Adult learners are generally very strategic about their learning and prefer to know in advance what their learning tasks are and how much time it will take them so they can plan their busy lives. But, how can you provide them with an accurate estimate for how long it will take them to complete learning tasks, like watching a YouTube video or reading a research article?
While it may seem straightforward to just post the length of the video in the title of the YouTube video, consider what you want students to do with the video. Do you want them to just watch it once? Do you want them to pause the video to take notes or complete activities? Is it a tutorial video that they are pausing to follow along with the steps? Be sure to consider the total time you expect students to devote to the video when you post a time estimate.
Reading may seem more straightforward, but our reading speed depends on a number of factors: how familiar we are with the content, the complexity of the text, and how we are engaging with the text. While the “average” reading speed is 300 words per minute, this drops considerably when there are many new concepts in the reading the learners are unfamiliar with, they are taking notes while reading, or completing activities while reading, like making annotations on the file.
If students are skimming the content in a textbook they are already familiar with, they could read about 40 pages per hour. If they are reading a journal article with many new concepts and are deeply engaging with the text, the rate slows to 7 pages per hour. Similarly, writing rates also vary based on the purpose and type of task.
Wake Forest University provides a helpful workload estimator that will do these calculations for you. For more information about the research behind the workload estimator, visit theWake Forest University Workload Estimator Details.