Table 6 PUNW institutional analysis—Theme 1

Prioritization of efficiency in the face of extracurricular pressures

s = 4

“[In a] typical work week I work 40–45 h, but as of recently, I've been working 50 h, around there, a week. A lot of it tends to be extra hours on the weekend, so that kills my time to do homework. Besides working, I'm doing two other summer courses, and I'm taking care of my mom who's essentially disabled… It's kind of been tough with that, just to manage time and do different things that I normally wouldn't be doing.” (PUNW: Student 3)

Unfortunate nature of student’s forced expediency

s = 4

“Well, a lot of people have internships and everything else so, I'm used to just working with a group of friends and stuff. But since a lot of peoples’ schedules aren't flexible, this was like, a situation where we had to do homework by ourselves.” (PUNW: Student 4)

Identification of inefficient resources

s = 4

“The [discussion forum], I don't really see a use for that. Most people don't post on it. It's essentially like the discussion forums [on] Blackboard, and those rarely are used, here at least. I think the [discussion forum] portion [of the blog] should kind of be eliminated for the most part unless the professor was answering more on there.” (PUNW: Student 2)

Identification of inefficient instruction

s = 4

“Doing examples in class is fine, but when everyone is just watching the video on their phone, it's not really doing anything, everyone's just sitting around talking. That's time that could be used otherwise.” (PUNW: Student 2)

Resources allowed for self-directed learning and engagement when needed

s = 3

“…[the professor] will do two or three problems from the end of the chapter and then he'll make us do one. Then that's like, oh crap. He was showing us how to ride the bike. Now we have to ride the bike. We have to learn the steps and how to do them ourselves.” (PUNW: Student 1)