Evaluating Time Management as a Core Process of College Students' Self-Regulated Learning

Symposium presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco, CA.

Time management represents “the self-controlled attempt to use time in a subjectively efficient way to achieve outcomes” (Koch & Kleinmann, 2002, pg. 201) or “achieving an effective use of time while performing certain goal-directed activities” (Claessens et al., 2007, pg. 262). Several converging pressures make time management a particularly salient process among post-secondary populations. College students often experience an increased level of autonomy in which they have to complete progressively more challenging learning activities outside of the classroom, on their own time, and under their own direction. They have much less frequent interaction with adults who willingly provide structure to when, for how long, and under what conditions they engage in academic work. Further, post-secondary environments typically afford students with dramatically increased opportunities for engagement in non-academic activities that detract from learning.

Three inter-related lines of evidence support the critical role of time management among college students. First, a handful of studies show positive associations between various aspects of time management and improved engagement and achievement outcomes (Aeon & Arguinis, 2017; Kitsantas et al., 2008; Trueman & Hartley, 1996). Second, researchers have consistently documented that students’ misappropriation of time, and especially their reported level of procrastination, is associated with decreased academic performance (Steele, 2007). Third, training in time management is among the most common academic support interventions provided to students regardless of the size or academic rigor of the institution they attend (Young & Hopp, 2014).

The significance of time management has not gone unrecognized by researchers focused on self-regulated learning (SRL; Dembo & Eaton, 2000; Pintrich, 2004; Zimmerman, Greenberg, & Weinstein, 1994). For instance, Zimmerman and Risemberg (1997) identified time as one of six dimensions of engagement that students may self-regulate. Similarly, Pintrich (2004; Pintrich & Zusho, 2007) highlighted behavior, including control of one’s own time and effort, as one of the four areas that students may target for self-regulation. Although not identified as explicitly, other prominent models of SRL allude to the importance of time management when describing students’ goal setting or planning (Boekearts, 1996; Winne & Hadwin, 1998). Despite these efforts, a direct and comprehensive effort to evaluate time management and establish it as an essential SRL process is missing from the literature. Not coincidentally, empirical studies investigating time management using a SRL framework are limited, have notable weaknesses, and leave many key questions as yet unexamined (Wolters, Won, & Hussain, 2017).

We will address this shortcoming by critically evaluating how time management can be understood within a model of SRL. In particular, we first will identify and discuss how time management is dependent on processes from the forethought, monitoring, control, and reflection phases of SRL. Second, we will evaluate relations between time management and motivational and self-regulatory processes viewed as central to SRL. Throughout the presentation, we will describe empirical work, including studies from our own lab, that support key points, and will recommend future lines of work needed to advance the understanding of time management as a core aspect of college students’ SRL.