Generally the amount of time during which learners are actively working on tasks and are effectively engaged in learning. There are different approaches to time in education. For example, a distinction can be made between: (a) officially allocated time, which includes school time (i.e. the total amount of time spent in school), classroom time (i.e. the amount of time spent in the classroom), and instructional time (i.e. the portion of classroom time devoted to the teaching and learning of curriculum subjects); (b) engaged time or time-on-task, which refers to the portion of time during which students are paying attention to a learning task and attempting to learn; and (c) academic learning time, which indicates that portion of engaged time that students spend working on tasks at an appropriate level of difficulty for them and experiencing high levels of success (see, for example, Berliner 1990).
See also ‘
Instructional time’.
