Part-time Jobs 1

Part-time Jobs and Their Effects on HUT Students’ Academic Performance

Nguyen T. Them

Teacher Phuong Thao

Research Methodology

May 31, 2010

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Abstract

Doing part-time jobs (PTJs) has been a common way for college students to accumulate

experiences for their future career. However, there still exists a question of its effects on

students’ academic performance. The fear that PTJs take away time for studying and accordingly

lead to poor academic performance has made some students hesitate to work or even are not

allowed to work by their parents. Students at Hanoi University of Technology (HUT) are not an

exception. So far, many researches regarding the effects of PTJs on students’ academic

performance have been conducted, but the results are still mixed. This research were therefore

conducted to ascertain the positive effects of PTJs on HUT students’ academic performance.

Data were gathered from questionnaire surveys on the students’ PTJs and academic performance,

and reviews of the previous researches. The results showed that PTJs, if worked in a moderate

number of hours and major-related, benefit the students with higher academic performance.
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Part-time Jobs and Their Effects on HUT Students’ Academic Performance

Introduction

There is an increasing expectation that college students will have some useful experience

before entering their chosen career. Despite of great efforts have been done, almost no

universities can comprehensively provide their students with the necessary skills. HUT is not an

exception. Actually, some experiments in laboratories, internship trips, extra-curricular or

vocational seminars are not all for students to gain such skills. Only by experiencing workplace

or office culture will students get them. Therefore, college students in general and HUT students

in particular tend to gain such experience through PTJs, which then may lead to some problems.

As the clear shortfall of time in students’ schedule, PTJs possibly take away their time for

academic work, thus, may result in poor academic performance. Consequently, some HUT

students still hesitate to do PTJs, or even are not allowed to do by their parents. Although many

researches regarding the effects of PTJs on college students’ academic performance have been

conducted so far, the opposed findings are inevitable. Some stated that PTJs had positive effects

on students’ academic, while some others indicated that they had negative effects, or even none

at all. This has made HUT students as well as their parents more and more confused with the

issue.

This study was therefore conducted to prove that PTJs have positive effects on HUT

students’ academic performance. Besides this primary hypothesis, three sub-hypotheses were

also developed: (a) Students with jobs outperform students without jobs in grade point average

(GPA), studying hours and lower drop-out rates; (b) Jobs that pertain to students' majors have a

positive impact on academic achievement, and (c) Students who work fewer hours have higher

academic performance. A survey questionnaire was designed and then given to 50 sophomores

from Faculty of Foreign Language (FFL), HUT to collect necessary information for this study.
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With this study, it is hoped that HUT students can escape the fear of poor academic performance

due to PTJs, and be ready to work. Also, the students could know how a PTJ can benefit them

the most.

Literature Review

PTJs among college students have been increasing rapidly. Green (1987) noted that their

effects on the academic performance of students have been questioned by many researchers. The

literature review below examines how PTJs have affected students’ academic performance.

Most of the researches indicating that PTJs negatively affect students’ academic

performance concluded that an increase in working hours is the most influential factor. It is not

the job itself that causes the problems, but the overload on the amount of working hours.

According to Dallam & Hoyt (1981), students who worked between 1 and 15 hours per week

showed a slightly higher GPA than those whose workloads were heavier and those who were not

working at all. Those who take on overloaded part-time jobs are less engaged in school before

they enter the labor force, and part-time employment, “especially for more than 20 hours weekly,

further exacerbates this problem” (Steinberg et al., 1993, p. 175).

Researchers also indicated that the types of PTJs have an impact on students’ academic

performance. When PTJs pertain to students’ majors, their effects are positive because they

allow for higher academic achievement and develop career-related skills that cannot be gained in

the classroom alone. For example, of the 600 full-time students at Lamar University surveyed, 91

out of 215 students whose jobs related to their majors had a mean GPA of 2.98, while those

whose jobs were career unrelated had a mean GPA of 2.66 (Li-Chen & Wooster, 1979).

This study will look at these variables in order to investigate the positive effects of PTJs

on HUT students’ academic performance.

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Methods

In this research, two data collection methods were used: questionnaire survey and

existing information.

A questionnaire survey was designed and then given to HUT students in order to collect

the information needed for the research. The subjects were 50 sophomores from FFL-HUT in the

2009-2010 academic year. As these students are the same at academic program and academic

year, comparable GPA, a measurement unit of students’ academic performance, was insured. In

addition, sophomore year is the time for choosing a major and staring to make career plans for

the future; therefore, sophomores are more likely to do PTJs with not much experience in

balancing jobs and academic work.

