text:
Why has the time spent studying declined so sharply in the United States over the the past few decades?
I read on https://www.aei.org/publication/leisure-college-usa/ :

Study time for full-time students at four-year colleges in the United States fell from twenty-four hours per week in 1961 to fourteen hours per week in 2003.

The authors give some inconclusive statement regarding the reasons behind the trend:

The decline is not explained by changes over time in student work status, parental education, major choice, or the type of institution students attended.
Evidence that declines in study time result from improvements in education technology is slim. A more plausible explanation is that achievement standards have fallen.

I wonder why the time spent studying has declined so sharply in the United States over the the past few decades. I am only looking for data-supported answers (or pointers to them).

Given that Facebook was launched in 2004, had they made the comparison a few years laters, they'd have observed an even larger drop in the study time :-)

Note that it is misleading to include the footnote verbatim when reproducing that figure.  In the original context it may have been accurate; now it certainly is not.  Please crop or rewrite the footnote giving credit to the actual source, not yourself.

Summary: "Kids these days, I tell ya".

One caveat: The linked article, including charts ("Source: Authors' calculations") and quotes is from the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank -- not a peer-reviewed article.

It's not Facebook or Instagram or the rest of the plethora of social web services available today. Perhaps that's part of it, but from experience I would say the most significant factor is necessity to work and limited government financial assistance. Please see my anecdotal answer as reference to my claim, which seems to be very prominent amongst middle-class Americans, and the financial responsibility is shifted almost entirely on the students, which limits their ability to spend time on academics: rather, they work to pay for school.

I'll add that the paragraph: The decline is not explained by changes over time in student work status, parental education, major choice, or the type of institution students attended. - is entirely incorrect. Student work status has unfortunately necessitated change (more work done), parents seem to be worse at showing their children the importance of education, major choice is extremely important in terms of in-school employment and thus affecting hours spent studying, and the institution can double between schools; financial responsibility is absolutely a factor.

@BenVoigt: Nah -- it's very obvious that the "authors" mentioned in the in-image footnote are not the OP, just as the "authors" mentioned in the OP's own commentary are not the OP. There is zero risk of misunderstanding. (That said, it would make sense to put the image itself inside a > blockquote.)

“Evidence that declines in study time result from improvements in education technology is slim.”  Riiight.  Computers & the Internet haven't made information that used to take hours of digging in book any easier  to find.  Nope, not at all.  Haven't helped a bit.  I call bullshit on that hypothesis.

@DanielR.Collins I agree, but it looks like the trend was echoed in some other sources. If the statistics was purely wrong, i.e., the actually trend is the reverse (= the time spent studying has increased in the United States over the the past few decades), you're welcome to post as answer and I'd be happy to upvote and accept.

@DanielR.Collins AEI is a libertarian think tank, not a conservative think tank.

@Chloe: "conservative think tank" is the description used at Wikipedia, the Washington Post, and the New York Times. See reference links [2] and [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Enterprise_Institute

@SlippD.Thompson The way lectures are typically held (at least within my frame of reference), neither is necessary. It may be different for humanities.

Does "study time" include lectures, exercise sessions, etc or is it just independent study?

The conclusion seems to be oversimplifying things. This looks like a chicken-and-egg problem. Do the students study less because the standards have fallen, or have the standards fallen because the students study less and professors can't flunk 90% of them?

@Raphael Hmm… maybe.  I was a CS major & art minor.  Even 9-13 years ago (class of 2007), being able to just search for relevant text and see a snippet before heading to the stacks to grab the book was invaluable.  My ADD + no text-search would've ='d hours upon hours of reading all kinds of interesting stuff in old books and not actually getting the assignments done.

@SlippD.Thompson As soon as you have to access material not provided in pre-digested form by the teacher, there is no argument that IT and the internet have increased efficiency manifold. (Or has it? You find lots of crap, too, so you have to sift through stuff and filter; you have lots of distractions; ...) My point is that that is rarely necessary, for passing the course at least (in my experience).

@Raphael And in my experience, actual research was essential for doing well in a number of my mid-to-high-level courses, and especially so for my senior year where my CS courses were only independent study projects.

@SlippD.Thompson If my observation generalises, this is less the case today. Which would fall under "lower standards" or maybe "higher teaching standards" (i.e. teachers should do more; I don't think that's necessarily better), I guess. If there's little to no independent (literature) research to be done, technological impact on efficiency in that arena is less important.

I think part of their issue may be the full time definition has changed over time as well. http://completecollege.org/pdfs/2013-10-14-how-full-time.pdf They study should really compare per hour in-class to per hour out of class and even this is not perfect due to advances in technology (not accounted for either). I do not see any error bars in this publication or even mention of the likely error. I am sure they are respected academics but I hope this would not pass peer-review. No funding mention either and this is published by a conservative think tank. I am skeptical of these findings.

Please take extended discussion to [chat].

From the abstract of a possibly related publication: "One drink per day of the cheapest brand of spirits required 0.29% of U.S. mean per capita disposable income in 2011 as compared to 1.02% in 1980, 2.24% in 1970, 3.61% in 1960, and 4.46% in 1950."

@DanielR.Collins You should know to take Wikipedia statements with a grain of salt. The Washington Post and the New York Time are rather liberal and tend to conflate libertarian with conservative. However, looking directly at the first hand source, http://www.aei.org/about/  "The American Enterprise Institute is a community of scholars and supporters committed to expanding liberty, increasing individual opportunity and strengthening free enterprise." Those are most definitely libertarian principals.

First, it is important to deploy your scientific skepticism in assessing this claim.  The source, after all, is the American Enterprise Institute, which is a political "think tank" that is explicitly dedicated to pushing a particular point of view.  Other key elements of its scientific record including taking tobacco company money to produce pro-smoking studies the 1980s and recent attacks on global warming.
There does, however, seem to be at least some difference there, and a deeper analysis of both the data and possible causes found that a major transition happened across the 1970s:

Expansion of the student population to include many more people who are working to support themselves, parenting, commuting long distances, etc., which means they cannot devote as much time, and
A shift in faculty requirements away from teaching and toward research, with a concomitant decrease in the amount of work that faculty are able to support asking from students.

From the early 1980s to today, however, the situation appears to have been more stable.

Personally I don't see the situation from the early 1980s to now to be stable. I would call it anything but. My uncle received an education in the exact same field as me 30 years ago. He painted houses 5 hours per week and was able to fully pay for his college expenses. I am 5.5 years through my education working 35 hours per week at $16/hour gross and still end up $10,000+ in debt per year, and I am not unwise with my budgeting. American education has changed so significantly in the past 3 decades that there is practically no comparison, especially financially.

@ChrisCirefice That may well be true, but it is a different aspect of the situation than the question of how many hours people are using to study: when I say "the situation appears to have been more stable", I am referring to the conclusion the linked analysis makes that the average number of study hours has not declined significantly further.

Is your item 1 significant for gross averages? Isn't the full-time on-site student the norm?

@Raphael My understanding of the analysis I am paraphrasing is that "full-time" refers to the number of credit-hours that a person is enrolled for, not whether they also have competing responsibilities.  Likewise I do not believe that there is distinction between on-campus dormitories and off-campus housing, as those students all take their classes on-campus in the same classrooms.

@jakebeal Right. I was thinking in terms of population. If, say, only 5% of all students have other obligations than studying today, this change of the mean can probably not be explained by your item 1.

@Raphael I suggest you read the linked source for the details.

The review/comment on the study you link does not give any such data. Maybe the original study does; I did not see any skimming. I do note Figure 2, though, which clearly shows that at least the work factor almost vanished as distinguishing criterion over the years! Too bad they do not show averages with variances; it seems to me (just from looking at the figures) that study time "normalized" (to a lower level) across the board. If that is indeed the case, explanations like your item 1 do not work.

@Raphael, the linked study (McCormick) discusses Item 1 in various places—for example, in the paragraph that begins, "There is one other important point to make with regard to compositional differences in the student population between 1961 and 2003." McCormick points out that Babcock and Mark themselves "indicate that when hours worked and major were added to the analysis of compositional differences, the change in student population accounts for 18 percent of the drop in study time." [continued...]

@Raphael [...continued] McCormick argues later that demographic changes in student bodies may in fact account for more of the drop in reported study time; that's part of the point of McCormick's Table 2 and the text around it.

@Vectornaut Thanks, I missed that. (The data are weird. I wonder what is missing: 50 hours per week for all activity seems a bit low. That's less than eight hours a day!)

