Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.3935/rsp.v20i3.1129
Does Student Employment Deteriorate Academic Performance? The Case of Slovenia
Tanja Kosi
; Faculty of Management, University of Primorska
Bojan Nastav
; Faculty of Management, University of Primorska
Janez Šušteršič
; Faculty of Management, University of Primorska
Abstract
The article examines features of student work in Slovenia and estimates the impact of the scope of student work on successful completion of an academic year. After intense debate about merits and perils of student work in Slovenia in recent years, which was based on scarce survey data, this is the first study to statistically test the assertion that student work negatively affects academic performance. Different variants of the probit model are estimated using a rich sample of data for 1,890 undergraduate students in tertiary education working through one of the largest student employment services in Slovenia in the period 2005-2008. The results support a common finding from previous empirical studies for other countries that student employment has a (small) adverse impact on academic performance only when hours of paid work exceed some threshold level, in our case around 18 hours per week. The study also reveals only a weak seasonal component in student work, meaning that students work relatively evenly throughout the year. It also points to the lack of connection between the types of work performed by students and their fields of study.
Keywords
student work; regulation; tertiary education; academic performance; Slovenia
Hrčak ID:
114305
URI
Publication date:
7.1.2014.
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