Jarkko Impola

Jarkko Impola is a solution designer and researcher in charge of career monitoring at the Learning Support and Well-being Center of the University of Oulu. He is responsible for the implementation and reporting of the university’s career monitoring surveys. Impola’s research focuses on higher education and specifically addresses the time culture of higher education, estimation of student workload in curriculum development, student workload, and students’ time use.

Impola’s doctoral research (2021–2026) examined the current time policies of higher education at both theoretical and practical levels. The focus was particularly on the acceleration processes in higher education, the temporal structuring of educational systems in the form of degree and course planning, and the application of credit systems, such as the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS) in the estimation and measurement of student workload. The ways in which teaching staff at higher education institutions allocate time for studies in relation to students’ ways of using time for studies, work, and other areas of their time budget were a central part of the project, particularly in relation to their potential impact on the workload of students and their academic success.

The project was supported by the Kone Foundation from March 2023 to April 2026.

Publications:

Impola, J. (2026). The problem of time in higher education: theory, policy, and practice. Acta Universitatis Ouluensis, E251. https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:oulu-202603022018

Impola, J. (2025a). European credit transfer and accumulation system as a time-based predictor of student workload. Higher Education Research & Development, 44(2), 417-430. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2024.2406490

Impola, J. (2025b). Teachers’ and students’ views on higher education workload determination practices. European Journal of Higher Education, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/21568235.2025.2542152

Impola, J. (2025c). The Relationship of ECTS Credits with Study Time, Workload, and Achievement in Higher Education. European Education, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/10564934.2025.2547918

Impola, J. T. (2023). Reconsidering Newtonian Temporality in the Context of Time Pressures of Higher Education. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 42(4), 431-448. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-023-09879-3