Education + Training

Students' perceptions of the effects of term-time paid employment

Susan Curtis
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Susan Curtis, (2007),"Students' perceptions of the effects of term-time paid employment", Education +
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49,5 Students’ perceptions of the
effects of term-time paid
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employment
380
Susan Curtis
Manchester Metropolitan University Cheshire, Crewe, UK

Abstract
Purpose – Owing to increasing debts and lack of parental contribution to undergraduates’ income,
UK students are taking paid employment during term time in order to finance their studies. The aim of
this investigation is to explore employed and non-employed students’ perceptions of the impact of this
paid employment on the university experience.
Design/methodology/approach – In total, 336 undergraduates completed questionnaires about
their employment, their perceptions of the effects on academic study, factors affecting the decision to
work and factors which may reduce the amount of time spent studying.
Findings – Results indicated that almost 59 per cent of students were employed during term time for
an average of 15 hours per week. More students perceived that there were benefits to working than
perceived disadvantages, but there were some contradictions concerning the adverse effects of
working.
Research limitation/implications – The findings were limited by the location of the sample, as
they were from a rural faculty of a large university and are therefore not typical of most UK student
populations which are generally in urban locations.
Practical implications – There is no simple solution to the problem of employed students
experiencing adverse effects on their academic studies due to working. The government and other
stakeholders need to take responsibility for the current situation.
Originality/value – This study adds to the growing body of international data that reports on the
effects of user-pays approach in higher education. No other study has considered the perceptions of
non-employed students alongside the employed.
Keywords Learning, Part time workers, Students, Higher education, United Kingdom
Paper type Research paper

