Impact Of Part-Time Jobs On Students’ Academic And Personal Lives

Methodology

In recent years, there has been an increase in the involvement of students with part-time jobs for supplementing their family incomes or for their own survival (Timiraos, 2014). The reason that can mostly be considered is the increase in the cost of higher education. With the rising costs of education, the number of students choosing to work part time during their school times, in order to meet their educational expenses, is also increasing (Stewart, 2015). One more reason is that they acquire a tendency of being self-dependent and become more skilled for their future (Ec.europa.eu, 2016). Research has indicated that those students who are involved in part time jobs can have their wellbeing and academic achievement influenced by that (Oxford-royale.co.uk, 2016). Depending on the hours contributed to the job and the nature of that job, a student’s health status can be impacted either positively or negatively.

This report is aiming to understand the impact of part time employment on the health and psychology of the students, which in itself is a less explored area. The students’ perspectives in this matter are considered as a key deciding factor. This report is aiming to exploit and emphasize on the psychological influence of part time jobs on the students with the help of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). By means of IPA, the personal experiences of the students can be included in the report with the help of one to one interview sessions (Joseph, 2014). This on hand experience would not be possible to include if a quantitative approach is taken. That is why a qualitative method of research has been followed to find out what kind of impact part time jobs have on the students.

Design

Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) is a procedure of research that is used to explore the ways in which participants comprehend their social and personal world both. The main ingredient of these kinds of studies is the significance of specific experiences, events or states for the participants. IPA is specifically useful whilst concerning with complexity, process or novelty. IPA commits chiefly to the investigation of meaning and sense making, connecting it to the primary concerns of cognitive psychology. It is known that for many years that mainstream experimental psychology have depended on quantitative approaches. However, recent years have seen an increase in the popularity of utilization of qualitative approaches (Pietkiewicz & Smith, 2014).

Qualitative approaches reject the formulation of hypotheses before the research is conducted. In place of that an open inductive approach to data collection and analysis is promoted. Ideographical studies of individuals are emphasized by IPA. The idea is to generate rich and elaborated descriptions of the way individuals experience phenomena under investigation. The concern is related to the detailed exploration of lived experiences and the way those are made sense of so that the help can be attained for deciding upon the type of question suitable for IPA research. In this research, the qualitative interviewing technique has been selected so that the interviewer can observe the unique response and experience of the participants regarding their working experience during their academic lives. This technique helps to implement open-ended and semi-structured questionnaire which allows the participants to freely state their opinions. By employing semi-structured questionnaire, in this report, the interviewer obtains the right to change the sequence of the questions and conducts the whole interview session in a two-way communication order (Smith, 2015).

Impact of Part-Time Employment on students

For this report, two participants were chosen, Case 1 and Case 2, to extract their perspective on the influence of part time jobs on their lives. Case 1 is a 20 years old male who is in his first year of college and works as a pizza delivery boy after his school hours. In this way, he earns his pocket money to carry the expenses of his study. He is from a well do to the family which indicates the capability of his parents in providing his educational expenses. However, after watching all his classmates to earn their pocket money, Case 1 decided to do a part time job after his school hours from standard X. The only condition his parents put before him was to maintain his study besides the job and till now he is doing well.

On the other hand, Case 2 is nineteen years old and a student of a full-time stenography course. The story of Case 2 seems to be quite different from Case 1 because instead of being a good student, she has to do a part time job because her parents cannot afford the expenses of her higher studies. She aims to become a lawyer, for which she tries to maintain her studies, besides earning her pocket money and sustaining her educational expenses by working as a waitress. On the weekends, she also works as a governess for a crèche, near her place. To maintain their privacy and prestige among their classmates, their names are undisclosed. The two participants agreed to take part in this interview session so that they can also evaluate the positive and negative impacts of their part time jobs on their academic careers. By indulging in the friendly communication with the interviewer and stating their experiences, they tried to understand their psychological responses to their decisions to do part time jobs along with pursuing academic courses.

Generally, in IPA researches, samples are small, making it easier to get a more comprehensive and in-depth analysis of the participant’s experiences and present with a more general account. Therefore, only two samples were chosen for this research, with an aim of producing a comprehensive assessment of specific phenomena. They were decided on the basis of their case richness, their comparativeness and some pragmatic restrictions of the research.

In this report, the personal experiences of the selected participants are reflected with the help of one to one open-ended questions. The interview questionnaire includes questions related to the impact of the part-time jobs upon the academic lives of the students along with their physical and mental obstacles. In this report, the interview questions are mainly related to the positive and negative impacts of their part time jobs on their health, psychology and study. Responses of both the participants are considered for the same questions so that their opinions can be easily compared with each other. The questions are formed by focusing on the themes of this topic. Here are some example interview questions:

Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA)

What according to you are the positive impacts of part-time employment on the job and life?

Case 1: “I have developed a perfect sense of time management about when I should study and when I can afford to spend my extra time for part time jobs like Pizza delivery.”

Case 2: “I can earn sufficient money besides continuing my study and can also spend the extra money for fulfilling my wish list.”

What are the difficulties that you face in maintaining the study hours?

Case 1: “After school hours I go for my part time duty which takes almost 3-4 hours. When I reach home at late night, I usually do not have the energy to spend sufficient hours for study which affects my study procedure.”

