What we have learnt

Areas of overlap between lecturers and students

Lecturers and students in the sample report that their college focuses quite a bit on encouraging contact among students from different economic, social, and racial or ethnic backgrounds. Lecturers report that they believe students had often worked on a task that required analysing information and evaluating ideas, and students also reported that they have often done this.

A positive finding is that students and lecturers report that their college focuses very much on encouraging students to spend large amounts of time studying.

Areas of discrepancy between lecturers and students

There were some discrepancies in the perceptions of lecturers and the behaviour reported by students. For instance, 42% of lecturers and 26% of students report that their college places little emphasis on helping students cope with their non-academic responsibilities (work, family, etc.).

The number of hours that lecturers estimated students spent preparing for class was approximately half the amount of time that the students reported. With regards to academic work, more students (57%) than lecturers (42%) indicated that the college placed 'quite a bit' or 'very much' emphasis on requiring students to spend significant amounts of time studying and on academic work. Even though the majority (72%) of students reported that their colleges placed very little or only some focus on providing students with the support they need to succeed academically, lecturers disagreed with this viewpoint.