@Raphael, I think there's a lot of time missing because there's a lot of activities the NSSE doesn't ask about. Also, the "Study" entries in Table 2 don't appear to include time spent in class! As McCormick puts it: "NSSE asks students how many hours they spend per week on seven activities: preparing for class, working for pay on campus, working for pay off campus, participating in cocurricular activities, relaxing and socializing, caring for dependents, and commuting to class. NSSE does not ask about time spent in class, nor does it ask about work in the home apart from dependent care."

@Raphael: For an example of how time might leak through the cracks in the NSSE, consider this hypothetical day. The activities chosen may not be likely to all occur in a single day, but they hopefully illustrate the variety of things the NSSE time use questions don't see.

[0:00] Respondent's alarm clock goes off an hour before she needs to leave for class. None of her activities in that hour (hitting snooze, fumbling through her dresser, showering, eating cereal, brushing her teeth, putting on makeup, packing a lunch) are reported on the NSSE, although her commute to class is reported. She has three hours of class, not reported. She has a physical therapy appointment, which lasts 40 minutes, and leads to another 10 minutes on the phone with her insurance company.

[4:50] She stops for groceries on the way home—20 minutes, if the checkout line is short. She spends an hour cooking, which she may or may not report on the NSSE as "relaxing," and 20 minutes cleaning up. Uh oh, she's out of clean clothing! The half hour she spends walking to and from the laundromat, folding clothes, and hanging delicates up to dry is not reported, although the time she spends reading a textbook in the laundromat is reported as studying.

[7:00] Respondent spends 15 minutes replying to e-mails from a prospective subletter and a potential summer internship supervisor. She spends 5 minutes recycling junk mail and writing a rent check, and 5 minutes refilling her bicycle tires. She then spends 10 minutes removing makeup, brushing her teeth, and changing into pajamas. Her bathroom breaks throughout the day, which she may or may not report as "relaxing," have added up to 10 minutes.

[7:45] Respondent's total unreported time, from waking up to falling asleep, is anywhere from 6:35 to 7:45, depending on what she reports.

@Vectornaut I see, thanks for the elaborate clarification! Out of these things, some would count as "discretionary" (jung email) while others are not (sleeping, eating, housework). Mandatory and other attendance at university should also be covered. There's always a better study to be done!

@Raphael, I think part of the point is that there's no clean line between discretionary and non-discretionary time use. If a student spends an extra 20 minutes getting dressed each morning, is that discretionary? What if she does it to look more professional and be taken more seriously? Is exercise discretionary, given that it may be linked to academic performance (http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/03/vigorous-exercise-linked-with-better-grades/)? Yes, there's always a better study to be done—but the time researchers would spend doing it is discretionary as well...

In 1961, one could easily get a good job paying a reasonable salary with the possibility of continued promotions without going to college.  This is much less true in 2003, so many people are going to college not out of interest but as a default choice.  Hence, while the population going to college in 1961 did so because they were interested in academics, many of the people going to college in 2003 don't actually want to study.  Hence it is not surprising that, on average, they study less.

I agree with this; as a college student I see this all the time. It's sad, but that's reality. However, there is another perspective that should be explored - the academic that wants to study but simply can't; I explore this in my answer as an anecdote.

Much less not true? More true?

Follow-up question: are these uninterested students still successful? If so, why? Do the motivated students just do busywork? How does the extra effort relate to success? (Not that answering these questions should be answered here, just to provoke some thought.)

@Raphael, as I was an "interested student", I studies things that I know would not be on the exam, and read research papers for fun...  So is leaning more then is needed to pass while at university "busywork"?

@Ian When I wrote "busywork" I thought of assignments that the interested students were doing and the other not in the context of the certified standard the university establishes -- which is passing all courses. Of course you benefit from some (not all!) extra work.

@Raphael, going to university used to be about leaning, getting a degree was just seen as a nice side effect...

@Ian Yes, and I wish that were still true for most students. :/ Fact is, you (as a teacher, university offical or politician) can no longer assume a self-motivated student intrinsically interested in the material. Well, you can, but then your failure rates will go through the roof (if you maintain standards). Since there are all kinds of pressures for that not to happen, well...

Yes. This is the correct answer. Roughly the top two-thirds of American students go to college now. In the 1960s, it was more like 20% (actually, that's probably a generous estimate.) Obviously, the top 20% of students are, on average, more studious than the top 67%. By 2003, the percentage of Americans who had attended at least some college was higher than the percentage of Americans students who had graduated high school in 1961.

With some exaggeration, today's 4-year college is yesterday's high school. And what was available as public education is now bought at a high price from private (and even from public) colleges and universities. This is just one part of a 35 year trend toward privatization (in the US). All of the other things discussed (Internet etc.) apply to Europe etc. as well, but the problem raised is specifically American. (IOW, it ain't the Internet that's to blame.)

@Drew The fact that most public universities (at least in the state of Michigan; see my university's budget for example, page 13), receive less than 15% of their budget from the state and none from the federal government, it's not hard to imagine why they have to recompense 50% of their operating revenue from tuition. The lack of federal and state funding puts the burden ($15k/year) on the students, and since a bachelor's degree is essentially required nowadays, where does that leave students...

@ChrisCirefice: Yes. And like so many other short-sighted and self-centered Americanisms ($$$ in elections, medical care, retirement support, gun control,...), this one is specific to the US. Other countries pay for free education for all using taxes (and the taxes are raised more progressively). What the US does for K-12, in terms of public funding, other countries do for preschool and higher education as well. There is nothing new or unusual about this - the world's democracies have been doing it for decades.

@Drew Yes. Like I've said in another comment, the United States has its priorities backwards when it comes to education. Constant reductions in federal and state funding cause cuts in academic programs (such as music or foreign languages) in K-12, lack of support in pre-school programs for working parents, financial burden at the university level, and an overall reduced effectiveness and even interest in education. The U.S. needs to take a page out of Europe's handbook; this is one reason why I would without hesitation move to Europe - for the academic future of my (future) children.

As much as I'd like to leave this as a comment, I just can't. So here's a semi-rant but very informative piece of an American student's experience, and why we don't spend as much time studying as we may have 20-30 years ago.
As a full-time student with parents who have fallen into essentially infinite debt due to tax and bankruptcy laws, I have zero financial support in college. My tuition and living expenses are about $18,000 per year and yet, amazingly, my federal + state aid totals about $12,000 per year (and this is 90% loans!). Yay America!
I had academic excellence scholarships my first two years, but when I transferred universities I lost the ability to obtain scholarships; the reason remains obfuscated to me to this day; universities are businesses!
So where does that leave me? Approximately $6,000 per year in deficit to my institution. I am incredibly fortunate to have chosen a major which has led me, after two years of hard work, to have two part-time jobs at approximately $14/hour each after taxes. I work these two jobs a total of 30-40 hours per week in order to pay off this deficit.
Now, imagine a full-time student who is in class 15 hours per week, with 10-20 hours per week of homework, working 30-40 hours per week to pay for school. The total? Approximately 60 hours per week spent on school and work, and not counting study time.
I satisfy the minimum requirements for my courses and work - I do my homework and work and pass my tests; believe me, I'd love to spend time studying more what I care about, but time does not permit. I am a lucky one in that I seemingly absorb information like a sponge and I don't have to spend time studying in order to satisfy university requirements. Others? They unfortunately have to spend 10+ hours per week studying to remember what they learned.
The point is, Americans in general have more financial assistance nowadays than before; ironically, the cost to students is much higher. Thus, many students like me need to work to afford school (even after taking out the maximum of federal loans per semester). In needing to work to afford school, we become trapped in a self-fulfilling prophecy - students study less, care less about school, and drop out more, even though the cost (economically and personally) is more.
I study less because I have to do more to be able to go to school. I know that many others are in the exact same situation as me: less time caring about school and more time working part-time minimum-wage jobs to afford the ever-increasing tuition and living costs.
This is the current state of American public higher education, and it is not fun.
Edit: The issue of financial aid and taxes was brought up in the comments on this answer, so I'd like to talk about that in terms of the typical student.
Financial Aid
Financial aid can be broken down into 4 basic parts:

Scholarships

Usually privately funded by individuals or organizations
Merit/need-based
Essentially "free money" (well, you worked for it in high school, so technically not "free")

Grants

Usually funded by the federal government, state governments, or non-profit organizations
Usually need-based or promoting disadvantaged prospective students
This really is free money (for the student)

Loans

Funded by the federal government or private entities
Paid for by the student (generally after graduation)
This is the opposite of free money. Loan servicers make thousands of dollars off the interest.

