A Comparison of Semester Systems and Students

Perception of Its Effectiveness towards Their Performance

in Study
Nurul Syahira binti Zulkifli, Nurul Aishah binti Mohd Nor, Anis Farhani binti Shahrudin
Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Malaysia

ABSTRACT
This study compares students opinion with regards to the two system whereas
trimester system is currently implemented in UniversitiTeknologi PETRONAS (UTP).
the two systems which they have experienced and its effectiveness towards students
performance in their study. Based on the survey that have been conducted, it is
found that majority of respondents preferred two semester system compared to
trimester system as they feel more motivated to study after semester break. The
students claimed that they get better better result in two semester system as
compared to the tri-mester system. The study suggests for the administration of UTP
to consider reviewing trimester system and take serious concern by considering the
implementation of two semester system in the future.
INTRODUCTION
Academic calendar is generally used in university across the world in order to
manage students' and staffs' activities. It is very important in order to make sure all
activities and events in the university went smoothly. However, it has been
discovered that academic calendar can effects students social life and readiness for
them to study. For example, the adoption of the year-long academic calendar caused
negative effects towards final exam scores (Pietro, 2009). This is because the new
system conducted all final exams at the end of semester compare to old system that
consists of two final exam sessions which are conducted at the end of first and
second semester. This will impact the students in term of their concentration of the
exams in a short time and the long time gap between of their study and exams. Thus,
these will give negative effect to students academic performance.
Furthermore, the implementation of Two-semester system by certain university
not only give the good impact on students performance in exam, but also give
opportunity for more students to continue their study. Johston and Walsh (2000)
stated that two-semester academic calendar gave a big impact in order to increase
enrolment of universities students as recruitment can be carried out twice a year.
This is crucial as it managed to attract international students, mature students as well
as those from poor backgrounds who had missed chance to further their studies over
period of time because they had lack of information regarding the university systems
Based on Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS (UTP) academic system which are
currently implementing the Trimester system, there are probably a significant
differences in students academic performance during Two-semesters system and
Trimesters system. So, the main focus of this survey was to get feedback from UTP
1

students on how aware they are to the effect of academic calendar and what are the
views and suggestions of students that had experience regarding this issue. There
are serious concerns towards the Trimester system used in the academic calendar
which affected limitations for students social life and decrease the readiness for
students to study.
The objectives of this study are:
1. To investigate a comparison of semester systems.
2. To find out students perception of its effectiveness towards their performance
in study.
LITERATURE REVIEW
In recent time, many studies have been carried out to investigate the effects
of different academic calendar system on students learning. These studies
highlighted that there is a significant impact on student performance in their final
exam.
In the first study, Pietro (2009) had conducted an experiment on six
successive cohorts of third-year undergraduate student under the two semester
academic calendar to compare the final exam score that they had received. The
objective of this research is to study whether the change in the academic calendar
from a traditional two-semester structure to a one-year structure has had any effect
on student performance in the final exam. Data was obtained from a UK university
that has changed to a year-long academic calendar from a pure two-semester
system. They also do an analysis on individual-level indicators (UCAS tariff points).
Another research conducted by Austin and Gustafson (2006) collecting data from
45,000 observations of fall, spring, and summer semesters in order to investigate the
link between course length and student learning. They hypothesized that condensed
semester courses provide students with the same learning experiences as a
traditional 16-weeks semester? To prove this hypothesis, they obtained the database
from University of West Georgia by using several demographic variables and
measures of ability to account for differences between students. In this research the
summer semesters are breaking down into several of four different sessions.
Pietro (2009) hypothesized that the adoption of the year-long academic
calendar gave a negative impact on final exam scores. But, he discovered that there
is only slight differences of students performance in final exam. He also found that
students tend to score better in two-semester calendar and suffer from anxiety for the
year-long academic. He conclude that a measure of academic ability is an importatnt
determinant of final exam scores and students experience high level of stress
because of concentration of final exam in a short time of period. Nevertheless,
academic calendar is not a dominant factor in order to measure the academic
performance from each students as he stated that there are other aspects affecting
the final exam results such as gender ethnicity as well as family background.
However, Austin and Gustafson (2006) agree with their hypothesis because the
results of semester GPAs are on average about 1/3 of a grade higher in the summer.
It has been found that students who are in summer semesters tend to
performance a better achievement. The semester lengths of three, four and eight
2

