Title: Evaluating learners’ workload
Course: Digivisio - DEMO course template > Section: Designing learner-centred education

A cornerstone for learner-centred design is proportioning the learning activities with the credits earned. Too much work causes frustration and stress for the learners. Sometimes the excessive workload is a result of the learner’s own miscalculation of their resources, but if the workload is due to poorly proportioned tasks, the learner might get a wrong impression of the academic quality and equity of the university. Measuring the learners’ workload has many valuable goals:

- Possibility to invest in the most important, academically challenging learning goals
- Supporting learners’ wellbeing and motivation
- Supporting the planning of studies – in an e-learning course, learners need self-direction and clear descriptions on how they are expected to spend their time
- Different courses offer similar learning experiences for learners coming from different backgrounds

There are several tools and measurements available for measuring the workload, and most seem to be based on similar mathematics. For more information, check out the source Estimating Learner Workload During the Learning Design of Online Courses: Creating a Learner Workload Calculator. Here are some examples of how different tasks affect the time required from the learner – it is important to notice what kind of material the learner must study in order to pass the task.

Purpose of reading | Difficulty of text | Words read/minute
Understand the main points | No new concepts | 500
Some new concepts | 350
Many new concepts | 250
Understand the meaning of each sentence | No new concepts | 250
Some new concepts | 180
Many new concepts | 130
Analyse critically | No new concepts | 130
Some new concepts | 90
Many new concepts | 65

Of course, just focusing on reading times is not sufficient to estimate the learners’ workload. In the tools below, the time evaluation is divided into more details, and the best way to do the estimations is to use one tor two tools, suitable for your needs. The first example, from Helsinki university, is quick to approach, while the second one takes a bit more time to learn.

Useful tools for evaluating learners’ workload:

- Workload calculator. University of Helsinki
- Student Workload Calculator - https://cohss-swe.massey.ac.nz/