{"id":2220,"date":"2025-02-03T17:12:16","date_gmt":"2025-02-03T17:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/learning-design\/?p=2220"},"modified":"2025-10-22T17:16:20","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T16:16:20","slug":"study-speed-and-workload-how-do-they-intersect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/learning-design\/?p=2220","title":{"rendered":"Study speed and workload: How do they intersect?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paul Astles and Charlie Knowlson ~ Learning Designers<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Imagine, for a moment, that you are standing in front of a pile of food the height of a giraffe. This pile is made up of all your favourite foods, neatly separated by sustainably sourced packaging. If you\u2019re unsure why there is packaging, just consider this: who wants gravy on top of their doughnuts? (Nobody, that\u2019s right.)<\/p>\n

When we consider the quantity of items you\u2019re about to devour (of course you are going to devour them in this metaphor, what else would you be doing?) you could think of that as study workload. It\u2019s the total amount of things you are going to experience, munch on or work through, with your aim being no more mountain of food.<\/p>\n

Now consider this – how long do you think it would take you to consume a giraffe-sized mountain of your favourite foods? The answer to that question would be: the speed at which you\u2019re able<\/em> to do it. You can then think of this as your study speed. Some things may take longer to eat while other bits could be quite chewy and dense and require longer to chew. Some elements of that food mountain will be much more straightforward for you to gnaw through.<\/p>\n

The experiences that you have along the way, chewy food, easy to eat popcorn, or a lovely chunk of your favourite chocolate, can alter the total time it takes for you to get through that mountain. However, the speed that you can work your way through the giraffe-sized mountain is not dictated by how chewy, dense or quick to gobble the food is (i.e. the workload). The speed at which you can work through your mountain (i.e. your study speed) is impacted by all sorts of things.<\/p>\n

Estimated timings as an assurance<\/h2>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>We can’t cover all possible influences that may impact on study speed in one blog article. Rather than trying to, we want to share the outcome of a survey that students responded to as part of a \u2018Question of the Month\u2019 within the Curriculum Design Student Panel at The Open University. The question they were asked related to the value of showing estimated timings for activities.<\/p>\n

Our assumption going in was that estimated timings may help students to plan their time for study more effectively. They might recognise that their study speed will be impacted on a given week by external factors that life can throw up and plan their approach to study accordingly. If they see a long activity, they know that they will need to give themselves an appropriate amount of time to try and gnaw their way through it. \u00a0The results supported this, but also showed that these timings help students to know when to take breaks in their learning.<\/p>\n

Students may additionally find it reassuring that if something is taking a while to complete, that\u2019s okay, if the estimated timing tells them they\u2019re within the time approximation. They may have hit a dense, quite difficult to chew, section of the work and having the timing for guidance helps them to know they\u2019re on track. These timings tell them it may take a bit of time to complete this chunk of learning, so don’t worry if that\u2019s the case.<\/p>\n

Recognising this can be a problem, however, if the estimated timings are in fact not realistic or representative of the true time of the task.<\/p>\n

There was resounding support from the students on the panel for the inclusion of estimated times in course material.<\/p>\n

Workload and retention<\/h2>\n

We know that workload \/ perceptions of workload are important for retention. If students feel that their own giraffe-sized pile is becoming too overwhelming, perhaps there are too many dense sections to work through. If these are unevenly balanced through their learning experience, they may opt to step back from it because it\u2019s too much. This is the see-saw of \u2018study speed\u2019 and \u2018workload\u2019. Trying to balance, where possible, the study load, with how long it takes to work through it, is a huge challenge and one that we in Learning Design help colleagues to navigate regularly.<\/p>\n

It is important to recognise that the \u2018study speed\u2019 a student works at is totally variable depending on a range of external factors. It would be impossible to identify and mitigate all these factors when creating a new learning experience for students.<\/p>\n

There is hope though. That hope is connected to how we, the teams who design and create learning experiences, support the student journey. We can do this by transparently sharing expected workload and recognising the need for students to be able to plan a path through the mountain that is manageable for each person\u2019s individual \u2018study speed\u2019.<\/p>\n

Contact us!<\/h2>\n

We\u2019d love to hear about your design journeys and how you take account of students\u2019 workload \/ study speed. You can contact us to share your experiences or to ask us any questions you may have on this topic at the Learning Design Inbox<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Banner image: Shawndra Hayes-Budgen via Canva\/PhanuwatNandee\/DAPA Images<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Paul Astles and Charlie Knowlson ~ Learning Designers   Imagine, for a moment, that you are standing in front of a pile of food the height of a giraffe. This pile is made up of all your favourite foods, neatly separated by sustainably sourced packaging. If you\u2019re unsure why there is packaging, just consider this: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":2222,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[148,347,1,35,348,149],"tags":[420,151,41,40,421,130,30,153,419,179,38],"class_list":["post-2220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-curriculum-design-student-panel","category-distance-learning","category-learning-design","category-ld-under-the-hood","category-remote-learning","category-student-feedback","tag-analogy","tag-curriculum-design-student-panel","tag-higher-education","tag-learning-design","tag-question-of-the-month","tag-student-retention","tag-students","tag-study","tag-study-speed","tag-the-open-university","tag-workload"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/learning-design\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/learning-design\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/learning-design\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/learning-design\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/learning-design\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2220"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/learning-design\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2510,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/learning-design\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2220\/revisions\/2510"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/learning-design\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/learning-design\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/learning-design\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/learning-design\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}