Hours per week workload for 3 credit hour of PhD dissertation research work

[kerprof]

Regardless of whether a student works in the lab or not, for how many hour per week, you expect that an average/typical student  put effort (work) for 3 credit hours of PhD dissertation research work? Please advise.

[Puget]

I don't think credit hours are relevant here-- they are just place holders to make a student "full time" while they are completing their dissertation. I always tell grad students that this is their full-time job (often more than full time, but we do try to encourage some modicum of work-life balance). How many hours should they put in? The number of hours it takes to complete their dissertation on schedule. That will vary widely from student to student and over time.

[Hibush]

Puget's description fits our model exactly. Most PhD students take some classes each semester and spend most of the rest of their time on their research. If they are not making good progress on their research, that must be addressed independently of credit hours. If they are not making progress because they are only working on their research for three hours a week, we have big trouble!

[Parasaurolophus]

40 hours, minus whatever time it takes to take classes, do the lab stuff, TA, fulfill various requirements, etc.

Early in the program, that's not much. Later, it's lots.

[bio-nonymous]

40 hours, minus whatever time it takes to take classes, do the lab stuff, TA, fulfill various requirements, etc.

Early in the program, that's not much. Later, it's lots.

I think that is a totally reasonable approach for minimum expectations. RA's and those on fellowships will always get a huge advantage in such a system, if they are working on their own research, versus those with TA's. Regardless, the student probably will have to cut into their "me" time to get things done in any case--no one said grad school was a 40 hour/wk job (or 50...). The thing is though, if the student isn't driven to excel and is just trying to jump the fence at the lowest point, you will have a problem regardless of "number of hours spent on research recommendation"--sitting in the lab at the computer watching funny videos is not advancing your dissertation work! I recall a group of postdocs in the office next to my grad school cubicle. Their boss came in one day and screamed at them that if they weren't there 60 hours a week, he didn't want them in his lab. After that they were there all the time, but spent [many] hours everyday chatting about the latest ball game, and playing trash can basketball.

[research_prof]

I explain to my students that I am simply giving them an opportunity to do a high-quality Ph.D. It is up to them to do whatever it takes in order to take advantage of this opportunity. I also make sure to explain to them that hard and persistent effort will be needed. For me, it is impossible to quantify how many hours per week a student will need to focus on their research. PhD is not a 9-5 job. Students that perceive their PhD as a 9-5 job typically fail.

[fizzycist]

I explain to my students that I am simply giving them an opportunity to do a high-quality Ph.D. It is up to them to do whatever it takes in order to take advantage of this opportunity. I also make sure to explain to them that hard and persistent effort will be needed. For me, it is impossible to quantify how many hours per week a student will need to focus on their research. PhD is not a 9-5 job. Students that perceive their PhD as a 9-5 job typically fail.

I would be delighted if all of my students worked 9-5, 5 days a week, 48 weeks/yr. Would be a significant improvement in some cases, especially during covid era. I've never seen a student who put in 40 hr weeks fail in my dept.

On the other hand, I've seen faculty who ride their students to work crazy hours fail to recruit and retain.

[kerprof]

[]

I would be delighted if all of my students worked 9-5, 5 days a week, 48 weeks/yr. Would be a significant improvement in some cases, especially during covid era. I've never seen a student who put in 40 hr weeks fail in my dept.

Did you mean the students putting in 40 hr/week just for research alone....

[jerseyjay]

I am not sure I understand the premise of the question.

I agree credit hours has very little to do with it.

I am a humanist, so my perspective is somewhat different that a scientist, but I am not sure what "research work" is. My friends who were doing PhDs in physics had lab experiments that they were doing, as part of a team, that often required them to spend the night at the lab, but often required less work. Is this the "research"? Or is the "research" the time it is spent to analyze and write up the results, to read relevant literature, to discuss the procedure with one's team and advisor?

Since I am a historian, my research was based mainly in the library. There was research time in spent in front of archive boxes and microfilm readers, and time spent reading, and time spent writing, and time spent staring into space thinking about what I had read. I find it hard to quantify how much time I spent, on a weekly basis. There were several trips to archives in different locations where I spent probably at least 40 hours a week in the library. Then there were the long stretches of time where I spent organizing what I had found at the library, writing it up, and reading secondary literature. Some weeks I was lucky if I could get an hour or two a day of work in, given teaching and other requirements.   By the end of the dissertation, I spent much more time writing and less time researching, but I am not sure that is a valid distinction. I remember that the last push to finish my dissertation was during Spring Break, when I spent all day, every day, writing. But again, I am a historian, not a scientists.

I guess my point is I would tell my students that they should be putting in substantial amounts of work. They should make sure they do not burn out, but they should let the work and its requirements guide them and not be looking at the clock. 

[Caracal]

I don't think credit hours are relevant here-- they are just place holders to make a student "full time" while they are completing their dissertation. I always tell grad students that this is their full-time job (often more than full time, but we do try to encourage some modicum of work-life balance). How many hours should they put in? The number of hours it takes to complete their dissertation on schedule. That will vary widely from student to student and over time.

Yeah, not my field, but we had the same thing and used a variety of place holders not just for dissertation research but for other things. Credit hours is a system that assumes that each class is a discreet unit and passing a certain number of them is required to graduate. PhD programs don't really work that way, but it's easier to just create classes students can register for than it would be to try to change the university system. I used to frequently forget to register for classes. Occasionally, people at the registration office would say something about how I should make sure to be on time so I could get into the classes. It never seemed worth trying to explain that the reason I forgot was because registration was just an administrative task-I was either already taking those classes and my professors would never have noticed or cared that I wasn't yet registered, or "the class" didn't actually exist and it was just a placeholder for whatever stage of dissertation work I was in.