weeks significantly increase student performance compare to those achieved during

the traditional sixteen week semester. An F-Test performed shows that there is a
significant differences towards students results whereas a semester length of four
weeks gave an optimal results towards student performance. They conclude that
there is a significant improvement from taking shorter courses that cannot be
explained solely by student characteristics. For further study, they recommended to
evaluate more fully the benefits and costs of changing class structure.
In the third study, Pohopien (2011) conducted a research on four students
through an on campus program that focus to address student stress via group
counseling session. He questioned whether Perhaps the time crunch was a
motivator?. Besides doing one to one counseling session, they also interviewed the
students. Students were engaged face-to-face 2 times during the 10-week quarter,
emailed once per week, and journal blogs were viewed two-three times per week.
The department coordinator was contacted every other week to assess her
findings.Then, the concept of Referential adequacy is used as an evident during the
data interpretation. He discovered that students are motivated at the begin of the
quarter and experiencened workload stress in correlation with the quarter-system
speed. Relatively, students tends to fall anxiety when they are about to register for
the next quarters classes. It was found that these students are in similar situation
whereas they are frustrated, fatigue and burn out. However, some of them stated that
the quarter system also has positive effects where they manage to tolerate among
themselves to complete the class work within due date and they experienced less
stress in quarter system compared to the semester system. He suggested that
method to help the students should be directed in two areas which are recognizing
stress and stress relievers.
In contradiction, Panyanuwat (2005) found that trimester or semester system
had various problems in its teaching and learning, and supporting systems. One of
the objectives of his study is to compare the semester and trimester system
according to the face problems and limitations. This study involved 12 groups of key
informants from Suranaree University of Technology represents core sample of
trimester while Kasetsart University, King Mongkuts Institute of Technology and
others represent semester system samples. Besides, this experiment consists of
quantitative instruments which are 12 sets of questionnaires and 3 sets of instructed
interviewing formats, a part from 2 additional sets of qualitative instruments. He
discovered that a number of managerial problems relating to teaching and learning
performance occur during the transition of semester and trimester system. Moreover,
there is no definite comment from all key informants to change totally from one
system to other system between the trimester and semester types. But, the impacts
would be in various dimensions such as in tertiary educational institute, social and
others. From this research, he conclude that more than one system could be put in
trial for some curricula, but the institute should attach to its original type.
This is agreed by The Hanover Research Council (2010) who found that
students complaining about the trimester system holding them back from fully
exploring the academic offerings the college provided. The method that are used by
this team are examining the trends and practices behind the trimester and other units
of academic calendar besides examining the prevalence of the trimester system
among American colleges and universities. They also collect details of academic
3

calendars of institutions that are currently operating on a trimester system and find
out the advantages and disadvantages of alternate academic calendars by reviewing
the experiences of institutions. In spite of that, they didnt like the timing of university
breaks and other vacations at different times compare to their peers. They also wish
to have a more standard calendar in order to allow professors more time to fully
present the material that they want to teach. In this study, they suggested that
institutions with non-standard academic calendars should retain their eligibility for
Federal Financial Assistance by conforming to federal guidelines governing nonstandard academic calendars.
As a conclusion, there is a significant relationship between the academic
calendar systems and students performances. The results of the experiments may
not be similar with each other because of different variables used by the researchers.
A few recommendations should be made for further studies to improve the results
such as develop a set of criteria for such adjustment, and learning and teaching
improvement criteria. Furthermore, interviews will be made for every student
representatives of each batch and an impact assessement in a deep and wide
dimensions should be conducted as well to increase the quality of findings.
METHODOLOGY
The purpose of this study is to investigate a comparison of semester systems
and students perception of its effectiveness towards their performance in study.
Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS (UTP) had experienced Two-semester system and
currently Trimester system is being implemented. The changing of semester system
is essential in order to increase the number of graduated students in UTP each year.
100 undergraduate students from seven courses are targeted for this study
which includes those from Engineering Department and Technology Department. The
questionnaire comprises 18 questions and is divided into three sections. The first
section is about the personal information of respondents which consist of 5
questions. The second section consists of 7 questions. This section investigates the
impact of Two-semester system on students academic performance. The third
section consists of 6 questions and briefly this section questioned the respondents
about the impact of Trimester system on their performance.
The online questionnaire is the method chosen to carry out the survey because
it is more efficient and time saving compared to other methods. The questionnaire is
created using the Google Documents tools in forms of spreadsheet. The
questionnaire survey link is posted on certain related social networking websites
groups such as Facebook where all of the group members are among UTP
undergraduate students. The data collected is automatically arranged by the Google
Documents software in forms of pie charts including the response percentage. The
time frame is about a week for the students to respond the survey. Time constraint is
a major factor which affects the efficiency of the survey as most of the time UTP
students are busy with preparation for quizzes, test and examinations due to the
implemented trimester system. There is also a limitation of this survey as we just can
get respondents among UTP student.

