A professor of anthropology at Boise State conducted a study to find out how professors spend their day and the average number of hours they work each week.  His study sample consisted of only 30 (out of 550 Boise State faculty solicited) soProfessor Ziker does not claim that the results can be generalized beyond these particular findings though my hunch is that data he collected reflects a reasonable estimate of the average academic’s workload; some work much longer hours while others work fewer hours (Professor Ziker plans a follow up study which presumably will involve a larger sample size).  In the meantime, here are some of his key findings from this small sample study:

• On average, faculty who participated in the study worked 61 hours per week.
• They worked just over 10 hours a day and 10 hours on the weekend.
• Work was heaviest Mondays through Thursday with the workload trailing off on Friday.
• Faculty who participated in the study spent an average of 17% of their workweek in meetings.
• Faculty spent 13% of their day dealing with email.
• 12% of their time was spent in the classroom teaching with an equal amout of time spent preparing for class.
• 11% of their day was spent on course administration (grading, updating course web pages, etc.).
• Only 3% of the workweek was spent on primary research and 2% on manuscript writing.

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Tags: Boise State, Professor Ziker