One thing that I think is true across just about every field is that for phd students, you should be measuring outputs, not inputs. It doesn't matter if the student lives in the lab if they aren't making progress and doing the things they are supposed to be doing. If their work requires they be in the lab at certain times, then they should be there, but the question of whether they are spending enough time working should only come up in conversations with the student if their end product isn't meeting expectations.

[mamselle]

...would never have noticed or cared that I wasn't yet registered, or "the class" didn't actually exist and it was just a placeholder for whatever stage of dissertation work I was in.

Hmm...I was told that they used my registration as proof of work time spent--when they listed how many students they had, it had to match up to the number of students registered as continuing thesis study students or they didn't get their full allotment of credit or pay-per-student or whatever it was they got for carrying up to the max of 5 grad students they were allowed/required to carry.

That was rather a long time ago, so things may well have changed, but I recall someone making the case for not forgetting rather forcefully at some point or other.

M.

[Caracal]

...would never have noticed or cared that I wasn't yet registered, or "the class" didn't actually exist and it was just a placeholder for whatever stage of dissertation work I was in.

Hmm...I was told that they used my registration as proof of work time spent--when they listed how many students they had, it had to match up to the number of students registered as continuing thesis study students or they didn't get their full allotment of credit or pay-per-student or whatever it was they got for carrying up to the max of 5 grad students they were allowed/required to carry.

That was rather a long time ago, so things may well have changed, but I recall someone making the case for not forgetting rather forcefully at some point or other.

M.

I have no idea how any of that worked, but I'm pretty sure registration didn't factor in at all at my grad institution. I never once had a faculty member ask any questions about whether I was registered for their class or not. We had a particularly weird set up in a whole variety of ways though, so I doubt this applies more broadly.

[fizzycist]

[]

I would be delighted if all of my students worked 9-5, 5 days a week, 48 weeks/yr. Would be a significant improvement in some cases, especially during covid era. I've never seen a student who put in 40 hr weeks fail in my dept.

Did you mean the students putting in 40 hr/week just for research alone....

I was reacting to research_prof's indignation with  9-5 schedule. In my nook of academia, "my students" signifies my PhD students who, after the first 1-2 years, have research (and associated activities like mentoring, networking, applying for things, etc) as their only job.

In terms of your OP, from my perspective, the system of signing up for research credits is just a scam to bring in tuition dollars and it does not drive my expectations. But I suppose it is common to expect 1 credit hour = 3 hours of work/wk for normal classes, so if you are looking for a minimum hours requirement, you could apply that.

[Parasaurolophus]

I explain to my students that I am simply giving them an opportunity to do a high-quality Ph.D. It is up to them to do whatever it takes in order to take advantage of this opportunity. I also make sure to explain to them that hard and persistent effort will be needed. For me, it is impossible to quantify how many hours per week a student will need to focus on their research. PhD is not a 9-5 job. Students that perceive their PhD as a 9-5 job typically fail.

My experience is that people who don't think of it as a full-time job think of it as a weird sort of privilege. This leads them either to dismiss it entirely (in the case of outsiders), or to sacrifice the rest of their lives on its altar (for comparatively little additional gain).

I mean, I agree that there are lots of relevant disanalogies between the PhD and a 09h00-17h00 job, not least that the PhD requires you to actually work all of those hours instead of sitting around chatting, surfing, calling, not knowing what to do, etc. And the daily distribution of hours can be very uneven. But, like fizzycist, in the fields I'm familiar with, consistently putting in 40ish hours a week would be huge improvement in productivity, and that kind of compartmentalization would likely do wonders for the student's mental well-being.

[apl68]

I am not sure I understand the premise of the question.

I agree credit hours has very little to do with it.

I am a humanist, so my perspective is somewhat different that a scientist, but I am not sure what "research work" is. My friends who were doing PhDs in physics had lab experiments that they were doing, as part of a team, that often required them to spend the night at the lab, but often required less work. Is this the "research"? Or is the "research" the time it is spent to analyze and write up the results, to read relevant literature, to discuss the procedure with one's team and advisor?

Since I am a historian, my research was based mainly in the library. There was research time in spent in front of archive boxes and microfilm readers, and time spent reading, and time spent writing, and time spent staring into space thinking about what I had read. I find it hard to quantify how much time I spent, on a weekly basis. There were several trips to archives in different locations where I spent probably at least 40 hours a week in the library. Then there were the long stretches of time where I spent organizing what I had found at the library, writing it up, and reading secondary literature. Some weeks I was lucky if I could get an hour or two a day of work in, given teaching and other requirements.   By the end of the dissertation, I spent much more time writing and less time researching, but I am not sure that is a valid distinction. I remember that the last push to finish my dissertation was during Spring Break, when I spent all day, every day, writing. But again, I am a historian, not a scientists.

I guess my point is I would tell my students that they should be putting in substantial amounts of work. They should make sure they do not burn out, but they should let the work and its requirements guide them and not be looking at the clock.

I recall that in my history PhD program students typically spent somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 hours per week on PhD research.  Adding in classes, TA work, and other work to make ends meet, 60-70 hour weeks were common, with gusts up to 80.  I researched at the library AND worked there as a grad student, and can remember spending well over 12 hours a day there sometimes.