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General Discussion

Nathan Brenner
Nathan Brenner
35,844 Points
Posted by Nathan Brenner
Nathan Brenner
35,844 Points

What factors are used to determine the time a course and track takes to complete?

Each track has a time estimate and each course has a time estimate. Both have videos with time along with quizzes and code challenges. If a group of students individually learn at different paces, how does the track and course time estimates account for that range of values?

3 Answers

Oğulcan Girginc
Oğulcan Girginc
24,848 Points
Oğulcan Girginc
Oğulcan Girginc
24,848 Points

Hi Nathan Brenner,

If I am not mistaken, those are not estimates for students but sum of video lengths.

Nathan Brenner
Nathan Brenner
35,844 Points
Nathan Brenner
Nathan Brenner
35,844 Points

I expected that to be the case, and I've looked at that a few times. For example, the Computer Basics course shows 55 minutes. If you add up the video time for the two badges, they sum up to 25 minutes 9 seconds.

Oğulcan Girginc
Oğulcan Girginc
24,848 Points
Oğulcan Girginc
Oğulcan Girginc
24,848 Points

If that's the case, nearly all of the courses took a lot more than they estimated for me! :D

Tobias Kocks
Tobias Kocks
9,018 Points
Tobias Kocks
Tobias Kocks
9,018 Points

Can't someone (from Team Treehouse) give an actual answer to this question?

I know that putting a number to an estimated track time is a difficult subject matter, as, apart from the sum of the video lengths, loads of personal variables factor in as well.

However, they do show those estimates. So there must be a set of calculations and assumptions on which those time estimates are based, and I would dearly like to know what they are.

I've been searching the forum for an answer to this question, but apart from user hypotheses, I haven't found anything.

Greetings

Nathan Brenner
Nathan Brenner
35,844 Points
Nathan Brenner
Nathan Brenner
35,844 Points

I asked Dave McFarland and this is what he told me:

"We calculate course time as total video minutes + 1 minute per quiz question + 3 minutes per code challenge task No super scientific. Code Challenges might go a lot more quickly or a lot more slowly for some people."