Education þ Training
Vol. 49 No. 5, 2007
pp. 380-390
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0040-0912
DOI 10.1108/00400910710762940
Introduction
Undergraduates are mainly employed on a part-time basis during term time in the
hospitality and retailing industries, with shop assistants, bar staff, waiters and
waitresses being the most common job titles (Curtis and Lucas, 2001). These industries
are characterised by high staff turnover and therefore many students could be
expected to be starting and leaving jobs during their three or four years at university.
Existing research has looked at the academic effects of working on employed students,
which this study also does. However, the opinions of students who are currently not
employed at the time of any such research have been ignored. This study takes into
account the views of students who have never worked whilst at university and also
those students who have been employed at some time during their university studies,
but were not working at the time of the research. Their opinions are of interest as they
either have experienced employment themselves or merely observe their peers,
sometimes working with them on academic projects and groupwork.
 Background Term-time paid
The number of students and schoolchildren in employment in the UK is 1,134,000 employment
(Labour Market Trends, 2006) and is steadily rising. Many students need to undertake
paid work in order to be able to continue with their studies (Moreau and Leathwood,
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2006), and the effects of working during term time brings benefits and disadvantages
to undergraduates’ academic progress. Negative effects centre on the degree to which
employment and academic responsibilities tend to produce a conflict of interests. 381
Pickering and Watts (2000) found that this conflict was said to result in feelings of
pressure and a sense of being pulled in two directions. Previous research carried out in
one department of the Manchester Metropolitan University found the main
disadvantages to be having less time to study (45 per cent), money needs taking
over from university (31 per cent), difficulty concentrating during lectures, and missing
lectures in order to work (22 per cent) (Curtis and Shani, 2002).
Lindsay and Paton Saltzberg’s (1994) research on undergraduates at Brookes’
(modular course) found that paid employment made no positive contribution to
academic work. They estimated that more than 200 students a year on Oxford Brooke’s
modular course gained a degree which was at least one class lower than they would get
if they had not accepted paid work. Almost 70 per cent of their respondents were
working over 20 hours per week and 30 per cent worked more than 30 hours per week.
Working longer hours increases the probability that students perceive a negative effect
on academic performance (Carney et al., 2005).
Although some students complain that their work has little or no connection with
their course of study (Ford et al., 1995; Pickering and Watts, 2000), there are wider
benefits to be gained from term-time employment. Positive effects include the
acquisition of transferable skills, enhanced employability, increased confidence in the
world of work, and the improvement of organisational and time management skills
(Pickering and Watts, 2000). Some students are working in jobs related to their course
and have an opportunity to study during quieter periods at work (Winn and Stevenson,
1997). Many students have been working part-time whilst studying since their GCSE
days, and sometimes earlier. This “routinisation” of combining work and study, added
to students’ enjoyment of the social aspect of working may mean that they take having
a part-time job in their stride and are quite used to carrying out these two roles
simultaneously.
Many students enjoy their part-time work, with students reporting a good working
atmosphere working with colleagues and customers who are often students (Lucas,
1997). Lucas quotes one student as saying that work is “a social life in the workplace”
(p. 609) and a minority of students would continue to work if they had no financial need
(Manthei and Gilmore, 2005). Students often stay in their employment for several years
which may indicate some satisfaction in the employment relationship, although it
could indicate that students are locked into the relationship by financial need (Lucas
and Ralston, 1997). Employment aids the accrual of interpersonal skills (Lucas and
Lammont, 1998), self-reliance (Steinberg et al., 1981), managing relationships with
employers (Mizen, 1992) and increased maturity and ability at organising work of all
sorts (Dustmann et al., 1996). Working while studying also counteracts the prolonged
dependency engendered by education and provides opportunities to assume greater
responsibility, authority and co-operative interdependence (D’Amico, 1984). “Real”
work is often valued by employers over work experience, as students carry it out in
 ET their own time, demonstrate that they are prepared to work and show self-motivation
49,5 and self-discipline (Rikowski, 1992). Overall, the extant research provides evidence that
term-time employment adversely affects undergraduates’ academic studies. There is a
positive relationship between longer hours of work and increasingly adverse effects on
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study (Carney et al., 2005; Curtis and Shani, 2002) whereas the benefits of working do
not continue to accrue with increased hours (Hobbs et al., 1996).
382 This rise in the volume of students employed during term time whilst studying
full-time has largely been a matter of government policy. Under previous funding
arrangements, of grants rather than loans, the Government made an investment in HE
on behalf of taxpayers in order to benefit the economy and society. Personal benefits to
the graduates were numerous and came almost free of cost (Williams, 1998). The
current UK funding system aims to redress the balance somewhat by making students
invest in their own education. The focus on student “investment” as the main new
source of funding grew out of a Government requirement to expand higher education
numbers, coupled with a refusal to increase public sector funding for it. The idea of
student investment was crystallised in the Dearing Report (1997), which noted “the
greatest benefit accrues to graduates themselves”. The funding of higher education in
the UK is the subject of radical and dramatic change, following the report of the
National Committee of Enquiry into Higher Education (the Dearing Committee) in July
1997. While the proposal to introduce fee payments by students was not unexpected
and had been “the culmination of many years of debate” (Williams, 1998, p. 77), the
new Labour government’s swift acceptance of the principle of Dearing’s proposals to
introduce tuition fees of £1,000 per annum caught many unprepared. Tuition fees of
£1,000 per annum were introduced by the UK Government in September 1998, and all
remaining grant entitlements were abolished. The fees were means-tested, however,
and only those students whose family incomes (parent, husband or wife) exceeded a
certain means-tested threshold were required to pay the full amount. Loans from the
government-backed Student Loan Company (SLC) were made available to contribute
towards students’ living costs, and special “hardship” loans could be obtained in
specific circumstances. In addition to SLC loans, students could also borrow from the
high street banks. Fees in the UK are primarily viewed as part of an investment in the
future, yet the UK has not achieved adult status for the undergraduate investor due to
the means-tested tuition fees and loan entitlement, which depend upon parental
resources (Williams, 1998).
The proportion of students who work differs between universities, most of the
research on student employment having been carried out in the “newer” universities.
Hunt et al. (2004) found the proportion of students working during term time to be 48.7
per cent at Northumbria University and emphasized the increasing percentage of
working students over their longitudinal study, whilst Carney et al. (2005) found the
proportion to be 50 per cent at the University of Glasgow.
The extant research on the effects on academic study of employment use only
working students as respondents. Yet within the category of “not working” are many
students who have worked whilst at university but have given up employment for
various reasons. These students have valuable opinions and memories on combining
work and study which have previously been ignored. This study includes both them
and those students who have never worked whilst at university. The inclusion of the
“never worked” category of students provides insights on the attitudes of students who
 have not taken employment whilst at university towards working and their perception Term-time paid
of its effects on academic study. employment
Methodology
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The study consisted of 336 questionnaires administered between October 2005 and
March, 2006. Three questionnaires were used:
383
(1) for those currently working;
(2) for those who used to work; and
(3) for those who have never worked whilst at university.

