Time-based activities at Universities are shifting toward a more transactional approach, yet there is little understanding of the time management capabilities of students in adapting to a more flexible structure. Although many studies report on efforts to address engineering students being stressed, surfacelearning oriented, and prone to missing class, few studies address how these relate to students’ time management.  In an effort to explore how students value, prioritize, and spend their time, this paper proposes a new term, “Academic Time-Based Decision-Making” (ATBDM), which lies at the crossroads of time management, selfefficacy, and self-regulated learning.  Factors influencing ATBDM are currently mostly speculative, although class scheduling, social norms, and the internet and social media are frequent causal suggestions.  It is also unknown as to how ATBDM is conducted across the breadth of students, which skills or “tools” are employed, and whether the process or influencing factors change over the course of time.  A research study to explore why and how engineering students make academic decisions is proposed. By providing deeper insights into the factors influencing ATBDM, it may be possible to develop more effective support or intervention to assist students in making balanced and positive choices.

Engineering students in Canada and around the world are facing numerous challenges with their time, including absenteeism from class, surface approach to learning, and high stress levels.  A research study to understand the time management habits of engineering students is ongoing and a pilot study has been completed.  This paper contains an overview of the relevant background theories, the application of these theories to a new survey instrument, and the pilot study used to test and improve this instrument. The new survey instrument on time management and decision making was required as existing instruments published in the literature were considered to be flawed and inadequate for this study.  The new instrument incorporates a decision-making dimension following the think-plan-do models of self-regulated learning theories.  Analysis of this instrument will assume clusters, rather than factors, of time management behaviours to be the basis for grouping individuals. The pilot study was conducted on a number of self-selected graduate engineering students in November 2019.  Participants filled out an online survey and then some volunteered for a think-aloud interview.  Changes resultant from the pilot study analysis included question modifications, Likert scale modifications, and user experience improvements.  The pilot study resulted in an overall improvement to the validity, reliability, and completeness of the survey instrument. The full study is currently being administered to undergraduate engineering students.  The results will be published to help inform the manner in which time management is taught and used by engineering students.

In recent years, there has been some concern raised regarding decreased mental health andwellbeing and increased reports of surface-learning tendencies in Canadian engineering students. Prior papers have noted possible links between these trends and the manner in which students use their time. Having completed a study on student time use, this paper presents some initial results – including a frequency assessment of reasons for student absences – which seem to support some of the previously hypothesized systemic problems. Following this, an overview of institution- andinstructor-imposed constraints precedes a discussion on how these constraints may be contributing to student time use difficulties, and ultimately to decreased wellbeing and learning capacity. A sampling of possible interventions are then presented, and important validity considerations for conducting such research are discussed. Research into the efficacy of these interventions, due to lack of existing empirical proof, should be conducted.