In Leisure College, USA: The Decline in Student Study Time, Philip Babcock and Mindy Marks reflect on the decreasing number of hours that University students spend studying on a weekly basis. The authors state that, “in 1961, the average full-time student at a four-year college in the United States studied about twenty-four hours per week, while his modern counterpart puts in only fourteen hours per week.” It is mentioned that this drastic decline in study time may be due to several differences in the college atmosphere between today and forty years ago including advancements in educational technology and a higher number of students holding jobs while attending college. At the same time, the authors imply that Universities don’t hold their students to as high of standards as once was considered acceptable.
While the authors do pose many valid points, they fail to address some factors that would have balanced their argument to a more positive perspective. Babcock and Marks argue that falling standards and students demanding more leisure time are two main reasons why student study time is continuing to decrease. While this may be, they’re unsuccessful in mentioning the large amount of extracurricular activities that students are encouraged to partake in. These activities are ones that could help students in building a resume and ultimately getting a successful job. The authors bring to light many possible reasons why study hours have decreased over time, but their argument would have been much more convincing if they had taken these previous aspects into consideration.
Carly,
ReplyDeleteThis nicely shows the moves that are important to make in and between the summary and response. Especially strong is the way you carry just enough of the article's arguments into your response to not only help with the transition, but to really place your ideas in relation to those of the source.
Since you have the moves, then, I recommend you now look to your phrasing to make sure you are summarizing as accurately as possible. Do Babcock and Marks "imply" that standards have fallen, or are they explicit in saying that their data suggests this is the case? How can you phrase the summary to say that even though the authors consider technology and off-campus jobs as factors, they don't believe these can account for the decrease in study hours?
kk