The first phase of the Time-Use, Time Poverty and Teachers’ Work project was the piloting of a mobile phone app designed to collect information on teachers workload and work intensity. Study 1A was designed to enable a small number of teachers (7) to use a digital app to record their teaching activities across a time slot of 30 minutes. The purpose of the trial was to ensure the app’s appropriateness and ease of use for recording time use activities.
First, we met with teachers to complete permission forms and take them through the purpose of the research. At this meeting they were required to download the app onto their phones, with our support. In the same meeting, we mapped out a schedule for 30-minute observations of teachers in their classrooms – a timeslot which they would report on, on the app. These occurred over the following 2 days, Tuesday 29th March and Wednesday 30th March 2022 . We observed six teachers, and got feedback on the app from seven. The teachers worked across a range of teaching areas and age groups.
As this was a trial of the usability of the app by teachers, the 30-minute timeslots were observed by team members who recorded activities carried out by the teacher during the timeslot. The teachers were required to complete the activity diary after the 30-minute teaching timeslot, as well as answer the other sections of the app (pre school day questions, and post school day questions). After the observations, at a time convenient to the teacher, we interviewed each teacher about their use of the app and any feedback they might have had for improvement.
We have grouped their feedback intro three subheadings as the feedback is most pertinent to different groups. Specific and detailed feedback related to the technical aspects of the app is presented for the app designers. Feedback which relates to the detail in the three surveys is presented in the section below for the research team.
General Feedback
Generally, the feedback on the app was positive. In particular, participants commented on the following:
a) the app was easy to use and fill in even when they were busy;
b) it did not significantly add to their workload, they could fill it in walking between classes
c) the questions made sense and were easy to answer;
d) the ‘clock’ answer option where participants estimated the number of hours work they had remaining was favourably commented on.
Technical Feedback
There were some technical issues which we hope to resolve, based on the pilot study and feedback from the teachers. These include:
a) difficulties in downloading the app to an android phone.
b) downloading the app is more complex than anticipated.
For the forthcoming study, it will be necessary to embed instructions in the app or on some accessible platform that clearly walk participants through the process (see Android users above). We also think that some troubleshooting/FAQs need to be included for remote downloads
c) problems with notifications
Teachers reported that no notifications came through in the morning to enter data for the first survey of the day. However, notification to fill in the app about the teaching time worked.
d) summary of responses after completing surveys.
Respondents may want to view their responses after completing the survey and we wondered whether this would be possible. This would not necessarily enable them to edit their responses, but just to view their answers.
e) some of the codes need editing.
Information was gathered from participants as to whether or not the codes embedded in the app adequately represented teacher time use. Improvements were made based on feedback.
Other insights
Although the app enables teachers to record both teaching and non-teaching activities, inside the classroom and outside, the observations for Study 1A were only of classroom activity and we focused on instances of decision-making, across 30 minutes based on the relevant app codes for the classroom teaching setting. We took notes on visible decisions made by these teachers because these act as proxies for the complexity (both cognitive and psychological) of their lessons. Decision-making was considered to occur whenever there was interaction between the teacher and the class, or the teacher and individual students in the class, or the teacher and resources being used in the lesson. This interaction was further disaggregated into the following categories:
• Class talk (interaction, teaching) with whole group, smaller groups, or individual students.
• Questions posed by the teacher to whole group or to individuals
• Questions posed by students for the teacher
• Behaviour management of the whole class or individuals
• Feedback on classroom activity or learning for either the whole group or smaller groups or individuals
• Activities which were related to admin tasks (e.g. responding to a teacher aide, handing out workbooks, starting up computer) or resources (getting materials for students to use)
For each instance of any of the above, we allocated a tick, to quantify the number of times we observed teachers making decisions. The following table shows our count of observed decisions and each teacher’s report of decision making.
| Participant | Reported Decisions | Observed Decisions | Ratio of reported to observed |
| 1 | 31-40 | 64 | 0.62 |
| 2 | 50+ | 89 | 0.56 |
| 3 | 1-10 | 115 | 0.09 |
| 4 | 11-20 | 97 | 0.21 |
| 5 | 31-40 | 89 | 0.45 |
| 6 | 11-20 | 117 | 0.17 |
Table 1: Participant Teacher’s reported decisions versus observed decisions
For each class we observed the teacher exceeded 50 decisions according to our observations. However, their reporting in the app and follow up interviews vastly underestimated this. For example, teacher 3 reported making 7 decisions only, largely related to behaviour management. However, we observed 115 decision-making moments across the 30 minutes, based on the combined categories listed above. This presents some insight into the intensity of teachers’ class work as they manage many competing aspects of time use.