I spent 500 hours writing my masters dissertation – this is how I spent my time.

Well, like most things in life, it depends. It depends on you (the researcher), the nature of your topic, your supervisor, and a couple of other factors. So while I can’t tell you how long it will take you, I can give you an accurate breakdown of how much time it took me. And in case you’re wondering, yes, I tracked every single work session I spent towards my dissertation. I’m a data-driven dude – get over it.

Why did I track every single session? Because I’m OCD. Because I was curious. I wanted to understand how my time was spent on the various stages or chapters of the dissertation. More importantly, I wanted to compare my time with the NQF’s (National Qualifications Framework) prescriptions.

South Africa’s National Qualifications Framework (NQF) uses a credit-rating system that prescribes the minimum number of ‘notional study hours’ students should dedicate towards their studies (more on this later). So, when I saw the minimum number of hours for my dissertation – it sparked my curiosity to find out how long it would take me.

Before diving into the data, I’ll lay out more information to contextualise a few concepts.

If you’re extremely curious and can’t hold your horses, I’ll tell you now. It took 500 hours and 4 minutes of work time to complete my dissertation. NQF’s prescribed minimum hours for a 60-credit dissertation is 600. Before your mind goes there, let me kindly stop you – this is not a brag. I probably spent another 500 hours actively thinking about my dissertation while driving, exercising, and pretending to listen to my friends. I also probably spent another 500 hours subconsciously thinking about my dissertation.

The National Qualifications Framework (NQF) is SA’s effort to address the need for a national education system that –

1. provides, enhances and assures quality learning
2. is responsive to the external, ever-changing environment
3. recognises learner achievement of skills and knowledge nationally
4. promotes lifelong learning and skills development
5. contributes to the full personal development of each learner
6. contributes to the social and economic development of the nation

The South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA) is the oversight body of the NQF and the custodian of its values and quality character (South African Qualifications Authority, 2020b). The NQF mandates SAQA to oversee, implement, and advance the NQF’s objectives – which include (Yes Media, 2020):

• creating a single integrated national framework for learning achievements
• facilitating access to, and mobility and progression within, education, training and career paths
• enhancing the quality of education and training
• accelerating the redress of past unfair discrimination in education, training and employment opportunities

The NQF consists of three coordinated sub-frameworks, each managed by a separate quality council:

• General and Further Education and Training Sub-Framework (GFETQSF); managed by Umalusi
• Higher Education Qualifications Sub-Framework (HEQSF); managed by the Council of Higher Education South Africa (CHE)
• Occupational Qualifications Sub-Framework (OQSF); managed by Quality Council for Trades & Occupations (QCTO)

The NQF has ten levels of education (1 – 10) arranged in ascending order of cognitive complexity.

General and further education occupy four levels (1 -4), higher education occupies six levels (5 – 10) and occupational qualifications occupy eight levels (1 – 8). It’s important to note that two qualifications within the same level only mean they are broadly comparable in learning achievements. However, they don’t necessarily imply that the qualifications have the same purpose, content, or outcomes.

The NQF defines a qualification and a programme as follows:

“A qualification is a formal recognition and certification of learning achievement awarded by an accredited institution.” A programme is a purposeful and structured set of learning experiences that leads to a qualification. For example, you will get your qualification upon graduating with a civil engineering degree (programme).

The NQF adopts a nested, four-layered approach to qualifications design. The layers progress from general to specific learning outcomes.

This layer provides the qualification’s context and generic standards for the complexity of knowledge and skills. It comprises the level and level descriptor.

The level is the NQF level, as shown in the image above. The level descriptor is a set of qualitative statements describing learning achievements, learning outcomes and assessment criteria for each NQF level.

The NQF uses ten categories of level descriptors to describe each NQF level:

1. Scope of knowledge
2. Knowledge literacy
3. Method and procedure
4. Problem-solving
5. Ethics and professional practice

6. Accessing, processing and managing information
7. Producing and communicating information
8. Context and systems
9. Management of learning
10. Accountability

A master’s qualification, for example, has an NQF level 9. The scope and knowledge level descriptor includes: demonstrating the ability to engage and critique current research and practices.