Personal finances

Funded by the students' family members or themselves

The results
In my particular case, I receive $0/year in scholarships because I transferred universities and am no longer eligible to receive them; I receive about $1,500 per year in grants (the Pell Grant, specifically) because my parents make decent but not great money (middle class Americans); I borrow $10,500 per year in federal loans, and I fund the other $6,000 or so with my own personal finances.
The problem is that when this deficit occurs - when #1-#3 don't cover the entire cost of tuition + living expenses - it's up to the student or their family to pay it, and on time. Unfortunately, you can't just owe the university money when you graduate and pay it like a medical bill over time. You have to pay it up front or you don't get to register for classes; incidentally, if you don't register for classes for 6 months, you have to start paying your loans!
Like my family, the $6,000 per year to cover one child's education just isn't there. Most families I know don't even have $1,000 to spare, including mine. Thus, the student must take on the additional responsibility of working - and working a lot - because most jobs available to undergraduate students pay minimum wage. With some basic math, at $8/hour a student would need to work 15 hours/week year-round in order to make $6,000 to pay university costs. That is not time spent studying.
Even if I received the $6,000 per year in scholarships I was receiving at my first institution, I would still be borrowing $10,500 per year in loans. 4 years of that and the total debt after interest nears $47,000 and the interest continues to accrue during the repayment period. I am fortunate to be majoring in Computer Science, so I have very good job prospects to pay back such a balance. Others may not be so fortunate.
The solution?
As James mentioned in a comment, it seems that I was implying that we should increase the available financial aid (which would mostly be loans). In fact, we should instead work to solve the crisis of public education in America by reducing tuition costs. As mentioned, taxes play a big part in that.
I'm no expert, but it seems to me that cutting our $600 billion military budget by $50 billion to add to our currently $70 billion education budget would immediately solve a lot of problems for American students. Relieve the pressure from students to put themselves tens of thousands of dollars in debt to get a bachelor's degree and maybe we would have more time to study. But I'll leave that project to the budget board that drives the future of our country.

Even though this is anecdotal, and the original statistic in the question seems poorly supported, I wouldn't be surprised if this were quite common.

Chris, I am impressed with your full time studies while working 30-40 hours per week.  Your story gives me hope for the future.  However, I don't like your attitude towards the $12,000 per year in aid.  I'm in the phase of life where I'm paying quite a bit of taxes.  Part of that is going into grants and high-risk loans provided to students.  You might want to remove the "zero financial support" from your first sentence.  Instead of implying that financial aid should be raised, perhaps you should campaign for lower tuition fees.

@James Thank you, and valid point - the financial aid is obviously helpful, but the tax money you (and I) pay could be better spent toward education, reducing tuition costs and eliminating the need for such a large sum of  financial aid. And, I guess I'm not an economist so it's probably more complicated that that - but, the $10,500 out of the $12,000 I mentioned is purely loans. I'm borrowing from the federal government, not receiving actual aid. That's just the maximum I can borrow per year, otherwise I would borrow $18,000 and not work so I could focus on school :)

I had (basically) the same experience during my tuition. To go off what @James said, increased loan amounts would not have made me work less. So long as I was passing my classes, I would have put all my other time into working still - so I have less debt when I am finished.

@ChrisCirefice While the $10,500 is a loan, the interest rate is low enough that in the grand scheme of economics and financial management, you are getting a little bit of something for nothing. But even from that point of view, what you're getting is far less than $10,500.

@ToddWilcox Add that up over 4 years for a typical college student, 6 years in my case because I have 2 majors and a minor, and you have a huge sum of debt. Now, add the interest over a typical 10-year repayment and it's at $40k in principal but about $15,000 in interest. So no, it's not "a little bit of something for nothing". It's bad economics putting a huge financial burden on young adults who need college in order to get a decent salary, and who now have to work to minimize the penalties they have to pay for doing so.

@ChrisCirefice I assumed you were talking about Federal loans, which have a favorable interest rate. If your total interest is really $15,000 over ten years, then you are probably looking at a rate of between 6% and 7%. At the federal rate of 4.66%, your total interest would be about $10,000. That $5,000 difference is what I meant you would be "getting", although of course you're actually not losing it. But with a federal loan you would be getting value of the education and the ability to finance it for $5,000 less than "normal", which from a certain point of view is the government giving $5k.

@James - Most public universities are already taking in so little money that they are forced to provide a substandard education.  There is no way to lower tuition fees without either raising direct government aid to universities (which raises taxes just as much as financial aid to students) or doing as European universities (which are even more severely underfunded) do and failing half the students.

@ToddWilcox Just because private loans (which make money) decide to have 20% interest (as an exaggeration) doesn't mean the difference is money the government is "giving" you - the government could just be "breaking even" rather than "earning" money, with the interest rate covering the people who are unable to pay their loans (though I know that is not true - we are getting some amount or taxes wouldn't be there). You make a good point that the students do get something - but I do think it's less than (private loans) - (federal loans)

I suppose another outlook could be, "why do so many people attempt college and fail? - which drives up the cost for everyone who attempts" - Which could be creating a source of pressure, from society, for college to be "more easily achievable", so more people can graduate, so that it "costs less" - (because after graduating they can pay back their loans), but in actuality, making it "more achievable" means people can be paid less after graduation - because the degree means less and there are more people with them.

@DoubleDouble I think we can all agree that the public education system needs some work in general. The best we can do is raise the pertinent concerns (as I have in my answer) and make them visible to the people who have the power to make changes (e.g. federal and state officials, university administrators, famous economists, researchers, etc.) If nobody knows the struggle and there's no research to back it up, nothing will change.

I would note that 'America' can't really be generalized quite this far. In my state, the qualifications to get scholarships that cover nearly all of tuition are absurdly low. When I was in undergrad (2004-2008,) the qualifications to get a (state-funded) scholarship that paid 3/4 of tuition were the same as the qualifications for admission at the state university I attended. This (predictably) resulted in tons of people going to university to party for a year on the state's dime and then flunking out. About 40% of students were gone before the 2nd year.

Such bickering about giving students low-interest loans and griping about paying taxes! In the rest of the developed world, higher education, at all levels, is essentially free. For everyone. And by "free" I do mean, yes, that the people as a whole pay for it, through taxes. (And the rest of the developed world does not have a New Guilded Age tax system skewed in favor of the wealthy.) America is short-sighted when it comes to educating its people, just as it is for so much else.

+1 for "...it seems to me that cutting our $600 billion military budget by $50 billion to add to our currently $70 billion education budget would immediately solve a lot of problems..." - and not only in education!

@TT_ I'm no budgeting expert but it seems to me that we could sacrifice a few billion-dollar tanks and jets to help the future of our country (students/young adults) instead of trying to militaristically preserve its current state. Of course there's a lot of politics in the budget but seriously, the U.S. has its priorities backward.

I'm surprised nobody seems to actually be examining the paper itself.  I expect most here are academics, and this is a study after all.  I did this and already found potential issues.  I'm sure as you dig in further, you will find more to question.  Like any study, one must first find potential flaws and address then with a follow-up study.
The authors are examining surveys from several time periods done by different organizations.  There is very much a potential for framing effects, i.e. the way a question is asked can bias the answer.  The authors then seek to remedy this by taking variations on the survey questions and asking them to current students at a single major university in California.  They then use the variation in answers and use that to adjust the results of the surveys.
There are two problems with this:
1) it addresses only the framing effect and introduces its own flaw, which is that they are randomizing across students today at a single university in California.  There's no reason to believe that a student from 1961 from a different university would answer the same question in the same manner as a student from 2010 from that particular university.
2) In fact, I'm skeptical that they properly addressed the framing.  As I looked into how the datasets were gathered, I found they were gathered in very different ways and I can't imagine how you could remedy this by just giving students randomized survey questions at the end of class.  For example, the time-use survey from 1965 was done by asking respondents to keep a diary.  Then this was followed-up by an in-person interview.  Would results gathered in this way differ than asking people to fill out a form at the end of class?  In fact, it's well-known that one way to bias a study is to ask people to keep careful records.  By asking people to think whether they spend their time doing X, you actually influence the time they spend on X.  In this case, I imagine asking students to keep track of their study time would definitely affect the time they spend studying!
Given these issues that arose immediately from just a quick glance at the paper, I would say one should keep a skeptical mind about these types of research papers, especially when the authors don't make it easy to refute their claims; I wasn't able to find the survey questions they used, for example, to address the framing effect, nor did I find any discussion of how they addressed the differences in data gathering or record keeping.

