Investigation and study on how medical college freshmen make use of their spare time

Abstract

Objective To understand the utilization of spare time among medical college freshmen at different academic levels and to explore the factors that affect undergraduates' utilization of spare time and their solutions. Methods The questionnaire is designed by myself, including after-school time planning, arrangement purpose, arrangement content and time allocation, etc. 392 freshmen with three different educational levels were selected by cluster sampling. The questionnaires were issued and recovered in anonymous way. Data was recorded and collated by EpiData software, and descriptive analysis and chisquare test was used by SPSS 19.0. Results There are basic or frequent arrangements in spare time for 40.5% (155 people) of medical students. For 61.5% (236 people) of medical students, relaxation is the purpose in arranging their activity in spare time. Medical students who surf the Internet, read books and sleep in spare time account for 28.7% (110 people), 28.5% (109 people) and 22.3% (85 people) respectively. 60.5% (232 people) of medical students chat and play games on the Internet. There are significant differences among the three groups of different academic levels in the purposes of arrangements, activity contents, internet surfing time and attitude of part-time job (P<0.05). Conclusion There are deficiencies in the utilization of spare time among medical college freshmen, and different academic levels are probably one of the influential factors that affect college students' utilization of spare time. Key words: Medical students; Academic level; Spare time; Investigation