Case 2: “I usually carry my books with me on my duty hours. At the lean hours at the restaurants, I indulge in studying so that I can cope up with the pressure of my higher study.”

How this packed schedule has left the impact on your behavioural activities?

Case 1: “I have become more organized and responsible after joining the part-time jobs because now I am responsible for handling my life in such a proper way where I can earn my educational expenses without harming my study.”

Case 2: “I have become more patient and have also developed an ability to take on spot quick decisions to manage a critical situation.”

What are the physical difficulties which you face due to the hectic daily schedule?

Case 1: “I suffer from regular headache trouble and pain in the eyes for inadequate sleep as I return from home at the late night and wake up early in the morning to study.”

Case 2: “As I use my brain continuously throughout the day by indulging in study procedures during and after the school and working hours, I feel dizzy all day. Lack of energy level seems to be my main problem to balance my academic and professional lives. ”

With the help of the mutual friend, the interview session with Case 1 was organized outside of his school where he gives around 11 minutes to answer all the questions. On the other hand, the interview session with Case 2 has been organized with the permission of her restaurant owner inside of it. She takes around 15 minutes to answer the entire interview questionnaire. The ethical regulations are maintained by keeping the names and identity of the participants’ secret. Moreover, their personal experiences are strictly used for the purpose of conducting this study only. During the interview session, both the participants were allowed to withdraw themselves whenever they wanted (refer to appendices 1 and 2). The transcription of the verbal data was first interpreted and written down for conducting a thematic analysis. The collected verbal data has been recorded in an orthographic or verbatim way, to keep them true to its original form. Deciding on the collected information to be data driven, specific features of the data set were selected to be coded (Saldaña, 2015).

Qualitative Approaches and IPA

This study considered the experience of Case 1 and Case 2 concerning the influence of part-time employment on their educational lives. While doing so, three different theme clusters were found, with which their reaction towards different questions were related to their balancing effort between the professional and personal lives.

Theme cluster	Themes	Case 1	Case 2
Effect of part-time jobs on the educational processes	Positive effects of job on study as well as on life Difficulties occurred in maintaining study hours	“I have developed a perfect sense of time management.” (3:1) “When I reach home at late night, I usually do not have the energy to spend sufficient hours for study” (4:2)	“I feel self-dependent and can understand the importance of responsibility in professional field” (4:1) “At the lean hours at the restaurants when they have limited number of customers, I indulge in studying. … Sometimes, this raise anger of the employer” (4:2,4:3,4:4)
Feeling for getting no leisure time	Feeling of frustration Impact on behavioural activities	“Due to the continuous hectic life schedule, my mood swings and my concentration level break” (4:2) “I have become more organized and responsible” (5:1)	“I have set up my mind in such a way that the balance between study and job seems to be a usual everyday task for me” (4:1,2) “I have become more patient and have also developed an ability to take on spot quick decisions to manage a critical situation” (5:1,2)
Balancing between job and study hours	Maintenance of study hours Physical difficulties due to the hectic balancing tasks	“I prefer to study at the early in the morning with fresh mind and energy” (5:1) “I suffer from regular headache trouble and pain in the eyes” (5:1)	“I utilize every leisure time which I get during school and working hours” (5:2) “I feel dizzy all day” (5:2)

Table: Summary of theme clusters arising from participants accounts

This table clarifies the reflexive experiences of Case 1 and Case 2, from which three main theme clusters were identified that are relative to the participants’ experiences. In response, Case 1 says “I have developed a perfect sense of time management.” That indicates his systemic ways of studying. Conversely, Case 2 learnt patience and acquired skills to manage critical situations. It can be said that Case 1 has become more organized and responsible, whereas Case 2 has developed the ability to manage critical situations.

This study aims to identify the personal experiences of the selected students regarding their physical, academic and professional fields. From the collected data it can be said that the overall impact of part-time jobs on the lives of the two participants, as well as on their academic lives is positive (Epstein et al., 2014). The theme clusters, namely the effect of part-time jobs on the lives and education of the students, rightfully identify the perfect impact of part-time employment on students. One gains the sense of responsibility and time management while the other became more patient and organized. Thus, this study has successfully identified the personal experience of the students that the previous psychological studies lack, and has covered every aspect of the impact of the part-time job with the help of proper interview questionnaire, and the verbatim transcription elaborately reflecting the systematic interview procedure. However, it lacks comparative analysis of the impact on the academic lives of both participants. The study has immense scope for further development as it can be included as a case study for conducting primary and secondary analysis in a better way.

After the completion of this report, I have gained a detailed knowledge about the impact of part-time employment on the academic and personal lives of the students. By conducting one to one interview session, I came across the personal feelings of the students regarding their part-time employment. They reflect that instead of acquiring the benefits of being self-sufficient and financially stable to bear their expenses, the part-time employment during studies do affect their health and study procedure. During my school days, I had friends who did part time jobs besides their studies. I was genuinely interested in knowing their efforts in tackling such pressure at those early stages. By observing their body language and gestures, I also tried to judge their personal development in comparison with other same aged teenagers, which they demand to have developed within them as a result of their employment experiences.

References

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