If you ask about time spent studying for different classes and add up, you'll get more than 100 hours/week. Guaranteed.

I do not believe this paper. It is not peer reviewed. It is made to look like an academic journal but it is not. It is produced by a conservative think thank and hence is unlikely neutral. The methods are questionable. Did anyone find error information? I suggest skepticism. They draw conclusions their methods cannot support.

Excellent point, and the first thing that occurred to me: how can they possibly measure this accurately across so many decades and so many different colleges and student-contexts?  The only way to measure it at all is by asking students, which means you're really just measuring students self-impressions of how much they study, which is already inherently inaccurate in concept alone...

@RBarryYoung There are lots of ways to measure study time.  For example, I could operationally define study time as time spent in the library.  Step 1:  choose the operational definition that give you the result you want.

@emory Yes, but that is not an accurate nor meaningful way to measure actual student study time, which is my point:  Any claim to have done so is highly suspect.

Part of the reason could be more political pressure/prioritization to produce higher number of graduates, which has resulted in lower achievement standards, and hence easier coursework. As a related example from secondary education:

Most established tragically low expectations. President George W.
  Bush’s 2002 education reform, “No Child Left Behind,” only worsened
  this problem. It set the impossible requirement that 100% of students
  be “proficient” in reading and math by 2014, and punished schools that
  weren’t making adequate progress.
To bring themselves closer to 100%, many states simply lowered the
  score needed to pass their tests. The result: In 2007, Mississippi
  judged 90% of its fourth graders “proficient” on the state’s reading
  test, yet only 19% measured up on a standardized national exam given
  every two years. In Georgia, 82% of eighth-graders met the state’s
  minimums in math, while just 25% passed the national test. A yawning
  “honesty gap,” as it came to be known, prevailed in most states.

http://fortune.com/common-core-standards/
I know at the community college where I teach, a combination of pressure for higher graduation numbers, and also concern for students holding full-time jobs and caretaking families, has over time led to simplified coursework and fewer outside homework assignments.

Why would the students of 1961 spend more time "studying" than students today?
In 1961 in the US, there was military conscription.  Students who flunked out could be drafted and sent into the combat zone.
In addition, many universities had mandatory ROTC.  When your ROTC instructor plows through, it is better for you if you are studying than if you are goofing off.  If you can goof off with a book in your hands, you are "studying".
Is there a decline in educational excellence
Yes, there is a well documented decline in educational excellence.  http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2009/11/19/dreams-of-better-schools/

In some respects, it has always been so. With the possible exceptions of the postal service and the motor vehicle bureau, few public institutions rival our schools in public dissatisfaction. “We can all agree,” according to the conservative magazine The Weekly Standard, “that American public schools are a joke”—and it is not hard to find comparable statements from commentators on the left.
What should one make of such claims? In a study published more than a decade ago by the Century Foundation, Richard Rothstein, who later became an education columnist for The New York Times, rattled off a list of similar lamentations stretching back more than 150 years. As early as 1845, when the nation’s first standardized test was administered to a group of fourteen-year-olds under the direction of Horace Mann, the examiners were shocked by the “absurd answers,…errors in grammar, in punctuation and in spelling.” Writing in 1902, the editors of the New York Sun declared that America’s schools had sunk to the level of “a vaudeville show.” By 1955, a best-selling book, Why Johnny Can’t Read, charged that the failure of the schools was “gradually destroying democracy.”

Hesiod has been reported saying "When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly disrespectful and impatient of restraint". True. But I can - as one single point of reference - compare the levels of education when I was studying at university to the level now, and it has massively dropped. We had covered in the first year material which now takes 2-3 years to cover (if at all). True, we were not business-savvy and were not internet-streetwise, so that's where the extra intellectual resources may have been redirected nowadays.

@CaptainEmacs Correct.  The decline in academic excellence has been going on since at least 750 BCE and probably longer.  Professors tend to graduate from highly competitive universities and teach at less competitive universities.  If a professor graduated from a less competitive university and ended up teaching at a highly competitive university s/he would probably think that academic excellence has gone up from his/her school days.

Excellent point, very perceptive, I upvoted you. However, I am still in contact with my alma mater and I am afraid to say, the same effect, albeit weaker (so that's why I agree you have a point), is visible there. A recently published study suggests grade inflation in the US where the notable exception was Princeton. So, it may be a real effect after all, and our patronisation of the elders actually inappropriate. Rather, the system may be "ratcheting back" to quality whenever the "leidensdruck" ("suffering")  becomes too high and true (rather then pseudo-)reforms are undertaken.

I'm not upvoting this, because the "Yes" in the 2nd part of the answer seems contradicted by the quote -- or perhaps it's a sarcastic commentary, in light of the conventional counterargument that "elders have have always groused about the youth and therefore they must be wrong". But at our institution, for example, we could absolutely show documentation of testing material over the last 50 years or so that shows the assessments getting much easier and more rudimentary over time.

@DanielR.Collins It is my belief (for which I do not have evidence to share) that in general students today are better than students of yesteryear.  This belief is not necessarily inconsistent with academic decline at your institution.

In think the answer given that states "standards have fallen" - which  is mentioned by your study authors is pretty much the reason.
However, there is a bit more to it - at least at a guess.
For example, here in the UK, successive governments have been league-table obsessive with the deranged expectation that the performance of schools and students can be measured accurately.
Along the way, GCSEs are also graded based on statistics where the most frequent mark is a middle C and the rest are arranged around it - this means worse performance by all does not result in worse marks.
But coming back to the league tables and rankings:
A bit issue of ranking is that nobody wins when someone does badly but everybody wins when they do well.
Exam boards have no incentive to provide hard papers, as schools prefer to pick the easy one - for a good ranking.
In addition, the current UK system relies a lot on fairly simple tests that can be marked quickly by the teachers paid to do so (still takes months...) - from questions that guide you, to multiple choice questions (at A-level at least). Especially multiple choice questions can also be solved by deduction rather than knowledge. In addition the format of today's questions has changed a lot.
In the past one may have asked you have a system with A, B, C, D work out X, Y, Z.
Today you would be given a system with A, B, C, D, told to work out X, then assume it is H, continue on to Y, assume it is I and then continue on to Z.
And there is technology:
In the past, if students wanted to cheat, they would spend a lot of time preparing their notes somehow, however the act of preparing notes is effectively revising.
Today, a student wishing to cheat would more likely try to use a mobile to google an answer.
And lastly, "learning to pass the test". I guess partially due to the ubiquitous access to "knowledge" on the internet, actually learning has become less important. It has become fairly standard to learn for tests only with students "cramming" before a test and then forgetting everything later...
Incidentally, simple questions that are easy to mark are a part of the problem here, if questions required and actual understanding of the problem, more time would have to be spent revising.

Most of this I have seen since 1970 or so, with rather little change.

I personally feel you're more or less right, but this is really more of a rant than a stackexchange answer, as I hope you can see

@Au101 - I suppose it is both. Is it a bit of a rant? Yes. But it is also the answer. Having said that, I won't stop anybody from editing bits that they feel are badly worded (or potentially incorrect).
Given that Stackexchange also puts dates on posts, there wouldn't be any mistaking the answer should things change in the future as it would be linked to our current time.

Note that the 'technology' you mention was not the same in 2003 as it is today. Smartphones were extremely uncommon in 2003. iPhone wasn't released until 2007 and Android was released in 2008. The old Palm devices before that time were very slow (as were the pre-3G iPhones, for that matter) and were quite uncommon. We did have graphing calculators and laptops, but it was generally obvious if you were using a laptop during an exam and putting notes in a graphing calculator wasn't much easier than sneaking them in on paper.

While I can't speak for the U.K., I was in college in the U.S. shortly after the time of the second data set (I started in 2004) and I would say that basically none of what is mentioned here is really the answer for why the average time spent studying for college students in the U.S. Nearly 100% of the difference can almost certainly be explained by the fact that the top two thirds of students go to college now, whereas it was something more like 20% back in the 1960s. The average study time of the top 67% is less than the average of the top 20%. This is not really surprising.

