Music Students’ Experienced Workload, Livelihoods and Stress in Higher Education in Finland and the United Kingdom

Jääskeläinen, Tuula and López-Íñiguez, Guadalupe and Phillips, Michelle E. (2020) Music Students’ Experienced Workload, Livelihoods and Stress in Higher Education in Finland and the United Kingdom. Music Education Research.

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Abstract

Neoliberal education policies—viewing students’ life as human capital, economic investment for the labour market and consumer power—may increase students’ workload in higher education. In this mixed methods study, we examined music students’ experiences of workload in Finland and the United Kingdom in connection with stress and livelihoods. We used Bayesian mixed effects ordinal probit regression modeling to estimate effects of countries and livelihoods as predictors for music students’ experienced workload in relation to their main subject of study (or principal study) and stress. We analysed music students’ lived experiences of workload to find further predictors for the developmental work in universities and educational policies. Results indicate that where neoliberal university culture impacts on music students’ livelihoods alongside their studies, this is likely to increase stress but not necessarily impact on the workload associated with their main subject of study. However, stress has a notable effect on students’ experiences of workload. In order to support music students’ learning, well-being and future careers, we suggest paying attention to certain aspects in universities in relation to workload, such as the gap between well-off students compared to low-income students who need to work as well as studying, and stress, particularly with female and non-binary gender students. Furthermore, we propose alternative ways to navigate neoliberal university culture. Keywords: higher education; livelihoods; music student; stress; student experience; student workload

Item Type:	Article
Subjects:	L Education > L Education (General) M Music and Books on Music > M Music
Depositing User:	Thomas Wise
Date Deposited:	27 Oct 2020 10:33
Last Modified:	18 Nov 2020 12:00
URI:	http://repository.rncm.ac.uk/id/eprint/94

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