Credit Hour to Contact Hour: Using the Carnegie Unit to Measure Student Learning in the United States

Abstract

The credit hour unit of measurement in academia was created over 100 years ago to measure teacher productivity. Despite a recent review by the Carnegie Foundation, the definition remains unchanged. Federal guidelines have used the Carnegie unit to determine federal funding of universities. As such, the credit hour is a critical part of accreditation. In this paper, we examine definitions of the credit hour as contact hours and explore university interpretations used in policy making. We call for faculty to investigate how their universities and accrediting bodies are defining student learning based on the credit hour to contact hour definition.