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The University of Florida series, Measuring University Performance, will continue with the issue of November 1, 1995, focused on student academic profiles. Other issues will take up additional topics reflecting the university's commitment to measuring university performance in quality and productivity of research, teaching, extension, and service.

All of us at the University of Florida welcome comments and suggestions prompted by this series. Please write to the Office of Institutional Planning and Research, PO Box 113115, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611-3115 (ufdata@aa.ufl.edu).

Summary

Classroom utilization represents the efficiency of the university in using every seat physically available to teach classes. However, the goal of efficiency of classroom use and the goal of reasonably small classes conflict. The university's classrooms, built to various sizes, do not exactly match the optimal size of classes. At some times of the day rooms are too small for some of the classes and at other times rooms are too large. Optimal filling of classrooms would certainly defeat the goal of maintaining a substantial proportion of classes at relatively small size. The faculty have developed rather clear expectations about class size. Some instruction, beginning foreign language, writing classes, some mathematics classes, must be taught in small groups for effective instruction. Other classes, large survey lectures and similar foundation courses, work exceedingly well with lower division courses such as music and art appreciation. Other classes combine large lecture sessions with small discussion sections or laboratories. With the advent of varieties of alternative technologies, television, distance education, and the like, the correspondence between the physical room size and the actual enrolled class size will become increasingly irrelevant as distance education reaches large numbers of remote students, many of whom will learn at different times and locations. The following charts illustrate some elements of classroom utilization and class size. These data help us understand how the university uses its space and where we can recapture some space for additional use. Overall, this analysis shows the university reaching a limit in its ability to provide additional classrooms, especially for classes of small to medium size.

This chart illustrates the difficulty of matching inflexible room sizes with classes of different sizes. Small classes take place about half the time in rooms of the right size and about half the time in rooms that are too big. The classes of medium size, from 31 to 120 students are more likely to take place in classrooms that have more seats than needed, and even in our larger classes of 120 or more, about 60 percent of them are in rooms larger than needed. This, of course, comes from the fact that rooms are often at 150 or 200 or even 400 seats but the class is scaled for a smaller size. These data indicate that the university can increase its enrollment and classroom utilization, but only at the expense of increasing class size to fully fill the available physical seats.

Difference Between Class Size and Room Size (1994-95)

As we look at classroom use, we also need to see how well we use the space available on a day to day basis throughout the week. This chart shows the percent occupancy of classrooms by the day of the week and the time of day. Clearly the university reaches rather full occupancy by 8 a.m. on most days and stays level until after 4 p.m. After a short lull that coincides with the dinner hour, occupancy rises for the night classes after 7 p.m. and then tapers off by 9 p.m. This pattern is typical for a residential, full-time student campus. Higher occupancy of classrooms is difficult to achieve because of conflicts that arise in an individual full-time student's schedule. Parents and students both resist night-time classes, although as enrollment rises and scheduling conflicts become more difficult to resolve, we have seen an increase in night-time studies. If the university is to expand its night-time schedules it will have to address the issues of lighting, parking, and security in much greater depth than it does today. Although Friday classes are slightly less prevalent than the Monday through Thursday schedule, this reflects the pattern of classes that have regularly scheduled meetings on Monday and Wednesday with discussion sections and laboratories scheduled at many different times throughout the week. The laboratory schedule reflected in the second chart does not quite match the classroom schedule shown in the first chart. Labs are predominantly scheduled in the afternoon, peaking at about 3 p.m., and are mostly scheduled Monday through Thursday. Partly this is the natural tendency to cluster scheduled activities over the first part of the week and partly it is the result of leaving Friday more open for laboratory set ups, clean-up, and other maintenance chores.

Classroom Utilization by Day of Week and Time of Day, Fall 1994

Lab Utilization by Day of Week and Time of Day, Fall 1994

Parents and students often wonder about the percentage of large and small classes likely to be taken during a college career. This chart illustrates the percentage of classes of various sizes taken by the graduating class of Spring, 1995. As indicated in these data, most classes are either relatively small, under 61 students (about 60%) or are relatively large, over 120 students (about 24%). A few are in the middle between 61 and 120 students, (17%). Another way to express this is to recognize that about 77% of the classes taken by the graduating students fell below 120 students. Very large classes are relatively few, if only because there are very few classrooms on campus over 150 to 200 seats.

Percent Classes Taken by Graduating Seniors by Class Size, Spring 1995

Most of the graduates in the Spring,1995 class had the majority of their classes taught by ranked faculty. A few students, about 3 out of this class of almost 3,000, had a third or less of their classes taught by ranked faculty. Another 18% had between a third and two-thirds of their classes taught by ranked faculty. Most of the class, some 82%, had two-thirds or more of their classes taught by ranked faculty. These data include all sections, including lab sections, discussion sections, and other attached sections taught by teaching assistants as part of a course taught by ranked faculty. If we had been able to separate the classes from the support sections, an even higher percentage than the 82% would have had over two thirds of their classes taught by ranked faculty.

Number of Graduates Showing Percentage of Classes Taught by Ranked Faculty
(Spring 1995 Undergraduate Class)

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