the materials on which the skills of academic inquiry were being practiced and sharpened. Consider as an illustration the first sentence of the opening paper: “Our basic conception of the Fourteenth Amendment is all wrong.” That’s a pretty big statement and one might expect big things to follow. And they do, in a way. The author declares that a number of landmark cases were wrongly decided and argues that more judicial decrees should be subject to a congressional override.

However, these assertions are directed not at judges and legislators in an effort to move them to a course of action (although that may happen down the line) but at the other participants in the conference and the scholars not at the conference who write about these matters in the law reviews. The paper does not say to its audience, “Go out and change the world,” but “Here is my take on these issues and what do you think?”

The conference format reflected its academic (not policy) imperatives. A presenter summarized his or her paper. A designated commentator posed sharp questions. The presenter responded and then the floor was opened to the other participants, who posed their own sharp questions to both the presenter and the commentator. The exchanges were swift and spirited. The room took on some of the aspects of an athletic competition — parry, thrust, soft balls, hard balls, palpable hits, ingenious defenses and a series of “well dones” said by everyone to everyone else at the end of each round.

The kind of questions asked also marked the occasion as an academic one. Not “Won’t the economy implode if we do this?” or “Wouldn’t free expression rights be eroded if we went down that path?”, but “Would you be willing to follow your argument to its logical conclusion?” or “Doesn’t that amount to just making up the law as you go along?” These questions were continuations of a philosophical conversation that stretches back at least to the beginning of the republic; and while they were illustrated by real-world topics (the pardon power, habeas corpus, the electoral college), the focus was always on the theoretical puzzles of which those topics were disposable examples; they were never the main show.

After it was all over, everyone pronounced the occasion a great success; not because any substantive problems had been solved, but because a set of intellectual problems had been tossed around and teased out by men and women at the top of their game. The pleasure was palpable and a bit esoteric, for only a small number of people in the world care whether originalism is a textualist or an intentionalist enterprise; but we all cared and we were more than willing to do the hard work involved in trying to get things straight. We were all willing and eager, that is, to do academic work.

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Show AWL words on this page.

Levels 1-5:     grey  Levels 6-10:   orange 

Show sorted lists of these words.

Any words you don't know? Look them up in the website's built-in dictionary .

Choose a dictionary .  Wordnet  OPTED  both

  • Academic vocab

The Academic Word List (AWL) The 570 headwords, and other forms, by level

AWL video

For another look at the same content, check out YouTube » or Youku » , or the AWL infographic » .

academic work xxl

This page describes the Academic Word List (AWL), giving information on what the AWL is , as well as a complete list of all words in the AWL . The list is rather static. More dynamic tools for understanding and using the AWL words can be found in other sections of the website, namely the AWL highlighter and gapfill maker , AWL tag cloud and gapfill maker , the AWL finder , and a vocabulary profiler . Other pages also contain information on how to use word lists as well as more detailed information on the main different word lists available for academic study .

What is the AWL?

The Academic Word List (AWL), developed by Averil Coxhead at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, contains 570 word families which frequently appear in academic texts, but which are not contained in the General Service List (GSL) . When compiling the list, the author found that the AWL covers around 10% of words in academic texts; if you are familiar with words in the GSL, which covers around 80% of words in written texts, you would have knowledge of approximately 90% of words in academic texts. The words in the AWL are not connected with any particular subject, meaning they are useful for all students.

AWL word cloud

The 570 word families of the AWL are divided into 10 lists (called sublists) according to how frequent they are. Sublist 1 has the most frequent word families, sublist 2 the next most frequent word families, up to sublist 10, which has the least frequent. Each sublist contains 60 word families, except for sublist 10, which only has 30.

The list below contains all 570 headwords in the AWL, along with sublist number, and related word forms. All words contain hyperlinks to the Wordnet dictionary , hosted on this site (definitions open in an alert box on the same page).

There is a downloadable copy of this list , with study guidance, in the vocabulary resources section .

Check out the Quizzes section for exercises to practise using words in the AWL.

The Academic Word List

Unlock AWL

GET FREE EBOOK

Like the website? Try the books. This extract from Unlock the Academic Wordlist: Sublists 1-3 contains all sublist 1 words, plus exercises, answers and more!

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Author: Sheldon Smith    ‖    Last modified: 28 November 2022.

Sheldon Smith is the founder and editor of EAPFoundation.com. He has been teaching English for Academic Purposes since 2004. Find out more about him in the about section and connect with him on Twitter , Facebook and LinkedIn .

The AWL highlighter allows you to highlight words from the AWL (Academic Word List) in any text you choose.

The Academic Word List (AWL) contains 570 word families which frequently appear in academic texts.

The Academic Collocation List (ACL) is a list containing 2,469 of the most frequent and useful collocations which occur in written academic English.

Academic vocabulary consists of general words, non-general academic words, and technical words.

Resources for vocabulary contains additional activities and information (requires users to be logged in).