This layer gives more information on qualifications. It comprises the qualification type and qualification descriptor. The qualification type refers to the ‘types’ of qualifications attainable in South Africa. The qualification descriptor describes the qualification’s exit level, credit rating, purpose, and characteristics (skills and knowledge areas intended to be developed). Descriptors enable comparisons with other qualifications and provide a basis for programme design, review and approval.

The HEQF has eleven qualification types mapped onto six NQF levels (occupied by higher education). The qualification types are:

• Postgraduate

6. Postgraduate diploma
7. Bachelor’s honours degree
8. Master’s degree
9. Professional master’s degree
10. Doctorate (degree)
11. Professional doctorate (degree)

• Undergraduate

1. Higher certificate
2. Advanced certificate
3. Diploma
4. Advanced diploma
5. Bachelor’s degree

You’ll notice from the list above that the qualification types fall into three broad categories – certificates, diplomas, and degrees.

A master’s qualification, for example, falls under the “Master’s degree” qualification type and has the following in its qualification descriptor:

• Minimum total credits: 180
• Purpose and characteristics: to educate and train researchers in contributing towards knowledge development at an advanced level.

The third consists of the designator and indicates a qualification’s broad study area, discipline or profession. Designators only apply to degrees (bachelor’s, master’s and doctorates); they do not apply to certificates and diplomas.

An example of a designator is the “of science” in Master of Science. When abbreviated, the “of” is omitted. For example, the abbreviation of Master of Science is “MSc.”

The fourth layer consists of the qualifier, describes the area of specialisation, and may be used in all qualification types (certificates, diplomas, and degrees). The linking word between the qualification type (or its designator) and the qualifier is “in.”

For example, a Master of Science in Project Management specialises in “project management.

Each level descriptor and qualification descriptor is expressed in terms of learning outcomes. The NQF makes assumptions about the learning volume students require to achieve the intended results. Before 2009 (when the HEQF was affected), study volume was expressed in terms of the ‘number of academic study years.’ For example, completing a bachelor’s degree should take three years.

However, unlike the ‘old system’, the HEQF uses credits to measure the learning volume required for qualifications. That is, credits are the notional study hours students need to achieve a qualification’s learning outcomes. One credit is equivalent to ten notional study hours.

It’s important to note that the credit rating is independent of the learning delivery mode (e.g. face to face, online, e-learning, etc.) and encompasses all the learning activities students engage in – which include: contact time (lectures),  self-study, work-integrated learning, assignments, projects and examinations.

A typical programme will have different modules (or courses), each with its credit rating. For example, my master’s programme had courses like: Project Management and Systems Theory (20 credits), and Project Risk Management (20 credits)

A final note: credit ratings are guidelines and expressed as minimums. So, if you have a 20-credit module like Engineering statistics, the NQF suggests a minimum of 200 study hours. Some people need less time, and some people need more. The amount of time you need does not reflect your intellectual capacity. So don’t beat yourself up if you take longer. Also, don’t feel yourself if you require less time.

The minimum number of total credits required for a master’s degree is 180, which is equivalent to a minimum of 1800 notional study hours.

As a quick aside, there are two variants of a general master’s degree:

1. A master’s degree by dissertation
2. A master’s degree by coursework and dissertation

Regardless of the variant, the credit rating for a master’s degree is still 180 (at minimum), so all the modules should add up to 180. Since the first variant only has a dissertation ‘module’, the dissertation has 180 credits.

The second variant has various modules in addition to the dissertation; it follows that the dissertation will have fewer credits. Typically, a master’s of the second variant will have a dissertation module with either 60 or 120 credits.

My master’s degree was the second variant with a 60-credit dissertation.

All that rambling to get here. Anyway, my master’s programme had a 60-credit dissertation. Therefore, it should have taken me around 600 hours (at minimum) to complete. However, completing my dissertation took me exactly 500 hours and 4 minutes distributed over 411 work sessions.

Here’s a quick summary of my stats:

• Average time spent per work session = 1 hour 13 minutes
• Total amount spent = R3,785
• Most time-consuming chapter = Chapter 2 (literature review) 176 hours, 36% of total time
• Time spent implementing feedback (from supervisor and examiners) = 44 hours, 9% of total time
• Time spent on productive sessions = 264 hours, 53% of total time
• Day of the week that I worked most on: Saturdays, 128 hours, 26% of total time
• Place I worked most at – home 171 hours, 34%

See the Excel sheet if you want to get a better idea of how I tracked my time (Download Excel time tracker template).