The questionnaire for groups (1) and (2) above were identical except for questions
being phrased in the past tense for those who have been employed whilst at university,
but were not working at the time of the survey. The questionnaire for students who
have never worked was much shorter as it necessarily omitted questions on the details
of employment. Students from every department in the Cheshire faculty of Manchester
Metropolitan University completed questionnaires. The departments represented are
Institute of Education, Department of Business and Management Studies, Department
of Interdisciplinary Studies, Department of Exercise and Sports Science and
Department of Contemporary Arts. The students completing questionnaires were
from a wide range of courses and years which ranged from Foundation Year students
to fourth year undergraduates. Questionnaires were administered during lecture time
and were completed by all students attending lectures on that occasion. The
questionnaire included background questions on type of course, year of study, gender,
hours worked, rate of pay per hour, length of service and questions on the effects of
academic study, factors affecting the decision to work and circumstances which may
reduce the amount of time spent studying.

Findings
Age
Table I shows the ages of the respondents, divided into the three categories of working,
used to work and never worked whilst at university. The proportion of students
working at the time of the survey was 58.92 per cent. The proportion of respondents
who were not working at the time of the survey but have worked at some time during
their university studies was 26.48 per cent and those who have never worked whilst at

Age Currently working Used to work Never worked at university Totals

18 3 6 5 14
19 23 8 9 40
20 44 24 19 87
21 52 29 11 92
22 37 7 2 46
23 13 6 1 20 Table I.
24 9 3 0 12 Age of respondents
25 and over 17 6 2 25 (n ¼ 336)
 ET university made up 14.58 per cent of the total. This means that 85.4 per cent of all
49,5 students have worked at some time whilst at university.
As far as age is concerned, 69.3 per cent of students were aged 21 years and under.
Only 7.4 per cent were 25 years old and over, meaning that the cohort as a whole was
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comparatively young, as might be expected.

384 Gender
Table II shows that 49.36 per cent of males were working and 67.41 per cent of females
were working at the time of the investigation. Of the total student population, 35.71 per
cent are working females and 23.21 per cent are working males.
The retailing and hospitality industries are the most common employers for
students. Of the employed undergraduates, 37 per cent worked in retailing (including
the 5 per cent who worked in takeaway food stores), 16 per cent in public houses, 8.5
per cent in restaurants and 9.5 per cent in leisure centres. Places of work were very
varied, other responses included: call centres, the local council, nurseries, youth clubs,
football clubs, cash and carry warehouses, betting shops, factories, a psychiatric
hospital, a general hospital, golf clubs, a removal company, a college, a security
company and a finance company.
At the time of the study (October 2005-March, 2006) respondents’ average pay was
£6.49 per hour and average hours of work were 15.45 per week.

Length of service
Average length of service was 1 year 3 months, although many students had been
working with the same employer for several years. One student had been working as a
checkout operator in a supermarket for the previous six years and seven months, and
was aged 24. A 21 year-old music teacher had been doing the same job for five years
and a 22 year-old cleaner had been doing the same job for six and a half years.
However, many students had been working in their current job for less than a year, and
most students had had several jobs before their current employment.

Factors affecting the decision to work

Table III shows that one of the most common benefits of working was that
employment enhances the undergraduates’ CVs and therefore, in their view, makes
them more employable in future. This is probably more of a positive by-product of
employment rather than a reason to work. Financial considerations such as debt and
insufficient parental contribution also affected the decision to work, and half of the
employed students perceived that the income they received from their parents was
insufficient. Enjoyment of the work and the enhanced social life working brings were
also positive factors in the decision to work. The routinisation of work – always
having worked since the age of 15 or 16 – affected over half of those in employment
and over a quarter of those who used to work.

Gender Currently working Used to work Never worked Totals

Table II. Male 78 47 33 158

Gender (n ¼ 336) Female 120 42 17 178
 Factors that reduce the amount of study time Term-time paid
As can be seen from Table IV, 56 per cent of working students agreed that working employment
reduced the amount of time they spend studying. However, this was not the main
factor in reducing study time, with recreation and leisure being the main factor,
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especially for those who have never worked whilst at university. It is interesting to
note that working students appear to suffer slightly less from stress than the
non-employed students, although they do appear to be physically ill slightly more. 385
However, the figure for students who considered that their life situation is stressful is
fairly high. Also, employed students are less affected by lack of motivation than their
non-employed peers, possibly because they have less time in which to indulge any
feelings of demotivation. Although family commitments is the lowest figure, this is
actually a surprisingly high figure as most students are unmarried. A significant
minority of full-time students appear to have family problems of various sorts, or
commitments which affect their studies.