The source article is not very clear on the definition of "study time", and it appears to be inconsistent with federal law.
In order to be eligible for federal student aid, a student must be enrolled in a full time course of study. 14 hours per week of study time do not qualify as full time studying. For financial aid purposes, full time is 12 credit hours for undergraduates, or 9 credit hours for graduate students.
http://financialaid.gmu.edu/federal-stafford-student-loan/
At the school where I teach, this usually translates to taking three classes of 4 or 4.5 credit hours per quarter. Each class requires about 4-5 hours of classroom time, plus another 8-10 hours of prep/homework time, for a total just shy of 40 hours.
This article claims a "study time" of 14 hours in 2003. My best guess is that they are only referring to classroom time. If that is the case, the statistics may simply indicate a shift from classroom time to homework from 1961 to 2003.
There are other possible explanations.
What is needed is a more rigorous definition of what this study was actually looking at.

The article seems clear to me; it says that the data comes from time-use surveys which "asked students to report the number of hours per week they spend studying outside of class." This answer doesn't seem relevant.


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How much revenue do academic authors make on their published books?
Is there any dataset that look at how much revenue academic authors make on their published books?

I am aware of the question How much do Springer-Verlag authors make per book sold? but answers there focused on royalties (i.e., data on number of sold books is missing), and the question was on Springer-Verlag only.
I am most interested in the computer science field (machine learning and natural language processing in particular), but I am curious about other fields as well. I am most interested in the United States but curious about other countries as well.

What type of books are you interested in?  Stephen Pinker makes loads of money from his popular science books, while publishing an edited collection may not make anything.

@jakebeal most interested in books related to their work as researcher or teacher.

Follow-up question: If an author does not intend to make much revenue from a book, why not making it open-access?

I signed a contract with a large academic publisher to produce sort of a lab manual and I may be the only person who ever uses it unless I get really lucky. Going with a big publisher is a way to get as many eyes as possible looking at your book and hope that they adopt it. However the revenue is totally based on the agreed royalty on the price of the book so I'm not sure why you weren't happy with the other post.

@RickHenderson The question on this page is a reference request for actual data with a decent sample size.

@Franck Dernoncourt that's why I posted a comment and not an answer.

@FranckDernoncourt see this post, I also added it to my ansewr https://martin.kleppmann.com/2020/09/29/is-book-writing-worth-it.html

I co-authored a research monograph in a rather specialized area of applied mathematics.  I have received about $300 in royalties over several years.  I think this is typical.
For most authors, the important consideration is not how much money they will make, but how effectively the publisher will be able to distribute the book.  This usually means going with a well-established publisher.  I know some highly-respected authors that also shop around to find the publisher that will distribute their book for the lowest reasonable price.

I've earned about $800 per year on average for my share of the royalties on a graduate-level textbook that has been moderately successful over the last 13 years.   The money certainly isn't sufficient compensation for the time that has gone into the project.

It varies, but often, nothing. I have three experiences with academic books:

As a postdoc, I was signed up with Springer to write a book together with my advisor. According to the terms of the contract, our only recompense would have been one copy each of the finished book. The book never got finished anyway.
More recently, I wrote a book chapter. Springer again. I don't know whether the editor received any royalties, but I received only a copy of the book.
I was also asked recently to contribute a chapter for a book to be published by a university press. I declined when I realised that they were asking authors (including the editor) to pay a hefty publication fee, even though they had a guarranteed market (two profs would be using it as a text) and would also be charging students for the finished book, with no royalties back to authors.

Gee... bad luck. I made $76 in royalties on the chapter I wrote.  Total.  Over the useful print life of the book.

Considering the unfair - to put it politely - terms for authors, I'm wondering why one would prefer to publish a book or a chapter by using traditional publishers, when nowadays we have a lot of self-publishing and on-demand publishing options. Some presumably valid reasons include formal peer reviews and scientific publisher's brand. While the latter is, unfortunately, part, ingrained into current academic culture, the former can be easily reproduced by asking independent experts to review one's manuscript and publicly share the feedback.

@AleksandrBlekh as someone who recently published a book (graduate level math textbook), I don't really see what you mean about the terms being unfair. I get royalties for however many copies my book will sell. Granted, it won't be many, but I knew that when I started writing the book. Can you elaborate what exactly you see as unfair?

@DanRomik: Sure. The fact that authors know upfront that they will get laughable money (see Bob Brown's comment above as example) as royalties doesn't make the situation fair. My point about fairness is attributed to the profit split between authors and publishers, which I find ranging from unfair to outrageous. The latter especially applies to journal publications. P.S. Congratulations on publishing your book.

@AleksandrBlekh I think you're failing to take into account the fact that my and Bob Brown's (and other academic authors') "business model" is very different than the publishers' business model. In my case, I actually did get paid for writing my book - by the university I work for, and by the NSF. The little royalties I get are extra money that if you think about it probably ethically should belong to my employer (the fact that it doesn't is arguably an unfairness in a reverse direction to the one you're talking about). ...

... So, to summarize, maybe some academic authors are in fact treated unfairly by publishers, but your argument making that claim is in my opinion rather weak and incomplete. I personally don't feel that I've been treated unfairly.

@DanRomik: It's not that I was "failing to take into account...", but I was not aware of the fact that the "academic authors' business model" is dominant (primary) throughout the whole academia ecosystem (that is, if it's true). If that's the case, then I agree that it's rather fair (for book authors with such arrangements). Having said that, if my understanding of journal publishing is correct, that subset of academic publishing does not imply similar arrangements at all and is unfair in both paywall & open access models. These issues are so well-known that I'll skip relevant comments.

@DanRomik: Just to clarify: the last sentence in my previous comment is likely not perfectly formulated, but it implies my assumption that you are well aware of those frequently discussed issues.

@AleksandrBlekh regarding journals, I agree that there is unfairness, but the people who are treated unfairly are the readers not the authors. Authors are academics who are paid by their universities to write and publish research. With a few exceptions, they shouldn't have an expectation to make a profit from publishing papers. What is unreasonable is when publishers manage to capture an exorbitant amount of profits at the readers' expense, while providing a fairly low value service that is easily replicated. But that's a different story and has nothing to do with what we're discussing here.

@DanRomik: I'm glad that you agree on journals. However, your point on lack of unfairness to authors is questionable to a degree. I think that it is not that authors should expect to make a profit from publishing their work, but that universities might not necessarily fully compensate authors for knowledge creation and dissemination through their pay. How can we accurately (read: fairly) measure monetary value of research results in a form of societal progress, research commercialization and positive effect of affiliated authors' achievements on corresponding universities' reputation?

From http://ndsuspectrum.com/textbook-scam-14-billion-industry-robs-students-professors/ (mirror):

According to the National Association of College Stores, out of every dollar spent on a textbook, about 77 cents goes back to the publisher. Publishers make 18 cents in pure profit. The writer takes home about 12 cents. This does not consider the gravy bookstores take in on buying and selling used books, where they keep all the difference, and can sell a used book for $30 until the binding falls apart. Then, they can sell it for $25 as a loose-leaf edition.

As a side note, from the same article:

Four publishers control 80 percent of the $14 billion textbook market. They are Pearson, Cengage, Wiley and McGraw-Hill. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, textbook prices have risen 800 percent since 1978, which is way beyond inflation. For comparison, health care has inflated 575 percent and home prices have gone up 325 percent. From 2002 to 2012 the cost of textbooks rose 82 percent. The textbook market is a $14 billion industry.

At the risk of self-promotion, I can offer one more data point.
I self-published an undergraduate computer science textbook through Kindle Direct Publishing, which pays 60% royalties minus printing costs.  I set the list price of my book at $27.50, and Amazon's printing costs are $6.51, so my royalties are ($27.50 × 60%) – $6.51 = $9.99 per copy.
I sold 139 copies of my book in August 2019, for which KDP estimates I will receive $1,382.63 in royalties at the end of October.  (There's a tiny discrepancy from currency conversion of royalties from non-US Amazon sites.)
Like Hadley Wickham, I give away my book for free.

Self publishing works for those who have a way for potential users to actually find your book. You don't have anyone but yourself promoting it in most cases. But if you have sufficient reputation in the field that people can easily find you then it can work out well. And if a publisher did have control over your book, the cost to the buyer would be much (much) higher.