The survey was conducted twice. At the first time, a pilot survey was conducted to collect

some rough information concerning with HUT students’ PTJs and academic performance. Also,

it helped the researcher to see whether the questions were clear and useful or not, and to get more

ideas as well as suggestion for improvements from the respondents. After that, some questions

were adjusted so that they were easy for respondents understand and answer. The official survey

was then conducted, with 50 copies delivered to 50 FFL-HUT sophomores in the second

semester of the 2009-2010 academic year. The survey consisted of six questions regarding

whether the students have PTJs, whether the jobs pertain to their major, their GPAs, the average

number of hours worked and studied per week, and the times of drop-out or playing truant. To

ensure the participants’ anonym, no identifiable information such as name, class or student code

were contained in the survey itself. The survey was written in English as it would pose no

difficulties for the subjects whose major was English for Science and Technology. The

questionnaire survey can be reviewed in Appendix.

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The students were approached at random in their classrooms by the researcher during

fifteen-minute breaks. In these settings, students were informed of the purpose of the research

and that their participation was voluntary. They were also aware that all the information they

provided were kept confidential and used for researching purpose only. After explaining the

procedure, the research distributed the surveys to the respondents. Administration of the

questionnaires took approximately 10 minutes. All of the questionnaires were completed and

turned back directly to the researcher.

The ideas for this research were also based on the existing information. Therefore, a

number of documents were reviewed. The main sources are electronic books and journals about

PTJs and their correlation with college students’ academic performance. Thanks to these sources

of information, the researcher had more knowledge or bases to develop a more proper

questionnaire, especially the question involving the hours a students worked (Question 3). The

three possible answers to this question belonged to three groups of working hours: 1-15, 16-20

and 20+, which helped to see clearly the correlation between the number of hours students

worked and their academic performance. Also, the documents reviewed supported the researcher

a lot with the discussion of results.

Out of all the variables, GPA was determined to be the primary measurement unit of

academic performance. To make the variable more defined and clear, this research used the 4.0

scale GPA as it has been applied to evaluate HUT students’ academic performance since the

2007-2008 academic year.

Results

After evaluating responses from 50 students, the researcher found that the majority of

HUT students did PTJs. Table 1 clearly displays the differences in GPA between students of

different job statuses.

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Table 1

As can be Average GPA by hours worked

Job status Mean GPA
seen, the students Without job (22%) 3.05

with jobs (78%) With job (78%) 3.28

1 – 15 hours/week (82%) 3.33
’

had an average 3.16

16 – 19 hours/week (15%)
GPA higher (M = 20 – 30 hours/week (3%) 2.94
Major-related (69%) 3.24
3.28) than those
Not major-related (31%) 3.18
without jobs (22%, M = 3.05). A significant difference in GPA was also found among the

students with different number of hours worked. The students who worked 1-15 hours per week

(82%) showed a significantly higher GPA (M=3.33) in comparison with the students who

worked more (18%, M=3.24). In addition, the students whose jobs were major-related (69%)

showed an average GPA slightly higher (M = 3.24) than the students whose jobs were not (31%,

M = 3.18).

Besides the differences in GPA, there is a significant difference in drop-out rates between

the students with jobs and those without jobs (see Figure 1). Most of the students with jobs

(64%) reported that they have never dropped out of classes, whereas only 17% of students

without jobs have. From the chart, it can be calculated that the drop-out rates of the students

without jobs (83%, of which 58% dropped 1-2 times and 25% dropped 3 or more times) are

respectively 2.3 times higher than those of the students with jobs (36%; 25% and 11%). These

findings suggested that students with jobs could be better at time-management and discipline

skills.
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100%
17
80%
64
60% Never
58
40% 1-2 times

25 3+ times
20%
25
11
0%
Students with Students
PTJs without PTJs

Figure 1: Drop-out rates of students with PTJs and students without PTJs

The study also indicated that PTJs affect students’ academic performance in terms of

studying hours (See Figure 2).

100%
10
80% 0-5 hrs/w
36
67 5-10 hrs/w
60%
10+ hrs/w
40%
54
20% 25

0% 8
Students with Students
PTJs without PTJs
Figure 2: The average number of studying hours per week

The figure shows that more students with jobs study either from five to ten hours a week

(36%) or over 10 hours a week (54%) than those without jobs (25%; 8%). In addition, more

students without jobs (67%) just studied few hours per week or not at all, while only 10% of

students with jobs did. This could account for that non-job students have lower average GPA

than the students with jobs.

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Clearly, all the findings from this study indicate that PTJs, if worked with a limited

number of hours and related to students’ major, have positive effects on students’ academic

performance.

