Time-Use, Time Poverty and Teachers’ Work
Workload reduction has long been and remains a QTU priority. In partnership with the Queensland University of Technology, the QTU has been investigating the impact of workload and work intensification on the teaching profession.
The research team have been regular presenters at QTU conferences and area councils. In 2023, QTU members were invited to participate in the project by downloading a workload app and recording their workload and wellbeing experiences.
The research team are currently working in Queensland state schools with four specific focus areas:
- The impact of NAPLAN (both online and pencil and paper) on teachers work
- The use of data entry systems such as OneSchool (Qld)
- The use of commercial behaviour tracking/monitoring programs (e.g. Class Dojo)
- The creation of online curriculum and pedagogy systems for all subjects in specific schools
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Overview of Project
Teacher Time use app manual [PDF]
Research outputs
The QTU is proud to partner with the Time Use, Time Poverty and Teachers’ Work, which is a recipient of an Australian Research Council Linkage Project grant.
Research publications include:
Creagh, S., Thompson, G., Mockler, N., Stacey, M., & Hogan, A. (2023). Workload, work intensification and time poverty for teachers and school leaders: a systematic research synthesis. Educational Review, 1–20.
This article was published by the research team in 2023, in Educational Review and is available to download for free. The research team explain how workload and work intensification function together in teachers’ work, and advances the notion of “time poverty”.
Gavin, M., Stacey, M. (2024, February 3). Tackle teachers’ workloads but leave lesson planning to the experts. The Sydney Morning Herald.
This opinion piece, published in The Sydney Morning Herald, draws from the authors’ research that found teachers want more time to do the complex intellectual work involved in preparing for classes; not that they want to do less of this work. Stripping tasks like lesson planning from teachers risks chipping away at work that teachers have an expertise in and value, which could lead to deskilling.
Stacey, M., Gavin, M., Fitzgerald, S., McGrath-Champ, S., & Wilson, R. (2023). Reducing teachers’ workload or deskilling ‘core’ work? Analysis of a policy response to teacher workload demands. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 45(2), 187–199.
This journal article was published in Discourse and is available to download for free. The lead author, Dr Meghan Stacey is a member of the Time use, time poverty and teachers’ work research team. The authors contend that there is a risk of policy responses to teacher workload becoming vehicles for the (re)definition of teachers’ ‘core work’ and that could result in deskilling the teacher workforce.
Thompson, G. (2021, March 6). Explaining time poverty. [Keynote presentation]. QTU Union Representatives Conference. Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
In 2021, Professor Greg Thompson delivered the keynote presentation at the QTU’s Union Representatives Conference at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre. The slides from the presentation are available on the Queensland University of Technology website, and can be downloaded here.
Thompson, G. (2022). Time use, time poverty and teachers’ work. Queensland Teachers' Journal 127(8), p17.
In this QTU journal article, Professor Greg Thompson reports on the importance of the project and updates members on phases of the research at the time
Thompson, G. Hogan, A. (Eds.). (2025). Teaching and Time Poverty: Understanding workload and work intensity in schools. Routledge.
In this book, friends of the QTU, Greg Thompson and Anna Hogan bring together international perspectives on teacher time poverty, drawing on theoretical and empirical work to underscore the growing complexity of teachers’ work and how this impacts job satisfaction, stress and feeling that there is never enough time to accomplish all that needs to be done. Many policy solutions misdiagnose the problems of teachers’ work, simply suggesting it is an issue of workload. The chapters investigate issues of work intensification, finding that teachers are not only working longer, but also working harder as they manage more complex classrooms and policy mandates.
Thompson, G., Creagh, S., Stacey, M. et al. (2024). Researching teachers’ time use: Complexity, challenges and a possible way forward. Aust. Educ. Res. 51, 1647–1670.
This article, published in Australian Educational Researcher reports on a pilot study of the Teacher Time Use app, a bespoke tool developed by the research team to ‘get inside’ teachers’ subjective experience of time through a focus on both workload and intensity. Our analysis shows that the app provides a simple, non-demanding way for teachers to record their work in a timely and efficient way.