Personal experiences here: the authors/editors generally get 10-15% of sales revenue. Note this is sales revenue. If the publisher e.g. offers a discount, authors also get less royalties. If the book is pirated, authors get nothing. Royalties are split between all authors/editors.
Monographs: A monograph probably won't sell more than 500 copies at best (last I saw 300 is more common). Order of magnitude estimate: if each book costs $100, then the author of a monograph might get $3000.
Textbooks: An undergraduate textbook can sell tens of thousands of copies or more if it's widely adopted, but if not then 1000 copies or fewer is common. Graduate-level textbooks have sales more in line with monographs (albeit somewhat higher).
Review volumes: Chapter authors can receive something too during contract negotiations - my experience was that chapter authors get a copy of the book but that's it. Review volumes don't tend to sell many copies - definitely not more than 1000, and closer to monographs than to textbooks.
Popular-level books: These can sell 1000+ copies if they're reasonably well written, but the median is lower at maybe 500-600. There's a long tail as well - a book can sell millions of copies (c.f. Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time). Note popular level books usually have a significantly lower retail price compared to the more technical books.
Caveat: popular level books have a bigger potential market, so with a dedicated publicist one can increase the number of books sold by an order of magnitude or more.

Textbook sales vary a lot depending on the discipline and level- a successful graduate textbook in a specialized field will sell fewer copies than a successful lower level undergraduate textbook for a general education course.

@BrianBorchers edited to distinguish between the two.

Hadley Wickham recently posted on Twitter that he makes $1.68 per copy of R for Data Science. The book currently sells for ~$20 on Amazon.
Granted, he gives away the book for free online and the purpose of his tweet was to tell people to not feel bad about getting the book for free.
Edit:
I recently found a blog by where Martin Kleppmann takes about royalties from his book, Designing Data-Intensive Applications.
He did quite well, with close to 1/2 a million in revenue, but he was his publisher's 2nd highest selling book in a hot field.
As quote from 29 September 2020, which answers the OP's question:

The total sales since the beginning have been (in US dollars):

Print: 68,763 copies, $161,549 royalties ($2.35/book)
Ebook: 33,420 copies, $169,350 royalties ($5.07/book)
O’Reilly online access (formerly called Safari Books Online): $110,069 royalties (I don’t get readership numbers for this channel)
Translations: 5,896 copies, $8,278 royalties ($1.40/book)
Other licensing and sponsorship: $34,600 royalties
Total: 108,079 copies, $477,916

I don't think this is a good answer, since the main variable - how many copies are sold - isn't mentioned.

And how many copies were sold? This is the question? As I know, publishing such technical books by famous publishers can provide a remarkable revenue.

@Eilia, one gets a "remarkable revenue" mostly for elementary (first year) textbooks, not advanced work. The market is too small.

@Buffy, Agree with you but I know some (computer-centric) publishers such as Apress and PacktPub pay the authors in a reasonable way.

@Eilia, the income per copy may be reasonable, but the volume is small for most advanced books.

@Buffy, maybe, but they said they pay a fixed amount at first. After that a specific percentage to ,e.g., 2000 copies and so forth. I know that the authors never can benefit as publishers from their works but they can benefit from side advantages. They may be asked to run workshops or video course. In fact, it's more for become famous in the field.

@RichardErickson Thanks very much for sharing Martin Kleppmann's blogpost, it is very insightful! I wonder whether he considered self-publishing his book, since he seemed to have done most of its promotion.

@FranckDernoncourt good question. I don't know, but I just added a list of revenue from the blog. He would not have gotten the last 3 items if he self-published. Plus, a Publisher lends credibility to many buyers so I don't know if we would have sold as many books. And, I'm guessing their copy editor helped. Self-publish versus trad publishers would be a good question for this site.

I was paid 50K with no royalties for a proprietary textbook and 25K when it was revised. Individual chapters for another text paid between 4 and 6k

Please specify the currency.

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For a professor in the US, How important is one's relationship with the dean?
Through a colleague, I have entertained the idea of switching my current workplace.  The program itself is relatively new, at a US research university, while the dean has been there for 20+ years.  I get along with everyone, including the director.  However, I am a bit cautious of the current deans' expectations and direction for the program compared to what they would like to invest (monetary) in it.
The faculty have said it should not be much of a concern as interactions with the dean are rare, and other administration are more involved with actual implementation.  They also say the dean may leave in the next 5 years.  I have a feeling this is somewhat being said to appease the concerns.
As a general question, how important is the relationship or shared vision with the dean on a faculty member in terms of being able to implement change (for the better, in ones own opinion) in the day to day business, considering this vision is shared by other current faculty who are also slightly in disagreement with the current dean.

Why is there a close vote on this, particularly without comments?

This will depend heavily on the country you are in.  I edited the title to specify the country.

If you change a position, you negotiate your needs for the duration of a sufficiently useful time horizon (say, 3-5 years, as a ballpark number). What you do not negotiate, you can assume not to be agreed upon and can change on short notice. I would not make this dependent on the cordial relation with the dean (although that doesn't hurt).

The question, although reasonable, seems hard to answer in general terms.  Programmatic change is generally not done by individual faculty members in a department, but by groups and/or committees of them, in confluence with the department Chair/Head.
Many programmatic changes do not "go through" the Dean -- in particular "day to day" business usually does not -- but those involving nontrivial financial changes usually do.  For all but the smallest colleges it is rare for individual faculty members other than the Head to have substantive conversations with the Dean about such things: again, it would be better if they went through the department as a whole and/or the Head.  When it comes to financial outlays that must be approved by the Dean: I've seen plenty of instances where the Dean approves but "just doesn't have the money," so I would have to think that even mild disapproval of the initiative would sink it pretty thoroughly.
Perhaps the most useful thing I can say is: look at where the program is now and look at where it was in the recent past.  If you are really unhappy with the current position or the perceived trajectory of the department, then you should not count on being happy with it in the future (no matter who the Dean is).  Conversely, if those look reasonably good to you, talk with the faculty and see how they feel about the future.  If there's some important change coming around the bend, I hope they will let you know.  But it is more likely that being in the department for the next ten years or so will be roughly like having been in the department for the last ten years or so.  The Dean does not reside in the department, so unless s/he is actively at war with the members and interests of the department, some disagreement in the overall vision need not affect the actual working life of a professor in the department unduly.
By the way, the bit about the Dean "may leave in the next 5 years" sounds way too vague to take seriously.  Maybe s/he will and maybe s/he won't.  If s/he does, maybe the next Dean will be better or maybe worse.  It is very hard to plan for the future with regard to this kind of thing: honestly, I probably wouldn't even try.

If she does, maybe the next Dean will be better or maybe worse. Indeed, I have never expected things to get better with a next dean.  That would seem particularly foolish given the current trends of higher education.

The note about leaving is a little relevant to age of the dean, but the point that the next one could be worse is good.  Your answer was along the lines I was thinking, so it is helpful as a bit of a confirmation.

That is very hard to answer. Sizes vary, organizations are different. Some departments are mostly autonomous, others depend in minute detail on "decisions higher up". And that can even vary among neighbouring departments, depending on number of students, prestige of faculty, amounts of grants and consulting, and so on.

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Can a journal withhold referee reports from the authors of a rejected paper?
We submitted a paper to a journal published by Cambridge Press. The paper was submitted last year (2013). After five months we got the decision yesterday. We don't mind the decision, however, we are shocked by the editorial comments that although they have the reports they don't relay the reports to the author/s for papers which are not proceeding further. Is this approach common in journals? We feel this is very unethical from any author's point of view.

This seems very strange. What is this journal? I see no reason to keep the journal name secret.

Modern Asian Studies

I once had an editor refuse to send me a referee report because a paper was accepted without revisions, so his reason was that there was nothing to do, so why did I need the report? I was quite peeved by this, but then it was kind of the opposite situation, so there considerably less cause for complaint. :-)

Just to clarify: Not relaying the reports to the authors was (according to the editorial decision) something that was not done for reasons specific to your paper but as the default action for rejected papers?

Not specific to our paper.

The comments on the answers made me think of a possible variant of this question: what if the referee asks the editors to forward their reports? Referees are owner of the report and should be entitled to ask that, while they can't reasonably forward their report themselves due to anonymity issues. User15667, I suggest that you try this out if you happen to write a review for a paper rejected by this journal in the future, just to see what happens.

I consider that not giving authors the ground on which the decision was taken to be both unethical and bad for science. How should the authors improve the paper if they don't even know why they have been rejected? How can they get a sense of what the community expects from them?
I am not alone in this: the International Mathematical Union issued ethical guidelines for journals, including that the default policy should be that referee's reports are forwarded to author. However many journals give the referees the opportunity to give comments solely for the editors, and some editors prefer not to forward some reports to avoid pissing off the authors. I never heard of a journal with a policy of never forwarding reports of rejected papers before; this sounds absurd or really cowardly.