Discussion

The purpose of the study was to investigate whether PTJs would benefit HUT students’

academic performance. The findings clearly suggest that they do. The students with jobs

surpassed the students without jobs in GPA. It was also found that the students who worked 1-15

hours per week had a significantly higher GPA than both those who worked 16 or more hours

and those who did not work at all. This result is similar to that of Dallam & Hoyt (1981), which

has been mentioned in the literature review. Most of the HUT students choose to work less than

15 hours per week. Therefore, it can be seen that they are highly conscious of the correlation

between working hours and academic achievement. The hypothesis that PTJs pertaining to

students’ major had a positive impact on their academic achievement was also supported. The

students with such jobs showed a slightly higher GPA. This is consistent with the findings of

Li-Chen & Wooster (1979), whose survey of 600 students at Lamar University stated that the

students with major-related jobs show a higher GPA than the ones whose jobs were not major-

related at all. The students with jobs also appeared more studious than those without jobs. It is

likely that students with jobs have realized the obvious shortfall of time in their schedule, so they

were forced to learn harder to keep pace with their friends who had no jobs. In addition, PTJs

may help students delegate time more productively and have better organization, responsibility,

and discipline skills. This can explain why these students have higher studying hours and lower

drop-out rates, also higher academic achievement than those without jobs. Therefore, these

results can be used to ascertain that PTJ is not an academic hindrance as some students and their

parents had misconceived.

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This study inevitably revealed several limitations. First of all, due to time constraints, this

study was primarily limited in sample size and diversity. A larger sample with more diversity

would have been gained by including students from different majors, class standings, and of

course, if time were available. The restricted variation in GPAs was a large drawback to the

study. One of the possible explanations for this would be that the GPAs were self-reported.

Students could easily have forgotten their exact GPA because their answers relied on their

memory of the past semester. Having an official report of the GPAs could have at least removed

this possibility of human error. Furthermore, the fact that GPA was the primary measurement

unit of academic performance did not account for all factors that could have affected this same

variable. Therefore, further researches should be conducted to examine the effects of other

factors such as social relationship or learning techniques on students’ academic performance

with some other variables, namely graduation rates.

Conclusion

In this study, both the primary hypothesis and the sub-hypotheses were supported. The

findings clearly indicated that students with PTJs surpass those without PTJs in academic

performance with higher GPA, higher number of studying hours, and lower drop-out rates.

Among the students who worked, those whose jobs either pertained to their major or had a

moderate number of hours showed better academic performance. It appears certain that, besides

higher academic achievement, such jobs often correlate with better time-management skills,

discipline and responsibility. This research still revealed some drawbacks, perhaps due to the

limitation of time. However, the research findings could make a contribution to ascertain the

positive effects of PTJs on HUT students’ academic performance. It is hoped that some students

and their parents can have a positive outlook on PTJs. It is recommended that students should

hold a PTJ and be conscious of the type and the working hours in order to get its most benefits
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from it. Further researches with larger size and more diverse samples and variables should be

conducted to exploit more aspects or factors that could have positive effects on college students’

academic performance.
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References

Dallam, J.W. & Hoyt, D.P. (1981). Do students have enough time to study? College and

University, 57, 84-91.

Li-Chen, M. & Wooster, R.A. (1979). The effect of unemployment on the college students’

academic performance. College Student Journal, 13, 1, 12-20.

Green, G. (1987). The effect of part-time employment on academic achievement. Journal of

Educational Research, 80, 6, 325-329.

Steinberg, L., Fegley, S., Dornbusch, S.M. (1993). Negative impact of part-time work on

adolescent adjustment: Evidence from a longitudinal study. Developmental Psychology,

29, 2, 171-180.

Watanabe, L.E. (2005). The effects of college student employment on academic achievement.

Undergraduate Research Journal, 1, 38-47.

 100% Part-time Jobs 13
17
80%
Appendix
64
60% Never
58 Questionnaire survey
40% 1-2 times
Hello. My name is Nguyen Thi Them from class D07-K52, FFL-HUT. I am conducting a
3+ times
20% 25
25 the effects of college students’ part-time jobs on academic performance.
research to investigate
11
0%
Your answers
Students with areStudents
very important for my research. Your participation is voluntary, and individual
PTJs
questionnaireswithout PTJs anonymous. Any questions or concerns regarding the information
are entirely
from this
Figure 1: Drop-out survey
rates can be answered
of students with PTJsvia
andemail at more_d07hut@yahoo.com.
students without PTJs
Directions: Fill out the questions below using information from only the first semester of the
2009-2010 academic year.
1. Do you have a part-time job?
A. Yes
B. No (Skip to question 4)
2. Does your job pertain to your major?
A. Yes
B. No
3. How many hours per week on average do you work? Circle one
A. 1 – 15
B. 16 – 19
C. 20 – 30
4. What is your GPA?
5. How many hours per week on average do you spend studying? Circle one
A. 0 – 5
C. 6 – 15
D. 15 +
6. How many times have you dropped out of class?
A. Never
B. 1 – 2
C. 3 +

THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP!