COURSE CONTACT HOUR CALCULATION GUIDELINES
AND
COURSE CONTACT HOUR WORKSHEET
COLLEGE OF ALLIED HEALTH SCIENCES
EAST CAROLINA UNIVERSITY
May 14, 2008 (Revised March 2009)
Due to the requirements within allied health disciplines to provide extensive skill
development experiences to students as a part of their comprehensive educational
experience, faculty often spend more time with students in demonstration and practice
sessions than are covered by the semester hours of the course. This is often mandated by
a department’s national accreditation standards or professional credentialing board.
Regardless of the reason for these additional contact hours with students, over and above
what is covered by the course semester hour requirements, faculty should be able to
document these additional contact hours with students.
A faculty/student contact hour (FSCH or contact hour) is referred to as instructional
contact between a faculty member and a student(s) beyond the semester hour (sh)
requirements of a course. It could be based on one-on-one contact in hours with a
student, or contact in hours between a faculty member and a group of students at one
time, which would be reflected in the course syllabus and on the COURSE CONTACT
HOUR WORKSHEET. However, a contact hour is not increased for work with more
than one student at a time—this is a direct report of contact hours and not a student credit
hour (sch) or faculty workload analysis.
The semester hours contact between a faculty member and a student(s) of a course (15
contact hours for each 1 semester hour) would be subtracted from the total contact hours
to yield contact hours that are not considered a part of the required semester hour contact.
This would NOT include: office appointments with students to discuss an assignment,
papers, grades, the syllabus, etc.; routine class preparation time (e.g., preparing the
syllabus, lectures and PowerPoints, writing tests, grading tests and papers, and reasonable
lab preparation and maintenance). Although preparation time varies by the type of class
and the course rigor established by the professor (some require more tests and written
assignments than others), this is not a part of the contact hours reasonably assigned to the
course.
This form is only used to compute contact hours for lecture, lecture/lab combination, and
purely lab courses only. Additional processes and forms will be developed for computing
contact hours for Thesis and Dissertations (chair or committee member), and clinical
fieldwork, once this initial process is proven successful.
For lecture/lab courses where the students practice in a lab what is learned in lectures,
those contact hours with students while in scheduled lab time specified in the syllabus
could be considered under contact hours. Two examples follow.
Example 1
A 3sh lecture/lab course that offers three hours of lecture a week (45 contact hours over
the semester) and 2 contact hours with the professor in the lab each week (30 contact
hours over the semester), would result in a total of 30 additional contact hours not
covered under the 3sh course. These additional contact hours would then be recognized
by the department and college as additional required contact hours assigned to that
course. Whether the contact is with one, several, or a group of students at one time, it is
still considered one faculty contact hour, not 1 hour multiplied by the number of students.
However, if a faculty member meets with each student individually (e.g., to
observe/assess a skill), then each individual contact hour counts as a FSCH, which leads
to the next example.
Example 2
A 4sh course is divided into 2 hours lecture and 4 hours lab per week.
The student contact time is 6 hours per week. However, split labs are provided and,
therefore, the instructor’s contact time is 10 hours per week or an additional 60 hours per
semester in student contact time. There are also 3 lab exams during the semester. Each
exam is one hour per student (30 students in the class). For the 3 hours each student is in
the lab exam the instructor will spend a total of 90 hours or 87 hours over individual
student contact time (3 hours were credited for official examination time). Given the
above scenario the instructor will spend 147 hours of contact time beyond the regular
student contact time (90 hours) for this 4 sh course.
Following are steps in completing the COURSE CONTACT HOUR WORKSHEET.
1. Consult with your department chair and other faculty that have taught the course
to be reviewed. The final analysis should reflect the average standard contact
hours of the course regardless of instructor.
2. Review the syllabus and course requirements to determine total contact hours
(those covered by the sh credit for the course and those that are above and beyond
the sh credit). It is recommended that FSCH be included in each course syllabus
to specify the amount and purpose of these faculty/student contact hours.
3. Complete the CAHS COURSE CONTACT HOUR WORKSHEET making
sure that the course syllabus is attached and reflects the FSCH requirements.
4. Submit the completed WORKSHEET with the attached syllabus to your
department chair for review with the faculty and for approval.
5. Once this process has been completed on a course it will not need to be conducted
again unless a future change in the course and syllabus results in a change in
faculty/student contact hours.
COURSE CONTACT HOUR WORKSHEET
COLLEGE OF ALLIED HEALTH SCIENCES
East Carolina University
May 5, 2008 (Revised March 2009)
In an effort to determine the required student contact hours of a faculty member
(Faculty/Student Contact Hours) in a specific course over and above the semester hour
requirements, the following form should be completed by the department, approved by
the chair and submitted to the Dean’s Office as documentation for the reported contact
hours. The purpose of this formula and subsequent contact hour data collection is
primarily two-fold:
1. determine the extent of contact hour generation in CAHS over and above the
semester hour requirements (e.g., preparation and teaching time, writing and
grading tests, grading papers and assignments, preparation of the course syllabus
and course materials, office hours); and,
2. share contact hour data with IPRE, university administration and the Division of
Health Sciences so they understand the extent of student contact in CAHS beyond
semester hour requirements.
Department Name:________________________________________ Date:___________
Course Name and Number:__________________________________________________
Course Semester Hour Credit:__________________________
Contact Hour Activity (attach course syllabus):
Approximate number of students in contact at one time (individual or group):__________
Approximate number of students over the semester (individual or group):_____________
Total number of contact hours whether individual or group (rounded off):_____________
Chair Signature:__________________________________________ Date:___________