Too Much or Too Little? A Review on Student Workload

Abstract

This paper reviews research on student workload in higher education and considers how course design can better support meaningful learning. The motivation is that workload is often treated as a question of study hours or credits, while existing research shows that students’ experiences of workload also depend on task design, clarity of expectations, assessment timing, communication, support, and individual circumstances. Using a collaborative narrative scoping review, the paper synthesizes 30 peer-reviewed studies on workload perceptions, causes, and consequences among students and teachers. The review finds that workload should be understood through distinctions between objective workload, subjective workload, quantitative perceived workload, and qualitative perceived workload. Formal measures such as ECTS credits do not reliably capture how much time students spend or how manageable they find their studies. Excessive or poorly structured workload can contribute to stress, fatigue, reduced motivation, surface learning strategies, skipped teaching activities, and strategic prioritization of tasks. The findings also suggest that unclear communication, overloaded curricula, frequent deadlines, and weak constructive alignment can increase perceived workload even when formal workload remains unchanged. The paper argues that improving course design requires more than reducing content or hours. Courses should make priorities explicit, align learning outcomes, activities, and assessment, provide appropriate support for complex tasks, and use student feedback to identify context-specific workload problems.