Working Full Time

a comparison of student employment

Lindsey McNaughton
MAY 2, 2016

Abstract
Today, students are confronted with devoting enough time to their studies while working
to support themselves and/or their families; however, professors often recommend a large
amount of time be dedicated to their specific course outside of the classroom. Many students
may not have time to dedicate to such a task or wonder if it is even possible.
In this study an analysis of hours worked by students was implemented to determine if
part-time students worked a different amount of hours from full-time students. Students were
randomly sampled and a 2-sample t-test was conducted to determine if there was a difference in
hours worked at the 95% confidence interval.
It was observed in this study, that at the 5% significance level the data failed to provide
sufficient evidence the true mean hours worked by part-time students differed from the true mean
hours worked by full-time students. By comparing the data with available hours in a week for
both sets of students, it could be seen that time management can be a complicated task for most
students.

Methods
Introduction
Many students have to hold steady employment outside of their course load to cover
expenses. Dedicating spare time to their studies becomes more challenging due to work and
school schedules, personal commitments, and exhaustion. The National Sleep Foundation
recommends adults (ages 18 to 65+) get 8 hours of sleep on average (Hirshkowitz 2015). To
ensure students dedicate enough time to studying it is recommended that for every course a
student takes the amount of study time for that course should be approximately double the credit
hours.
This particular study was chosen to express the amount of time students spend with their
employer while attending school. A part-time student taking 3-9 credit hours should be spending
6-18 hours a week studying for their courses while a full-time student taking 12-18 credit hours
should be spending 24-36 hours a week. This amount of time to dedicate to coursework would be
ideal, but the modern student does not always have as much as is recommended by their teachers.


 There are 168 hours in a week. If a student gets the recommended 8 hours of sleep each
night (56 hours) they are left with 112 hours a week. The following table shows the amount of
time dedicated to school and how many hours remain in the week for the student to maintain the
other facets of their life such as travel time to and from school.
Table 1-1
Part-Time Full-Time

credit hours taken 3-9 12-18

recommended study time 6-18 24-36

8 hours of sleep per night 56 56

hours dedicated to school 65-83 92-110

hours remaining in week 47-29 20-2

It was hypothesized the data would show the true mean hours worked by part-time
students would differ from the true mean hours worked by full-time students within a 95%
confidence interval. To further analyze the hypothesis, the hours worked by students attending
college will be evaluated to determine if the true mean exceeds the amount of time they have
remaining in the week following the recommended amount of study time with 8 hours of sleep
each night.

Data Collection
OBTAINING A RANDOM SAMPLE
To obtain a random sample of hours worked by students, data was collected in several
ways: students were surveyed with direct communication on the campus of Metropolitan State
University Denver, students were surveyed through a mass email that was then forwarded by
students to other students to ensure a variety of majors were sampled, a survey was taken at a
local business collecting data from students currently enrolled at MSU Denver and students from
other schools. 


ADJUSTMENTS TO RAW DATA

Some students did not have a specific amount of hours worked weekly and instead wrote
an increment such as 24-32. To simplify the data the median of each increment was recorded into
the data set (i.e. 24-32 hours worked would be transcribed as 28 hours a week).
Data Analysis
FIVE NUMBER SUMMARY
The data show the mean number of hours worked for part-time and full-time students is
nearly the same with the mean for part-time students as 27.576 hours and the mean for full-time
students as 27.662 hours.

A mean of 27.662 hours worked exceeds the amount of time available in a week
(20-2hours) for a full-time student to devote the recommended amount of study time and get at
least 8 hours of sleep per night; however, a mean of 27.576 hours worked per week by part-time
students does allow them to meet the recommended amount of study time while getting at least 8
hours of sleep (if their travel time and leisure time are relatively low). It can be observed the
means for both sets of students are similar. To determine if the true mean is different further
analysis of graphs has been conducted as well as a 2-sample t-test.

RELATIVE FREQUENCY TABLE

A relative frequency table shows the count of how many students worked the same
amount of hours. The following frequency tables show the hours worked by both part-time and
full-time students.

In both groups 40 hours a week was the most frequently reported hours worked by
students. Out of the 37 full-time students, most of these students exceed the remaining 20-2
hours in a week if they dedicate the suggested amount of study time and get 8 hours of sleep per
night. Most part-time students fell within the 47-29 hours remaining in the week.
GRAPHS
The following plots and graphs can help emphasize the data interpretation. The stem-and
leaf plot below shows a combination of frequency and distribution of the data collected.

The data can be assumed to be normally distributed as the Central Limit Theorem states
that (if the number of data sampled is at least 30) the distribution of the sample means is normal
regardless of the distribution of the populations from which the data was sampled.































Observing the data, it can be determined part-time students fall within the range of
remaining hours in the week (47-29) and more than half of full-time students surveyed exceed
the remaining hours in a week (20-2).
In analyzing a box plot of the data it was observed that the distribution of hours worked
per student is relatively equal for both part-time and full-time students. Both groups had a
median within 1 unit from each other.
 The box plot of the data shows the distribution of hours worked by part-time students is
slightly skewed but approaching normal distribution and the hours worked by full-time students
is normally distributed.

According to Chebychev's Theorem, approximately 68% of observations should fall

within 1 standard deviation of the mean, approximately 95% should fall within 2 standard
deviations of the mean, and 99.7% of observations should fall within 3 standard deviations of the
mean. In this study, 100% of observations fell within 2 standard deviations for both sets of data.

Percent of Observations within x standard deviations of the mean

Part Time Student Full Time Student

1 Standard Deviation 72.73% 75.68%

2 Standard Deviations 100% 100%

3 Standard Deviations 100% 100%

INFERENTIAL STATISTICS

H0 :µ1= µ2     mean hours worked by part-time students is equal to mean hours worked by full-
time students                                                                

  Ha: µ1≠µ2        mean hours worked by part-time students is different than mean hours worked

by full-time students               

α = 0.05

t= -0.03 (from Minitab)

p= 0.9798 (from Minitab)

p > α or (0.9798) > (0.05) ;therefore, fail to reject the null hypothesis

At the 5% significance level the data fail to provide sufficient evidence the true mean hours
worked by part-time students differs from the true mean hours worked by full-time students.
Conclusions

It can be concluded that at the 5% significance level the data fail to provide sufficient
evidence the true mean hours worked by part-time students differs from the true mean hours
worked by full-time students. We are 95% confident the true mean hours worked by part-time
students is between 25.000 hours to 38.005 hours per week and does not significantly differ from
the true mean hours worked by full-time students which is between 22.651 hours to 32.000 hours
per week. In relation to hours available for students to get 8 hours of sleep per night while
devoting the recommended amount of time to studies outside of their course load, the mean
hours worked by part-time students (27.576) falls below the 29-47 hours remaining in a week
while the mean hours worked by full-time students (27.662) exceeds the 2-20 hours remaining in
a week. This suggests that time available for full-time students must be portioned in a different
manner allowing for poor performance in the unbalanced areas of their lives.
For future analysis it could be beneficial to survey the current GPA’s alongside the hours
worked by students to conduct a paired t-test and further analyze students’ delegation of time
management. In this survey, a more controlled population could have been sampled to observe
the data from a collection of MSU Denver students by area of study.
Resources
Hirshkowitz, M., et al. (2015, March).National Sleep Foundation’s sleep time duration
recommendations: Methodology and results summary. Sleep Health: Journal of the

National Sleep Foundation. 1(1), 40 - 43. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.sleh.2014.12.010