Perceptions of employed students

As Table V shows, most students appear to consider that paid working is not
damaging to acquiring an education, regardless of whether they work or not.
Percentages for whether working students are missing out on university life are also
fairly similar, although it is perhaps regrettable that over a quarter of employed
students considered that they are missing out on university life as a result of working.
Working students were more likely to agree that they are enhancing their
employability by working than non-working students and all students agree that
working students are not very likely to get a lower degree classification than
non-working students. Working students consider that they are building up their skills

Important Important
(working now) (used to work)

Looks good on my CV 78 60
I enjoy the job 75 61
Debt 73 64 Table III.
I have friends/good social life where I work 72 59 Which of the following
Routine (have combined working and studying since affect(ed) your decision to
GCSE days) 56 27 work? (figures are in
Lack of income from parents 50 40 percentages)

Working now Used to work Never worked Average

Recreational and leisure activities 58 55 70 59

My job 56 n/a n/a n/a Table IV.
Illness 51 44 50 49 Do any of the following
Watching television 50 58 49 52 factors reduce the amount
Stress of my life situation 48 50 53 49 of time you spend
Lack of motivation 45 56 58 50 studying? (figures
Family commitments 38 41 47 40 represent percentages)
 ET and confidence, whereas those who used to work and those who have never worked
49,5 also agree with this, but to a slightly lesser extent than working students. A quarter of
employed students say that they are not working as hard on their studies as the
non-employed students. The issue of whether working students waste less time than
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non-working students was agreed with by 41 per cent of working students, with only
one third of the students who have never worked in agreement (see Table V). It may be
386 that some employed students manage their time more effectively than non-employed
students. However, over half of employed students disagreed that they waste less time
than non-working students.

Perceptions of the effects of working during term time

As Table VI shows, there are some quite marked differences between the perceptions
of working and non-working students on the effects of working during term time. The
figures tend to be generally higher among working students for the positive effects and
lower for the negative than non-working students. Almost half of employed students

Working now Used to work Never worked

Building up their skills and confidence 91 81 76

Enhancing employability 81 74 68
Wasting less time than non-employed students 41 33 38
Table V. Missing out on university life 26 21 28
Do you consider that Not working as hard on university studies as
employed students are: non-employed students 25 15 29
(figures are in Damaging their education 15 18 17
percentages) Liable to get a lower degree classification 13 13 13

Working Used to Never

now work worked average

Negatives
Tired in lectures 45 71 79 56
Assignments are rushed 37 60 70 48
Lower grade achieved for assignments than if not
working 28 37 30 31
Difficult to concentrate in lectures 24 40 40 30
Reduced contribution to group assignments 23 45 55 34
Miss some lectures altogether 22 46 65 35
Reduced examination marks 17 29 22 21
Late for lectures 16 20 31 19
Positives
Table VI. Improved interpersonal skills 89 86 74 85
What do you consider are Improved confidence 83 79 68 80
the effects of working on Improved time management skills 73 79 60 72
academic study? (figures Enhanced understanding of business issues 61 52 44 56
are percentages) Better social life 59 47 23 50
 admitted to being tired in lectures as a result of working and their non-working peers Term-time paid
considered the position to be much worse than this. employment
Students who have not worked whilst at University were generally harsher in their
perception of the negative effects of work than the other students. It may be that they
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see themselves as more conscientious than the working students.

As can be seen from Table VI, over a third of working students considered that they
rush assignments and therefore it is not surprising that they also considered that they 387
could have achieved a better grade if they had spent more time on their assignments.
Around a quarter of all working students agree that they have difficulty concentrating
in lectures, miss some lectures altogether and do not contribute fully to group work.
Few students think that their examination results were affected or that they were late
for lectures as a result of working.
Working students consider that there are positives to working and agree in fairly
high numbers on most of the positives. Students who have never worked however,
disagree with working students by almost double on the topics of working students
rushing assignments, making a reduced contribution to group assignments, missing
lectures (nearly three times higher), and being late for lectures. They also disagree
fairly strongly on the issue of working enhancing the understanding of business and
that working could enhance an undergraduate’s social life. These perceptions may be
an uninformed guess or more informed experience of living or working (on university
studies) alongside working students.
It is interesting to note that a significant minority of employed students
acknowledge various adverse effects and yet in Table V, only 15 per cent say that
working damages their education. The majority of those students who perceived
various effects, such as being tired in lectures, therefore do not appear to perceive any
cumulative impact of the various adverse effects of working. However, there is some
similarity between the numbers of employed students who said that working causes
them to attain reduced examination marks and the number agreeing that employment
damages their education. These percentages are fairly small and it would appear that
perceptions of the adverse effects of taking paid employment are that it represents
damage to study for a minority of students.