RESULTS

NUMBER (%)

NATIONALITY
Local
International
94
6

DEPARTMENT
Engineering
Technology
87
13

Table 1: Demography of Respondents

Table 1 describes the nationality and department of the respondents in this research.
The percentage of local respondents is greater than international respondents. There
are 94% local respondents and 6% international respondents. In this survey, the
percentage of respondents from Engineering department is higher than Technology
department. 87% respondents are from Engineering department and 13% from
Technology department.

COMPARISON OF SEMESTER EXPERIENCE BY

STUDENTS IN UTP
TWO-SEMESTERS SYSTEM

TRIMESTER SYSTEM

8%

BOTH

8%

84%

Figure 1: Comparison of Semester Experience by Students in UTP

The pie chart above shows the comparison of semester experience by students in
UTP. The percentage of students who experience Trimester system is the highest
compare to Two-semester system and both systems. 84% UTP students experienced
Trimester system, 8% students experienced Two-semester system and 8% students
experienced both system.

Responds
(Yes/No)
TWOSEMESTERS (%)
TRIMESTER (%)

AVAILABILITY TO SPEND
TIME WITH FAMILY AND
FRIENDS
Yes
No

BREAK SUFFICIENCY

Yes

No

29

71

29

71

31

69

35

65

Table 2: Students Social Life

Table 2 above illustrates comparisons students social life between Two-semester
system and Trimester system. 71% of students who experienced Two-semester
system and 69% of students who experienced Trimester system agreed that they do
not have enough time to spend with family and friends. The remain 29% students
who experienced Two-semester system and 31% of students who experienced
Trimester system agreed that they have enough time with their family and friends.
29% of students who experienced Two-semester system and 35% of students who
experienced Trimester system agreed that they had sufficient breaks. The rest of the
students 71% (Two-semester system) and 65% (Trimester system) disagree that
they had enough breaks.

Responds
(Yes/No)
TWOSEMESTERS (%)
TRIMESTER (%)

TIME SUFFICIENCY TO
COMPLETE ASSIGNMENTS
AND STUDY
Yes
No

MOTIVATION TO STUDY
AFTER SEMESTER BREAK
Yes

No

53

47

71

29

50

50

45

55

Table 3: Readiness of Students to Study

The time management for students to complete assignments and study, and their
motivation to study after semester break are also investigated in this research. From
the results in Table 3, it is noted that 53% of students (Two-semester system) and
50% of students (Trimester system) have enough time to complete assignments and
study while the rest of students 47% (Two-semester system) and 50% (Trimester
system) do not have sufficient time to complete the assignments and study. 71% of
the students (Two-semester system) and 45% of students (Trimester system) agreed
that they have a motivation to study after semester break. The rest 29% (Twosemester system) and 55% (Trimester system) agreed that they do not motivate to
study after semester break.

100
90
80
70

Dean's List

60

<3.50

50

<3.00

40
30
20

10
0
TWO-SEMESTERS SYSTEM (%)

TRIMESTER SYSTEM (%)

Figure 2: Range of CGPA

The bar chart above illustrates the range of CGPA achieved by UTP students who
experienced Two-semester system and Trimester system. 6% of students (Twosemester system) and 21% of students (Trimester system) achieved CGPA less than
3.00 while 41% of students (Two-semester system) and 48% of students (Trimester
system) achieved CGPA less than 3.50. The rest which is 53% of students (Twosemester system) and 31% of students (Trimester system) achieved Deans List.
DISCUSSION
It is found that most of the respondents of this study are local students (94%) as
the location of UTP is in Malaysia which attracts more local students than the
international students. Besides, this may due to the nationality of the researchers
whereby the researchers who are local students. The ratio of local students to
international students is 16 to 1. Thus, more local student respondents will be
targeted by the local student researchers than the international. Since all of the
researchers are local students, most of the respondents are same nationality with the
researchers. Next, the highest percentage of respondents is from the Engineering
department. This unbalanced demography maybe explained by the way the survey
was conducted. The survey was done online where the link is sent to the course
mates of the researchers. With regards to the courses taken by the respondents, it is
noticeable that most of the respondents are from Engineering department (87%). As
the researchers are from Engineering department, it is understandable that they are
closer to their departments. From the results, there were only 13% of respondents
from the Technology department. This can also be explained through the
demography of UTP itself. The students taking these courses are minority in this
university.
From the results, it was shown that 84% UTP students experienced Trimester
system, 8% students experienced the Two-semester system and 8% students
7

experienced both systems. Majority of the respondents are experiencing Trimester

system as UTP currently implement this system. One of the purposes of this study is
to investigate to what extent students perceive the academic calendar affect their
social life and readiness to study. This study first hypothesized that students social
life is affected by the academic calendar system. To verify this hypothesis, the
frequency of students social life among 100 participants was investigated. Among
these 106 participants, 71% of students who experienced Two-semester system and
69% of students who experienced Trimester system agreed that they do not have
time to spend with family and friends (The Hanover Research Council, 2010). The
Hanover Research Council stated that students have their semester break at different
times than were most of their peers. The remain 29% students who experienced
Two-semester system and 31% of students who experienced Trimester system
agreed that they have enough time with their family and friends. The research has
shown that majority of UTP students claimed that they do not have enough time to
enjoy their social life may due to poor time management and a lot assignments given
by the lecturers. Furthermore, more than half of the students from both systems
claimed that they do not have enough breaks, which shows that 29% of students who
experienced Two-semester system and 35% of students who experienced Trimester
system agreed that they had sufficient breaks. The rest of the students 71% (Twosemester system) and 65% (Trimester system) disagree that they had enough
breaks. One of the reason that students agreed that they do not have sufficient
breaks is because they are involved in the UTP events which may be held during
semester breaks.
The results also revealed that both systems also affect the readiness of students
to study. From the results, it is recorded that 53% of students who experienced Twosemester system and 50% of students who experienced Trimester system have
enough time to complete assignments and study while the rest of students 47% who
experienced Two-semester system and 50% who experienced Trimester system do
not have sufficient time to complete the assignments and study. This situation is
caused by the shorter period of study in Trimester system compared to Twosemester system. This is agreed by Panyanuwat (2005) who found that Trimester or
Two-semester system had various problems in its learning systems. On the other
hand, 71% of the students who experienced Two-semester system and 45% of
students who experienced Trimester system agreed that they have a motivation to
study after semester break. The rest 29% who experienced Two-semester system
and 55% who experienced Trimester system agreed that they do not motivate to
study after semester break. This result may due to the short semester break in
Trimester system compared to Two-semester system. In contradiction, Pohopien
(2011) stated that students are motivated at the beginning of the quarter-system.
From the results, we also know that there is a significant different in range of
CGPA achieved by students between Two-semester system and Trimester system.
The results show that the number of students who get better results is higher in Twosemester system than in Trimester system which is also agreed by Pietro (2009).
This might be due to the longer period of study in Two-semester system compare to
Trimester system which enables the students to make the best preparation for the
final exams. A few factors that affect the students CGPA have been discovered such
as sufficiency of time to complete the assignments and study which is the major
factor. Besides, the stress problem also gives impacts to students performances in
8

final exams (Pohopien, 2011). When students feel stress, they cannot focus on their
study and this will affect their CGPA.
From the research, we can conclude that students social life and readiness for
them to study are not really affected by the academic calendar system. However, it is
noted that most of students either from Two-semester system or Trimester system do
not have enough time to spend with their family and peers. Most of them who
experienced Two-semester system also feel motivated to study at the beginning of
semester compare to students who experienced Trimester system. This significant
different of results show that the academic calendar system gives a slight effect to
students in context of readiness to study. However, it is found that this research is
only focused on students of first year first semester which they have never
experienced Two semester system. Thus, this limitation resulted unbalanced
responds causes this research not suitable to be main reference for future study. So,
in order to overcome this limitation, further research should be conducted by
specifying the number of respondents from each year which have both experienced
Two semester system as well as Trimester system. Significantly, clear and unbiased
result will be obtained to ensure this research can be highly approved as reference.

