Exploring the relationship between time management skills and the academic achievement of African engineering students – a case study

Abstract

Poor academic success by African engineering students is currently experienced in many higher educational institutions, contributing to lower financial subsidies by local governments. One of the contributing factors to this low academic success may be the poor time management skills of these students. This article endeavours to explore this relationship by means of a theoretical literature review and an empirical study. Numerous studies have been conducted in this regard, but with mixed results. The case study of this article involves a design module termed Design Projects III, where the empirical study incorporated an ex post facto study involving a pre-experimental/exploratory design using descriptive statistics. The results of this study were applied to various tests, which indicated no statistically significant relationship between time management skills and the academic achievement of African engineering students.

Achievement goals, emotions, learning, and performance: A process model.

“…Findings from self-regulation studies further show self-monitoring to positively predict achievement, with those who are able to reflect on and regulate their learning typically obtaining better grades (e.g., Dermitzaki, Leondari, & Goudas, 2009;Perry et al, 2001; for findings concerning conceptual overlap with planning as a self-regulation strategy, see Nett, Goetz, Hall, & Frenzel, 2012). Although largely overlooked in recent educational psychology research, despite having been incorporated into multiple prominent theories of self-regulated learning (e.g., Pintrich, 2004;Zimmerman, 2000), scattered findings also show time management to typically correspond with better academic performance (MacCann, Fogarty, & Roberts, 2012;Swart, Lombard, & de Jager, 2010); a finding replicated in a recent metaanalysis showing time management to positively predict cumulative achievement outcomes (Richardson et al, 2012).…”

Bridging the Gap : A Program to Enhance Medical Students’ Learning Experience in the Foundation Year

“…The development of the questionnaire was guided by several efforts, including a review of the recent literature on measuring the effectiveness of university intervention courses, insights gained from similar existing questionnaires and expert judgment of lecturers who participated in the development and administration of the course [4][5][6][7][8][9] . The questionnaire was tested for reliability (Cronbach α=0.91).…”

What Do We Know About Time Management? A Review of the Literature and a Psychometric Critique of Instruments Assessing Time Management

“…Five studies examined the time management behaviors and practices of specific populations using qualitative methodologies including the use of time diaries (Hessing, 1994;Ho, 2003;Kotter, 1980;Winter et al, 1993;Yoels & Clair, 1994). Twenty-seven studies examined time management behaviors or practices in relation to other variables such as academic achievement, stress, or creativity (Adams & Jex, 1997Alay & Koçak, 2002;Anand, 2007;Britton & Tesser, 1991;Burt & Kemp, 1994;Cemaloglu & Filiz, 2010;Claessens et al, 2004;Francis-Smythe & Robertson, 1999;Garcia-Ros et al, 2004;Hellsten & Rogers, 2009;Jex & Elacqua, 1999;Lahmers & Zulauf, 2000;Lang et al, 1990;Lay & Schouwenburg, 1993;Macan et al, 1990;Misra & McKean, 2000;Mpofu et al, 1996;Mudrack, 1997;Shahani et al, 1993;Simons & Galotti, 1992;Swart et al, 2010;Trockel et al, 2000;van de Meer, et al, 2010;Williams et al, 1995;Zampetakis et al, 2010). One study (Trueman & Hartley, 1996) compared the effectiveness of time management skills between mature and traditional entry university students.…”

“…However, there is much literature examining time in the education domain, specifically in reference to time and schools (e.g., Knight, 1989), time and school learning (e.g., Anderson, 1984;Bloom, 1965;Carroll, 1963), time management and study skills for students or student athletes (e.g., Carney, 1988;Crutsinger, 1994;Danyluk, 1985;Garcia-Ros et al, 2004;Gibbs, Some of the populations identified as requiring time management training programs include adults performing job searches (Lindgren, 2004), first year university students (Ho, 2003;Swart et al, 2010;van der Meer et al, 2010), at risk university students (Zinatelli et al, 2002), online students (Bocchi et al, 2004), adults and college students with diabetes (Wdowik et al, 2001), adolescents with exceptionalities (DiPipi-Hoy et al, 2009), and student athletes . Recent time management training programs are also taking advantage of technology for their delivery (e.g., Zinatelli et al, 2002).…”

“…The review of the empirical literature identified three studies that utilized a study specific measure of time management Swart et al, 2010;van der Meer et al, 2010). None of the study specific time management instruments were described in sufficient detail to allow for use by others.…”