Resumen de Influence of the Perceived Workload of Students on the Academic Performance Rates
Eutiquio Gallego Vázquez, Virginia Díaz Barcos, Eva Cristina Correa Hernando, Elvira Sánchez Espinosa, Antonio Callejo Ramos
The new programs of studies developed according to the European Higher Education Systems are students—centered. Inthis sense, it is critical to properly set the workload a student must dedicate in order to reach the learning outcomes definedfor each subject. This paper analyses the perception of students with regards to the difficulty and workload employed bythem in the first course of two new degrees implemented at Technical University of Madrid (TUM). Several questionnaireswere developed to gather the information required, which contained questions about the difficulty perceived or the timespent,among others.The total number of studentsthat tookpart in the surveysranged from 54 to 63, dependingon the fourmonths of the semester considered (February, March, April and May). In addition, statistical analyses were conducted tocheck the influence of the perceived difficulty and workload on the academic performance rates. A Principal ComponentAnalysis (PCA) and a subsequent Hierarchical Ascendant Classification (HAC) were also accomplished to obtain theclusters representing the subjects consideredin this work. The studentsusually perceivea higherdifficultyin the studyof thesubjects than expected prior to their enrollment in University. Those subjects perceived by students to be the most difficultones tend to show lower Efficiency and Success Rates. In addition, the students tend to abandon the study of any subjectwhen they consider it is a difficult one. The results of this study suggest the difficulties found by students during their firstacademic course in University.
