a growing experience - Student Services - University of Melbourne

HEALTH AND WELL-BEING OF INTERNATIONAL STUDENTSTable 20Hours of unpaid work per week undertaken by students1-5 hours 6-10 hours 11-15 hours 16-20 hoursNumber ofstudents(n=106)672847Percentage ofthose doingunpaid work63.226.43.86.6Being engaged in paid work does not prevent students from also doing unpaid work.In fact, there is a slightly greater tendency for those in paid work to be also engaged inpaid work. The association between engagement in paid and unpaid work is notsignificant 123 .Students most likely to engage in unpaid work are those with later year enrolments(years 4 to 6) 124 , from English-speaking or European countries 125 , who do not speak aLOTE when off campus 126 . Students under-represented in the group of students doingunpaid work are first year students, and students from India, South East Asia and thePacific, Middle East and North Africa, Other Africa, Latin America and Other SouthAsia country categories.LIFESTYLE BALANCEOne of the challenges of the full-time student is being able to achieve a reasonablebalance between study and other activities, between solitary time and social life,between sedentary and physical activities, as well as being able to maintain nutritionalbalance. For many international students, cultural factors add to the challenge ofachieving and maintaining balance in these aspects of living.Respondents are more or less evenly divided in their perceptions of the balanceachieved between studying and other activities. Table 21 shows that approximatelyhalf of them rate item D14 at the positive end of the scale (ratings 2 and 3) and abouthalf at the negative end of the scale. The mean rating of 1.5 represents the midpointin the 0 to 3 scale.This perception is supported by the average number of hours that students reporthaving spent studying in the week prior to completion of the questionnaire – a total of33.3 hours, when class and private study hours are combined (Table 22).Table 21Balance between study and other activities123 2=1.05, 1 df, n.s.124 2=16.81, 5 df, p