Teachers’ working time from time-use data: Consequences of the invalidity of survey questions for teachers, researchers, and policy

Petrus Te Braak; Filip Van Droogenbroeck; Joeri Minnen; Theun Pieter van Tienoven; Ignace Glorieux

doi:10.1016/j.tate.2021.103536

Teachers’ working time from time-use data: Consequences of the invalidity of survey questions for teachers, researchers, and policy

Petrus Te Braak, Filip Van Droogenbroeck, Joeri Minnen, Theun Pieter van Tienoven, Ignace Glorieux

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

14 Citations (Scopus)

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Abstract

How teachers spend their working time is crucial for the quality of teaching and teachers’ well-being. For this reason, teacher surveys generally measure the number of hours worked. By comparing estimates from survey questions and time-diaries, we argue that commonly used survey methods are prone to bias. We use results of a unique, large-scale study where 7,486 teachers kept a diary for seven days resulting in 1,250,000 hours of registered activities. Large differences in the accuracy of estimating working time exist in sub-activities (e.g., school organisation) and job characteristics (e.g., part-time versus full-time). Implications for research and policy are discussed.

Original language	English
Article number	103536
Pages (from-to)	1-15
Number of pages	15
Journal	Teaching and Teacher Education
Volume	109
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2021.103536
Publication status	Published - 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This research was supported by the Vlaamse Overheid / Regering (Flemish Government) under grant "Time-use of teachers in primary and secundary education.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Elsevier Ltd

Keywords

Teachers' working time
Measurement error
Time-diary
Time use
Teachers' workload
Time allocation

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10.1016/j.tate.2021.103536

75433327_AAMAccepted author manuscript, 617 KBLicence: CC BY-NC-ND

Cite this

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AU - van Tienoven, Theun Pieter

AU - Glorieux, Ignace

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Teachers’ working time from time-use data: Consequences of the invalidity of survey questions for teachers, researchers, and policy

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

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