Now I get the picture and see that I am not alone in finding this cowardly and unethical.

It is often cowardly and unethical but there is the black swan event that makes it not entirely justifiable.

I suspect things are rolling differently in social science and science journals...after a review of the posts!

@user15667: the habits are likely to be different (even between different nature science fields and between different social science fields), but I do not see why the ethical and efficiency reasons for giving authors the precise grounds on which their papers are decided upon should not apply equally to all fields.

Hmm...points to ponder.

The reports are the property of the editor of the journal as they are the commissioning body.  They do have the ability to share parts of the reports to the ms authors but they are under no legal obligation to. In some cases (especially with negative reports), the referees may ask that the editor to not share the comments.
There are really no grounds for effective mechanism to appeal this type of policy.
The best suggestion would be to go to another journal -- perhaps one with a faster turnaround time. And ask some of your colleagues to read your ms and see why it might not be getting the positive results you had hoped for.
Followup: The journal has no legal obligation to tell you why they denied your paper. They might have a moral one (such as the disciplinary association urging them to), but no legal one. If they have it written in their bylaws that they will, then of course they will, but there is no legal requirement to.
This is similar to universities not having a legal (as opposed to moral) requirement to tell you why they didn't hire you or private granting agencies not having a legal requirement to tell you why they didn't give you funding. Again, if their policies (or if there is a federal/state/local requirement, etc. then they will) dictate they they must, then they will but this is rare to non-existent for private institutions (including non-profits).
Source: I've sat on the editorial board of the flagship journal of my discipline (in the social sciences).

but they are under no obligation — [citation needed]

@JeffE - see edits.

There will always be a fight between 'good' and 'evil', 'sense' and 'non-sense' in the academia. We just need to be more prepared for all this.

@User15667 - agreed.

I find the emphasis on legal obligation a little strange: until a journal accepts your paper and you sign a contract with them, what legal obligation could they possibly have to you or you to them??

(For that matter, if the sentence "The reports are the property of the editor of the journal as they are the commissioning body." is meant to be interpreted legally, I doubt it is true.  I don't see how a document written by one person can become the property of another person without the first person signing some acknowledgment of this.)  What statement is your "Source" a source for?  I don't understand how saying "I've served on the editorial board of an unnamed journal" could be source for anything.

Your conclusion "There are really no grounds for appeal of this policy." is incorrect.  Perhaps there are really no legal grounds, but that's not the same thing.

@Pete - That's exactly my point. The editor/journal has no obligation to share anything with the ms author about the process. If you have contradictory information, please share it.

@JeffE , you can appeal to your deity, or to the sympathy of the editor, but there's no higher power to a journal editor that a msg author could appeal to for something such as feeling that they are entitled to see reader reports. If you feel there is another form of appeal possible, by all means list it.

Not being under the legal obligation to share something is hardly synonymous with that thing being your property.  It seems obvious to me that the referee reports are not owned by the editor in any legal sense: if anyone "owns" them, it would have to be the referee who wrote them.  But I don't see this going anywhere useful.

There's a big difference between an appeal being groundless and an appeal being ineffective.  If the editor already lacks the integrity to reveal the referee reports, he's unlikely to grow a conscience on appeal.  That does not imply that the appeal is groundless.  (A longer term form of appeal is the court of public opinion.  If everyone knows that this particular editor hides referee reports, people are less likely to submit to his journal.  But that doesn't actually help the present appellant.)

I agree. Yet, issues need to be out in the open. Thanks for sharing your views.


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How can I transition from industry to academia without having a college degree?
I've been working in the "private sector" since my late teens. I've gathered good web-development experience to be able to find work quite easily thankfully. I was never really interested in getting a degree, I only have a high-school diploma. I was passionate enough to study for myself and learn new things from colleagues and friends.
Web-development is still my passion, however recently I've been thinking about the actual work that I've been producing over the years for the companies I've worked for. It seems as though that even if the work is fun and challenging, I still get very little recognition for it: once the work is produced, my name is barely ever mentioned. I've been asking myself if all these things I'm building are really going to change someone's life.
Then I look at academia and research. Here people are doing things they actually love and study those subjects deeply with passion and generate new knowledge to help others within a specific field.
Has anybody ever switched from an industry job to an academic job? I'm wondering if it's possible to do research without a degree. What suggestions might you have for someone in my situation that wants to get a glimpse of the life of an academic where you can build and study something you actually love and not always do what "the company" wants.

Just for clarification: Would you be satisfied helping build software for researchers based on their requirements, or are you looking to generate your own ideas and pursue them?

You've really spotted my concern: I guess I'm a bit tired of working based on other's requirements (private sector). I want to generate and pursue my own ideas.

Instead of going to academia and research, which normally require a PhD degree, have you considered go for a start-up, in which you are able to "build and study something you actually love and not always do what "the company" wants"?

The startup world is exciting and certainly have thought about it. However, it's highly based on consumerism, while I'm mostly interested in research that doesn't always lend to building a product someone needs.

Another option if you find your job tedious, is to contribute to an open source project. Of course you will still have to work to support yourself / family but it is your chance to contribute to something useful for everyone. Although chances are, that you will find out that working mostly for free (like a PHD) is not that much fun. So, do this first and if you like it, then consider research.

What country are you in? I think the answer to whether or not it's possible to do research in academia without a degree will depend on the location.

If recognition is your key desire, academia will only be marginally better for you than your current situation. Just because your name is on a paper, doesn't mean anyone is going to care about your work.
I feel like there's a couple of threads in your question outside of recognition though. I'll make some comments where I can.

To transition into academia and start working on your own ideas you'll need to probably start a degree program. Masters and PhD programs, more than anything, are training programs on "how to work on stuff".
It seems obvious right now that you have hundreds of ideas and the skills to pursue them -- but the academic context is a bit different. Research typically fits into a larger context than a single project, and you'll need to  be able to sell your ideas to people who are experts in the area; most research projects that aren't 'consumer' oriented produce papers, not projects, so you'll need to learn how to write papers. The requirement for evidence is (or at least ought to be) high, which means that you'll need to learn what kind of evidence you have for your hypothesis, how to gather it, how to present it. All of this, the politics, the nitty-gritty of putting together a paper, is what you ought to get from a degree program. You can try to do some of this on your own to be sure, but it's not an easy ride.
If you want to get a feeling for what working in academia is like, without getting the degree, I'd seriously look into the possibility of becoming a programmer for a university. This helps you get a feel for what the work, environment, people are like. It could be that if you find the right project, your influence will be sufficient that you can get the recognition you want, without having to get the degree.
Reading your question, I get the feeling of a grass-is-greener illusion. One thing that might be worth considering is: How much of the problem just your job? Could you find work at another company, in another niche, doing some other kind of programming that could be better for you? I feel like you could get 99% of your desired outcome not from academia, but from a job change. Maybe you need to go deeper into the stack; work with a company that builds the web technology you use. Maybe you need to go higher in the stack; start building client applications to the web technology you use. Maybe you need to get away from the web... perhaps start looking at transitioning into games, or hardware, or.... the list is endless.

You're right, it's probably a grass-is-greener feeling I'm having. I'm just fascinated by the possibility of studying and doing what you want, and at anytime being able to work on other things. You set the requirements. In the private world, the clients do.

@LucaMatteis True... but be aware, even in academia, you're going to have a boss; be that your supervisor or your funders. I wish you the best though; if academia is the dream, follow it, even if it means going through a degree program!

@LucaMatteis I believe this comic (courtesy of PHD Comics) accurately describes what you can expect from academia, with respect to "doing what you want": http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1436

Like Matthew, I get the feeling reading your answer that you don't have an extremely clear idea of what switching into academia would entail, and a pretty starry eyed view of what life in academia is actually like.  While it's true that at its best, being an academic lets you work on exactly what you want to, pushing forward the boundaries of knowledge.  But it's a long slog to get to that point, and even when you're there, there are a lot of other issues at play.
Of course, if you're independently wealthy, you can do whatever you want, but for most of us, we need to have a job, and just like any other job, a lot of the parameters are dictated for us.  You also often have to get outside funding.  In both cases, it's true that you aren't literally assigned research projects from on high (though some days that would be a lot easier than coming up with them yourself), but you do have an eye constantly on impressing your colleagues (on various levels) who make or influence decisions about funding, promotion and hiring.  Not to mention that one often has teaching or service duties which really are assigned from on high (though admittedly, I think these still have a lot more autonomy than jobs in most fields would).  I'm sure you can find plenty of horror stories about how this can go awry just reading the archives on this site.  And that assumes you can get a job, which is far from assured (especially if you want to stay in Italy!).