Learning vocabulary depends on knowing how much to learn, the type of vocabulary to study, and how to study it properly.

academic work xxl

Academic Work

Academic Work, our core recruitment and staffing company brand for developing young professionals, is one of the leading job placement companies in Sweden, with operations in six countries.

The company was founded in 1998 by three Swedish students and good friends, who began connecting their classmates with companies looking for staff. Smart, flexible and talented, the students proved to be welcome additions to many companies. Today, we’ve helped more than 160,000 young professionals find a job and start their careers, while also fulfilling our clients' recruitment needs and helping them to grow.

Young professionals

Academic Work’s ambition is to be the number one career partner for young professionals. For us, the term “young professionals” includes two groups: students at university, college and other forms of higher education as well as graduates who are working professionals in the beginning of their careers. To be an invaluable career partner for these candidates and consultants, we work hard to understand their preferences, needs and take a structured, personal approach.

From client relationships to business partnerships

For companies, we offer a single point of contact in the form of a customized client team with deep knowledge of industry trends, domain expertise, talent sourcing, staffing, and recruiting. We always strive to develop client relationships into business partnerships, meaning that we are personal, transparent and client-centric in everything we do. Like other companies within the Akind family, we apply next-generation technology in the form of job apps, cloud-based workflow overviews and other innovations making the world of work better, smarter, more fun.

Areas of expertise

  • Part-time staffing
  • Full-time staffing
  • Recruitment
  • Temp to permanent
  • Organizational evaluations
  • People plan
  • Employer branding
  • Organizational training
  • Skills development
  • Recruitment tools

Our markets

Academic Work is present in six countries.

  • Switzerland

For more information visit:

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IMAGES

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  4. Professioneller Personaldienstleister

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  6. How to balance academic workload and improve faculty performance

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COMMENTS

  1. Ten simple rules to improve academic work-life balance

    The ability to strike a perceived sense of balance between work and life represents a challenge for many in academic and research sectors around the world. Before major shifts in the nature of academic work occurred, academia was historically seen as a rewarding and comparatively low-stress working environment . Academics today need to manage ...

  2. 9 Work-Life Balance Hacks for Academics

    As an academic, you may find it difficult to maintain a positive work-life balance. This is because academia, by nature, blurs the lines between the professional and personal. It involves long nights in the lab, and extra hours put in at the weekends. But reaching a manageable work-life balance is crucial to avoid burnout.

  3. Emerging principles for the allocation of academic work in universities

    Policy impacts on academic work and their institutions. In many countries, productivity demands require universities to compete for funding and meet external performance metrics, such as Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) (Kwok, 2013).This drive to maximising research output and reputation creates pressure to publish in the "higher-ranked" journals, limits what "counts as ...

  4. Physical activity improves stress load, recovery, and academic

    Physical activity has been proven to be beneficial for physical and psychological health as well as for academic achievement. However, especially university students are insufficiently physically active because of difficulties in time management regarding study, work, and social demands. As they are at a crucial life stage, it is of interest how physical activity affects university students ...

  5. How Academic and Extracurricular Workload and Stress Impacts the Mental

    Academic workload and extracurricular involvement can be sources of stress for college students. Academic workload is characterized as the student's major, course work and future graduate school and/or career path plans. Extracurricular involvement can pertain from anything to intramural sports to being the President of a student organization.

  6. In academia, hard work is expected—but taking a break is ...

    In academia, hard work is expected—but taking a break is effort well spent, too. 4 Apr 2019. By Mattias Björnmalm. Robert Neubecker. My lab bench was strewn with tubes and pipettes—remnants of an experiment that had refused to work for several weeks. I was slouched against the bench, deep in despair. It was a far cry from how I had felt ...

  7. The Future of the Academic Work Force

    The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that the sector has shed tens of thousands of jobs since February. Among other consequences, the turmoil has heightened distrust between ...

  8. The Academic Workload

    In addition, the weighing of different types of work, building on the discussion from Chapter 4, might differ from institution to institution. This chapter attempts to bring together the wide possible array of academic work and do so in a manner understandable as well able to applied practically. Download chapter PDF.

  9. 'The Story of Work' and the Future of the Academic Workplace

    Some of the themes from this global narrative of the history of work that may help illuminate the post-2020 coronavirus outbreak future of academic work include: Change comes more slowly than we might think. What stands out from spending 22 hours listening to The Story of Work is how much about work did not change. Specialization and wage work ...

  10. Provost Ray Jayawardhana assembles experienced leadership team

    Rutkow, a professor of health policy and management at the Bloomberg School and the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, led the strategic and academic planning for all aspects of the Hopkins Bloomberg Center, the university's new home in Washington, D.C.This included the launch of the Nexus Awards, a $15 million program to support faculty-led research, teaching, and ...

  11. What is academic work and how should it be counted?

    It seems a simple truism to say, but the essential nature of academic work hasn't changed in a very, very long time (we teach, we research, and we organise/administer that teaching and that research), but the ways in which it is counted, valued, reported on, measured, remunerated, and apportioned to workers in the sector called 'higher ...