I spent 36% of my time (176 hours) on the literature review (chapter 2), which is not surprising given that I had to find, read and write about the literature. The discussion and analysis (chapter 4) was the second most time-consuming (14%) and included data analysis and discussion of results. Again, no surprises here.

The last chapter (conclusion and recommendations) was the quickest to write up because I didn’t have to analyse data or look for literature.

You’ll notice that I have a section called ‘All’, which took 32 hours (6% of my time). I spent this time reviewing the entire report, fixing typos, refining diagrams, formatting, and other general items. Unfortunately, I didn’t send my paper to an editor. I felt like I knew my ‘target audience’ and the topic better than an editor would. Moreover, I was pressed for time. I would use an editor in future, however.

I spent 10 hours (2% of total time) doing administration, like looking for a supervisor, planning the timelines, applying for the ethics clearance, filling in the intention to submit form, etc.

I spent about 5 hours (1%) of my time interacting with my supervisor – primarily via virtual calls and email correspondence.

I spent 44 hours (9% of the total time) implementing feedback from my supervisor and the examiners. I spent most of this time implementing supervisor feedback before submitting the dissertation for examination.

You’ll see that I spent 53% (264 hours) of my time in ‘good’ or ‘excellent’ sessions where I was happy with my productivity. However, I also spent a disappointing 38% of my time (192 hours) in sessions with average productivity. In these average sessions, I was somewhat satisfied. But I also felt like I had never made enough progress.

How did I define enough? I didn’t. Instead of using a criterion to judge my productivity, I went with my feeling. So, this portion of the results is subjective. Not scientific, I know.

I spent 7% (34 hours) of my time on ‘bad’ productivity sessions where I made little to no progress. The biggest reasons for these bad sessions were:

1. Distractions – by phone calls, friends passing by, strangers, etc. You’ll later see that I spent a lot of time in cafes and restaurants. I’d often see friends or meet strangers and have chats that would distract me. While I don’t regret the conversations, they gave me a feeling of severe unproductivity. I often mitigated this by wearing my headphones and my infamous ‘I’m busy, so don’t you dare disturb me’ look. The same look I have now as I type this.
2. Going off on wild tangents – while looking for research, I often found other interesting but unrelated articles that led me down rabbit holes. I managed this problem by saving these irrelevant articles for later reading. It never always worked! I also wasted time on ‘small’ things, like trying to draw my diagrams, until I was satisfied with the look.
3. Feeling super sleepy. Sometimes I’d start feeling sleepy just after opening Microsoft Word. But instead of ending the work session, I’d fight it, only to realise that so much time had passed with no work done.

I was working full-time, so 47% (234 hours) of my time came from weekends. The rest came from weekdays.

Looking at the weekdays, you’ll see that I got more time out of Mondays (12%) and Wednesdays (12%). I was motivated to write on Mondays because I had the weekend’s momentum. And on Wednesdays, I didn’t have many commitments after work.

Hey, don’t judge me for working on Fridays.

I mainly worked at home (34% of the time), followed by the office (29% of the time). I spent 33% of my time at cafes and restaurants; I spent R3,785 on coffee (mostly) and snacks/food.

I also worked at ‘other’ places like at the airport, on airplanes (while flying), and at public libraries.

While the NQF offers guidelines on how much time you should spend on your studies, it’s not prescriptive. It depends on you. One piece of advice that helped me is:  get used to writing. I was fortunate because I had many assignments during my coursework, before the dissertation. These assignments forced me to get comfortable with writing. By the time I started my dissertation, I had already racked up tens of thousands of words.

Those of you wanting to study while working, good luck 🙂 I hope this article helps you in some way. See the references section if you want my Excel sheet template for tracking your own time. I’ve also included a list of the tools I used during my dissertation.

Ciao, amigos.

• Microsoft Excel – To track my sessions and analyse some of my data. Download my Excel time-tracker.

• Microsoft Office  – To type my dissertation, obviously.

• Microsoft Teams  – To record my interviews.

• Otter.ai  – To transcribe my interviews.

• EndNote  – To manage my references and format my citations. I saved hours by using this tool!

• NVivo 12  – to analyse my qualitative data.

• Windows script  – I wrote a script to open all the apps above by double clicking one file. See the code below: