Undergraduate time-use: a comparison of US, Chinese, and Russian students at highly selective universities

ABSTRACT

Patterns of students’ time-use can provide important insights into student learning and development in higher education. Previous empirical studies conducted in developed countries do not allow us to generalize findings on time-use patterns for students from countries with different national systems. This paper aims to identify national differences in undergraduate patterns of time-use and their links with the individual characteristics of students. The sample (N = 166,919) was derived from highly selective universities from three countries: the USA, China, and Russia. Significant differences in undergraduate time-use patterns in three countries were observed. In addition, significant interaction effects between national variables and individual characteristics were found. The results allow us to conclude that there are national differences in the power and direction of links between time-use patterns and individual characteristics.

KEYWORDS:

• Patterns of time-use
• time allocation
• student experience
• cross-national study

Acknowledgments

The author expresses gratitude to the team of the SERU-I Consortium and its managing director, Igor Chirikov, to the coordinators of the surveys in Russian universities, and to Tatiana Semenova who worked as the coordinator of the Russian part of the Project. Moreover, the support from the Basic Research Program of the National Research University Higher School of Economics is gratefully acknowledged.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Natalia Maloshonok http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4523-7477

Notes

1 https://cshe.berkeley.edu/seru.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Basic Research Program of the National Research University Higher School of Economics.