  12. Change of Scene: Moving Pedagogical Practice from the ...

    Abstract. How effectively higher education institutes are in preparing future Social Workers for practice has been questioned by literature. This action research study focuses on one university in England and was inspired by previous Social Work students' law module feedback.

  13. The New Academic Workplace

    How to assess flexible-work options for your staff and keep a competitive edge. Like other workplaces across the country at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, many colleges sent staff home to work remotely, either full- or part-time. Now many colleges are considering whether remote or hybrid work should remain an option.

  14. xxl abbreviation

    Definition of xxl abbreviation in Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary. Meaning, pronunciation, picture, example sentences, grammar, usage notes, synonyms and more.

  15. The benefits of being selfish as a teacher-scholar (opinion)

    Here, I argue for a model of faculty engagement that builds upon their vision, one that empowers faculty members to approach their work in a way that benefits themselves, their students and their institutions: I call it the selfish teacher-scholar model. In fact, I've found that, counterintuitively, selfishness can be selfless!

  16. Navigating Group Work

    Washington State University Academic Success & Career Center Facebook Instagram X (formerly Twitter) Lighty Student Services Rooms 160 - 190 1815 NE Wilson Rd Pullman, WA (509) 335-6000 [email protected]

  17. The Academic 133+ XL by The Professor

    Funding period. Mar 15, 2022 - Apr 14, 2022 (29 days) The Professor is raising funds for The Academic 133+ XL on Kickstarter! It's time to bring my own deck box to the table, the one of my dreams. Gamegenic and I designed a box with all my must-haves and wishes.

  18. Guides: Guide to student publishing: Publish your academic work

    Academic publishing creates a record of research efforts that helps to advance knowledge and preserve the work for future use. Academic publishing is also a mechanism for you as the author to be recognized for the contributions you have made to your field of study. Traditional academic publishing has meant publishing in a scholarly journal, but ...

  19. Rethinking Academic Integrity Policies in the AI Era

    How AI writing assistants prepare students for work. Schools want to prepare students for future careers, and students want to become fluent in the tools they will use for work. AI-powered products will soon be a norm in the workplace. Over 70,000 teams, including a third of Fortune 500 companies, trust Grammarly to help move work forward.

  20. Taylor Swift: Academics study how the singer's accent has changed

    Researchers from The University of Chester presented their work an academic conference on the star.

  21. XXL Magazines Internship Program

    In short, XXL is a very cool place to work. ... We're looking for a 15-hour per week commitment from each intern for the full length of an academic semester (Spring, Summer, Fall) in exchange for ...

  22. World's first global technical advisory group on motorcycle safety

    WHO has launched the first global technical advisory group on powered two- and three-wheeled vehicle safety to help shape laws, policies, regulations and research to reduce fatal crashes and support the shift to sustainable transport systems. Motorcyclists and other powered two-and three-wheeled vehicle riders make up nearly a quarter of the 1.19 million annual road traffic deaths globally ...

  23. For international and English-speaking applicants

    About Academic Work. Academic Work is a staffing and recruitment company, founded in 1998 in Sweden. Today, we are an international organization with operations in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Switzerland and Germany. We are experts in recruiting academics still in their studies or in the beginning of their careers - young professionals.

  24. What Is Academic Work?

    February 7, 2011 8:30 pm. Comment. Stanley Fish on education, law and society. In previous columns I have argued that academic work is distinctive — something and not everything — and that a part of its distinctiveness is its distance from political agendas. This does not mean that political agendas can't be the subject of academic work ...

  25. AcademicWorks

    Formacion personal en Academic Works. AcademicWorks | 1,371 followers on LinkedIn. At AcademicWorks we believe in improving access to education through innovative technology and fanatical customer ...

  26. Academic Work Reviews: What Is It Like to Work At Academic Work?

    Great to work Easy good work culture. Cons. hectic demanding less in importance to work-life balance. Helpful. Academic Work Response 3y. Hi! Good to hear about your experience, but it seems like you have written your review on the wrong company profile. Academic Work is a staffing and recruitment company operating in Sweden, Denmark, Finland ...

  27. Academic Word List (AWL)

    The Academic Word List (AWL), developed by Averil Coxhead at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, contains 570 word families which frequently appear in academic texts, but which are not contained in the General Service List (GSL).When compiling the list, the author found that the AWL covers around 10% of words in academic texts; if you are familiar with words in the GSL, which ...

  28. Academic Work

    Academic Work offers you great opportunities both during your time at university as well as after your graduation. Our clients operate in a variety of different areas - market leading and ...

  29. Academic Work

    Academic Work. Academic Work, our core recruitment and staffing company brand for developing young professionals, is one of the leading job placement companies in Sweden, with operations in six countries. The company was founded in 1998 by three Swedish students and good friends, who began connecting their classmates with companies looking for ...