Summary Study environments at Lund University ... - Lunds universitet

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Work environment questions have been central in the student satisfaction surveyscarried out for each faculty at Lund University. Since the satisfaction surveysinclude questions brought up by the students at each faculty, questions about workenvironment are more or less prominent. The Student barometer 2000 4 and threerecent student satisfaction surveys 5 (in Humanities, Social Sciences and NaturalScience) include questions about weekly working time, benefits from and influenceon the studies as well as the physical work environment. These investigationsprovide an interesting reference material for this inquiry into study environments.2During the last years a number of investigations related to the Equal Treatment Acthave been carried out by the Office of Evaluation at Lund University 6 . The findingsfrom these investigations showed that students with disabilities as a rule weresatisfied with the facilities for support they have access to. On the other hand theyconsidered that the university, at central and departmental levels, should work morepreventively with regard to counteracting offensive and discriminating treatment inclass. According to an interview-study with homo- and bisexual students there isa compact standard of hetero-normativity within the university. Expressing adifferent sexual identity means that the student runs the risk of becoming excludedfrom the social community.Population and sampleThe population for this investigation consists of undergraduates who are registeredfor courses of at least 10 credit points (equivalent to 15 ECTS). From this population,of around 20 000 students, a random sample of 4000 students (about 20 % ofthe population) was taken. The sample includes students representing all facultiesor schools within Lund University. Slightly more than 2000 students (about 53% ofthe sample) participated in the investigation, but the response rates vary amongfaculties.Theoretical frame of referenceThe framework chosen to investigate the study environment has been adopted fromthe demand-control model (Karasek & Theorell 1990), which focuses on factors ofimportance for how specific individuals experience the psycho-social work situation.This model, which has been used as a theoretical frame of reference in severalstudies of work environment, is here applied to the students’ experiences of theuniversity environment 7 . Taking the variables psychological demands and decisionlatitude as starting points the model identifies four types of work situations: i.e. highstrain,low-strain, active and passive work. It is a characteristic of high-strain work4 Studentbarometer 2000, Report 2000:299, Office of Evaluation, contains a summary inEnglish5 Summaries of the Student satisfaction surveys are available, http://www.lu.se/evaluateng6 Undersökningar kring lagen om Likabehandling av studenter (Investigations around theEqual Treatment of Students Act), http://www.evaluat.lu.se7 The concept of psycho-social factors in the work environment is hard to delimit and mayinclude physical as well as social and organizational environmental factors. Also the conceptof study situation is elusive since it means an interchange between conditions withinand outside the studies. In this investigation the selection of psycho-social factors is foundedon interviews particularly with student representatives about psycho-social conditions inteaching and activities closely related to teaching.
that the individual experiences high psychological demands combined with littledecision latitude with regard to influencing the work process by oneself. It is aboveall this situation which in the end increases the risk for stress-related illnesses. Activework is also characterized by high psychological demand but this is combined withexperiences of having own action and decision latitude. Low psychological demandscombined with large influence over work means a low-strain work situation. Passivework is characterized by low psychological demands combined with little decisionlatitude and can be found, for example, in work at the conveyor belt.3Taking the theoretical model above as a starting point a questionnaire was prepared.From the questions about study situation and study environment five differentindexes were constructed. The index of psychological demands includes questionsabout weekly working time, workload in the studies, total workload, level of difficultyof the studies, previous knowledge required, study achievements and selfstudies.The index of decision latitude is composed of questions about the clarity ofrequirements on study achievements and information about the goal of the studyprogram or course, design, contents, literature, schedules, examination and assessment.In order to further elucidate the latitude-dimension this index is in the analysissupplemented with questions about influence on the contents of the studies as well asthe possibilities for planning one’s own time. To distinguish between aspects of timeand contents, control over and control in work, is essential with regard to the students’assessment of decision latitude. The lack of decision latitude is in studentsurveys often expressed as the lack of influence over the design and contents of thestudies.It is important to combine the demand-control model with the dimension of socialsupport (Karasek & Theorell 1990, Theorell 2003). Social support may act as abuffer with regard to alleviating effects of a high-strain situation. The socialsupport, including practical as well as emotional help, is related to persons in thestudy programme, in the family as well as among friends and acquaintances.Furthermore the students’ contacts with the various service-activities of the universityprovide part of the social network surrounding the individual student. Thesocial support is elucidated by two indices, i.e. support in teaching and supportfrom fellow students. The index on support in teaching is composed of questionsabout feedback during the course and in connection with examination, and to whatextent the study climate is characterized by appreciation and praise, a high degreeof freedom of opinion, being respectfully treated and receiving responses on studywork.The index on support from fellow students includes questions about to whatextent the study climate among fellow students is characterized by collaboration,security, solidarity, tolerance and respect.The students’ own assessment of the level of stress of the studies is provided by afifth index, the stress-index. This encompasses questions about to what extent thestudy requirements are stressing and to what extent the study environment ischaracterized by high achievement demands, exam nerves, competition and stress.This index has also been used as an indicator of the applicability of the demandcontrolmodel, in other words to what extent the other indices actually provide aninsight into how the psycho-social study situation and environment are shaping.
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