Conclusion
The average hours of work found in this investigation (15.45) are typical of those found
in other universities and previously found in this faculty (Curtis and Klapper, 2005).
These hours represent either two full days of work or more than two shorter shifts. For
many students then, it may be assumed that employment is an important part of their
university experience and to which more time is often devoted than it is to attending
lectures. Although many students enjoy their work and the additional social life it
brings, these are outcomes of the work and not the reason for working. Debts and lack
of financial contribution from parents are the factors which most influence the decision
to work, the wage is therefore not extra income, but is essential to finance living
expenses. Around half of all the students surveyed considered that their life situation is
stressful.
Almost 59 per cent of students were employed at the time of this survey, which is a
higher figure than found in recent studies. Other studies have not considered the
students who have worked at some time whilst at university but were not working at
 ET the time of the survey. The inclusion of these students reveals that 85 per cent of
49,5 undergraduates have been employed during their university studies and therefore any
adverse effects of working apply to a much greater proportion of the student
population than previously supposed. There seems to be some contradictions, with
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over half the employed students considering that their job reduces the time they spend
studying and various other effects, yet few students perceived that working damages
388 their education or degree classification. It may be that the time lapse between events or
the routine nature of, for example, always having to rush assignments due to work
commitments, mean that these effects are taken for granted as part of university
experience. It may be that the overall effect on their education over three or four years
is lost, as far as employed students’ perceptions are concerned, in the day-to-day detail.
Those who used to work and those who have never worked perceive greater
disadvantages to employment than the employed students. It may be that the “never
employed” students have a position to defend in their choice of not to work, or that they
have never worked due to lack of financial need and the perception of it being very
harmful to study. The students who used to work may have had bad experiences at
work which affected their studies, or their perceptions of the harmful effects may have
become more negative since leaving. Whether the disadvantages of working are
significant or not is largely a matter of perceptions, but it cannot be said that there are
no disadvantages. There is therefore not a comfortable fit between work and study.
Combining the two does not mean that there is no cost to the education itself when
students “invest” in their own education. In taking the decision for students to bear
part of the cost of their education, the government must have intended that British
students should move to the American model of “working their way through college”.
This decision means that the educational experience of some students is potentially
damaged. These students are probably not from high income families and the costs of
funding children through higher education are so great for parents that even middle
income families struggle, particularly when they have more than one child at
university at a time. This research bears this out, with half the students saying that
they work due to insufficient income from parents. Such a high proportion of students
cannot all come from low income families. Parents have been taken by surprise by the
funding changes and Britain has not had time to move to the American model in terms
of parents saving or taking out insurance policies for future university expenses.
Universities themselves have not tended to make any adjustments to fit in with the
new “half time” student. Three year full-time degree courses are not designed to
accommodate significant levels of term-time working. The activities and provision of
higher education institutions for “full-time” students still tend to be premised on a
conception of the student as someone who has few demands and responsibilities
beyond their studies (Moreau and Leathwood, 2006). The incidence of term-time
working involving around half of many university populations may make it more
difficult for staff to respond than if all, or almost all, of the undergraduates were
employed. Some university lecturers understand students’ need to work, others expect
a full-time commitment. Parents on the other hand, struggle to make a large enough
financial contribution, with some parents believing that the student loan represents
sufficient money to live on, without any contribution from them. Students are stuck in
the middle. The student is expected to juggle work and study without difficulty.
Unfortunately this is not happening, students are leaving university with large debts,
 sometimes a lower degree classification than they are capable of, but also some benefits Term-time paid
from having worked. The “investment” in students’ own education is uneven and employment
affects students from middle and low income families far more than those from high
income families. The 2003 Higher Education Act removed the requirement for students
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to pay up-front tuition fees from 2006 and instead “top-up” fees will be paid after
graduation. This will ease the financial burden slightly for students and their parents
while the student is studying and shifts the “investment” to the post-graduation period. 389
However, this postponement of fee repayments will have little effect on
undergraduates’ need to work to finance their current living expenses. Calls for
changes in government policy in the UK, on grounds of equity and efficiency (Hunt
et al., 2004) have been largely ignored. Apart from the high cost of re-introducing
grants, students form an army of low-paid workers and have become too useful to
employers (Curtis and Lucas, 2001) and the economy (Canny, 2002) to be lost. It would
appear then, that this situation will continue, with many students having a reduced
educational experience at a high financial cost to themselves, their parents and the
taxpayer.

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Further reading
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the literature”, Journal of Further and Higher Education, Vol. 30 No. 2, pp. 107-17.

Corresponding author
Susan Curtis can be contacted at: s.curtis@mmu.ac.uk

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