Semester Course Load and Student Performance

Nick Huntington-Klein and Andrew Gill ()
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Andrew Gill: California State University Fullerton CSU Fullerton

Research in Higher Education, 2021, vol. 62, issue 5, No 3, 623-650

Abstract: Abstract Many college students in the United States take longer than four years to complete their bachelor’s degrees. Long time-to-degree can increase higher education costs by billions. Time-to-degree can be reduced if students take more credits each term. While academic momentum theory suggests that additional credits may also improve student performance, and there is a strong positive correlation between course load and student performance, high course load may reduce time investment in each course, giving high course load a negative causal effect on performance. Concern about the negative impact of course load on performance, especially for struggling students, may lead to pushback against policies to reduce time-to-degree by increasing course load. Using longitudinal data from a regional four-year university with a high average time-to-degree, we find no evidence that high course loads have a negative impact on student grades, even for students at the low end of the performance distribution. This result is consistent with a model where students substitute time away from non-education activities when their course loads increase.

Keywords: Course load; Time-to-degree; Student performance; Grades (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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DOI: 10.1007/s11162-020-09614-8

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