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Which part of the GRE is more important to admissions committees?
I graduated from the University of Michigan with Psychology and Communication Studies degree.
I am planning to apply to Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) master's degree and Information Science master's degree.
For those of who do not know, HCI is an interdisciplinary field, combining mainly computer science, cognitive psychology, and design.
I have two GRE scores and I have trouble deciding which one to send for my application.
Score 1: Verbal: 158 (78%) / Quantitative: 165 (91%) / Writing: 4.0 (58%)
Score 2: Verbal: 162 (89%) / Quantitative: 161 (81%) / Writing: 4.5 (78%)
The second set of scores has higher verbal and writing values, but the first has a higher quantitative value.  Which should I send?

I have no idea why this question was closed. This is a question related to applications to graduate school, which is clearly on-topic.

@hciapplicant, I've tried to make the question more broadly applicable.  I hope you don't mind.

Be sure to read the application instructions carefully. It's possible that they want you to send all your scores.

@DavidKetcheson I don't mind at all. Thank you for your thoughtful response.

First I will say that in some departments, GRE scores are a very important component of your application.  For instance, I work in a department where each year we get applicants from hundreds of different universities in 70 or more different countries.  Comparing GPAs between all the different educational systems is very difficult (we do it, but place relatively less weight on it due to uncertainties).  Meanwhile, the GRE is a single standard.  Also, whereas some departments in the USA can rely primarily on GRE subject tests, it's quite rare for international students to take those.  The bottom line: good GRE scores will never get you admitted by themselves.  But in some places at least, poor GRE scores will eliminate you.
Now, as to whether the verbal/writing or quantitative scores matter more, I think this depends heavily on the field.  If you were applying to a math/science/engineering program, the quantitative score would be by far most important.  It's generally thought that good writing can be taught to you later (and technical writing is different from the persuasive writing the GRE tests you on, anyway).
I assume that if you were applying to an English or fine arts program, the verbal/writing scores would be more important.  The fields you're applying to are somewhere in between, and I don't know them well enough to say for certain.
[Edit: see @shion's answer for the opinion of someone who knows more about your particular field.]

I doubt it really matters which of these scores you send, for two reasons:

I don't think GRE general test scores are particularly important in the first place.  How they are used may vary between institutions or fields, but in my experience admissions committees do not pay any attention to them.  Maybe there are other committees that do pay attention, but I'd be surprised if anyone relies on them as a major component of the evaluation process.  [EDIT: As David Ketcheson's answer demonstrates, there's more diversity in how these scores are used than I had realized.]
Small, random fluctuations are normal if you take the exam several times.  This is widely known among people on admissions committees, and it's reinforced by seeing the applications that include multiple scores.  This means no sensible admissions committee member will attach great importance to small distinctions.

So I believe you are overthinking this, and either set of scores will be fine.

Is it possible to send both?

ETS will send both if you'd like, and that could also be a reasonable option.

I understand I could send both of the scores if I wish, but I noticed that you can only list one score in the application form. If I choose to send both, should I just list the most recent one and send both scores anyway? Thank you!

In my department (HCI/Information Science), the popular notion is that having a very good score on your GRE will not get you in but having a poor score (relative to the rest of the applicant pool) can keep you out.
This is especially true for PhD applications and somewhat true for MS applications. For the latter, the pure numbers (GRE/GPA) matter more while for the former, your statement of purpose, research experience and letters of recommendation are what tips the balance in your favor.
In sum, generally for most HCI/IS programs, all parts of the GRE matter equally.
Logistically, it also does not matter which score you send because ETS will send all your GRE scores in the last 5 years i.e. admissions committees will see everything.

Thank you for your comment. ETS has recently revised their system and now students can only choose whichever score they wish to send. Admission committees are no longer be able to see all of the test scores unless I send all of them.

Ah. Thanks for the information. I did not know that. Even this year I remember seeing multiple new scores from new applicants.

I think it was August 2013 when they changed the policy, but I am not certain. I checked again and found out that you can actually send multiple scores if you wish.

Score 2 Writing: 4.5 (78%) is significantly better than Score 1 Writing: 4.0 (58%). This is one of the indicators that you may have better chance to succeed. Your presentation skills will be very much needed in graduate school.
Score 1 Quantitative: 165 (91%) is better than Score 2 Quantitative: 161 (81%) but not that much. They are both fine. If the graduate school program you are applying to concentrates heavily on math/stats, Score 1 looks better.
I just learned info from the comment the OP made, the student has the option to send single score or multiple scores. (This is why I like this site so much. We exchange info.)
My suggestion is, send Score 2 if applying to a design oriented  HCI program (your presentation skills will be important in this case). Send Score 1 if the graduate school program is math/stats oriented. Send both scores if you are not sure.
Also, please note that not all schools require GRE. Good Luck !

@hciapplicant I updated my answer based on one of your comments.

I want to supplement Anonymous Mathematician's answer.
I would lean towards the second set of scores. Writing skills are often overlooked in academia, but since you will be writing a (hopefully great) thesis, I would put the most emphasis on the writing.
Your other scores are basically the same.

In my heavily quantitative social science program, I have heard some professors saying that GRE quant score is a good predictor for 1st year GPA of grad students. I do not know how seriously they consider GRE math score into admissions, but I am sure they give it more of a passing notice. That said, I think both your scores look fine and they do not really differ much. If I can, I would just send both.


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Should undergraduates add a "course-based research experience" section in their CVs?
I am an undergraduate student in the US getting ready to apply for some research internships as well as cold emailing some professors for some opportunities (all in the US). This will be the first time I will be applying for a research internship; that is, I do not have any previous internship-based research experience. I've noticed that undergraduates who have completed research internships tend to have a "Research Experience" section on their CVs. I have, on the other hand, completed a few courses with significant research components.
Is it acceptable if I include a "Course-based Research Experience" in my CV wherein I briefly explain (using a couple of bullets) the kind of research I did in these courses or am I better off having that information in a cover letter? The issue is that some internships don't allow me to submit cover letters and for the ones that do, if I try to describe the kind of research I did in detail, the cover letter ends up being longer than ideal.

Can you explain what it means to you to have a course with a significant research component?

@BryanKrause By that, I meant classes with research papers for (mostly final) assignments.

I wouldn't normally consider a research paper to be "research experience", assuming these are the sorts of papers that summarize work by others without making some novel contribution to science/human knowledge. That's just a normal part of coursework that is expected from the education section of your CV. Unless there is something about these papers that makes them different than how I am thinking...

@BryanKrause This question was written with the discipline of economics in mind. In the papers I mentioned, I summarized other's works for a literature review section, but I also conducted statistical testing on my own. Hence, would it be acceptable to have a "course-based research experience" section on my CV? Would you recommend merging this experience somehow in the education section itself?

Not sure what the standard is in economics. Sounds to me like just basic coursework but I'm a biologist. In biology we do lots of courses where there is a lab component where we do experiments, get results, do statistical analysis, and write into papers, and also courses with substantial papers written based on literature (sort of a review-style). I would not consider either of these to be research experience in biology.

@BryanKrause I just want to communicate, through my CV, that I am not a total newbie to the research process, and I am not sure what the best way of doing that is. Do you think a couple bullets in the Education section would be acceptable (under a sub-header titled "course-based research experience" or something similar)? Do you have any other suggestions for how the same can be achieved? Thanks!

I think I've said all I can without knowing your courses or the field of economics. My view is that it is disingenuous to present the type of work typically done in courses as "research experience". The correct way to identify that level of work is through your educational background. That is, if it's something everyone in your major would do by their 3rd undergraduate year, then all you need to do is indicate you have completed 3 years of university education within that major. I cannot say whether the work you are describing follows this or not.

Just call it "Research Experience."  The fact that you happened to earn course credit at the same time you did the research is irrelevant to the needs of employers.

Perhaps this is discipline specific?

I am looking to apply for research internships in Economics if that's what you're asking. Do you have any specific insights regarding this? Also, I think, at least in Economics, the idea is that the kind of research one does as part of a course is not as in-depth as one does in an internship, both time-wise and level-of-difficulty-wise.

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