CONCLUSION
The time spent on this research to be fully completed is about 6 weeks. 106
respondents have been involved in order to complete this study based on an online
survey which is conducted about one week. It is found that Two-semester system
gained better results in terms of students CGPA and their motivation to study is
higher compared to Trimester system.
However, this research is focused only to UTPs students of first year students
whom never experience Two-semester system. This limitation resulted in an
unbalanced data which may have caused the research to be biased since only few
students who undergo both system were involved in this study. In order to obtain a
more relevant result, it is suggested that this research should involve a wider range of
respondent instead of UTPs student. Besides, specifying the number of respondents
from each year of student is also essential to get more accurate result.
With the information based on the overall research, it seems to suggest that
the Two-semester system give better impacts towards students performance in study
and their social life. Therefore, the administration of Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS
may like to conduct a review on the effectiveness of the Trimester semester system
and reconsider implementing the Two-semester system. It is essential in order to
produce well-rounded graduates who can contribute well in the industry as well as
the development of the country in the future.
APPENDIX
SECTION A: BASIC INFORMATION
1. Gender
o Male
o Female
9

2. Nationality
o Local student
o International student

3. Year of study
o
o
o
o
o

Foundation
First year
Second year
Third year
Final year

4. Course
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o

EE
ME
CV
CE
PE
PG
ICT
BIS

5. Which semester systems have you experienced?

o Two semesters system
o Trimester system
o Both

SECTION B: TWO SEMESTER SYSTEM

1. Do you have enough time to complete all the assignments and study for the test?
o Yes
o No
2. Do you manage to spend enough time with your family and friends?
o Yes
o No
3. How often do you go back home in a semester?
o
o
o
o
o

Never
Almost never
Sometimes
Fairly often
Very often

10

4. Does the two semesters system provide enough breaks to you?

o Yes
o No
5. Do you feel motivated to study after semester break?
o Yes
o No
6. What isyour range of CGPA?
o
o
o
o

<2.00
<3.00
<3.50
Deans list

7. Have you undergo trimester system of academic calendar?

o Yes
o No
SECTION C: TRIMESTER SYSTEM
1. Do you have enough time to complete all the assignments and study for the test?
o Yes
o No
2. Do you manage to spend enough time with your family and friends?
o Yes
o No
3. How often do you go back home in a semester?
o
o
o
o
o

Never
Almost never
Sometimes
Fairly often
Very often

4. Does the trimesters system provide enough breaks to you?

o Yes
o No
5. Do you feel motivated to study after semester break?
o Yes
o No

11

6. What isyour range of CGPA?

o
o
o
o

<2.00
<3.00
<3.50
Deans list

REFERENCES

Austin, A.M. & Gustafson, L. (2006). Impact of Course Length on Student Learning.
JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS AND FINANCE EDUCATION, 5(1), 26-37.
Retrieved on July 15th, 2013 from http://www.economics
finance.org/jefe/econ/Gustafsonpaper. pdf
Panyanuwat, A. (2005). A Comparative Study on Education Management Between
Trimester and Semester Systems. Institutional Research Project Financially
Supported by Suranaree University of Technology, 1-3. Retrieved on July
15th,2013 from http://www.sut.ac.th/dpn/Resch/abs-pdf/Eng/23-trimester.pdf

Pietro, G.D. (2009). THE IMPACT OF ACADEMICS CALENDAR ON STUDENT

PERFORMANCE: EVIDENCE FROM THE UK, 1-32. Retrieved on July 15th,
2013 from http://www.eale.nl/Conference2009/PapersF/EALE-2009-DiPietro
14-08-09.pdf

Pohopien, L. (n.d.). Student stress in a quarter system-an Earnest Stringer method action
research report. Research in Higher Education Journal, 1-14. Retrieved on July

15th, 2013 from http://www.aabri.com/manuscripts/111015.pdf

The Hanover Research Council (2010). Alternate Academic Calendars and the
Trimester System: Profiles and Compliance. Academy administration practice,
1-17.

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