Time Management

Essay question: Critically evaluate the claim that students with effective time management skills will achieve greater academic success.

For +

Against -

1.Time-management skills are the greatest predictor of GPA, supporting the Britton and Tesser finding that time-management practices are central to academic success. This result suggests that selection committees for colleges and universities should assess a student’s ability to manage time effectively as part of their entrance criteria. The power of time-management skills as a predictor of Personal Success suggests its importance in the wider domain of life success.

2.Stanley  argues that clear goals and excellent time-management skills are much

stronger predictors of success than is academic performance in the personal and professional domain. Our results support

that position.

3.Crede and Kuncel (2008) suggest that the relationship between personality and academic performance is mediated by study attitudes and habits such as time management practices. Under this conceptualization,

the link between conscientiousness and achievement is due to the behavioral expression of conscientiousness in the form of habits and behaviors that benefit learning. That is, one reason conscientiousness

relates to achievement is that conscientious students use more and better time -management strategies, which helps them to

succeed academically. Time management appears as a behavioral expression

of high conscientiousness.

4.Moreover, the mediation analysis

suggests that a possible pathway by which greater conscientiousness results in greater academic achievement is through the use of time management strategies. That is, more conscientious students implement

more effective time management practices, which allow them to succeed academically. This finding replicates the work of

McKenzie and Gow (2004).

5.Diseth and Kobbeltvedt (2010) found evidence for positive correlations between the examination grade in the introductory courses in economics and psychology and learning strategies, such as time

management and organized studying.

6.Time management behaviour (i.e., setting goals and priorities, mechanics of time management and preference for organization) and academic performance (GPA) were not significantly related.

7.These students probably have good time management skills that could be beneficial with regard to their study. However, despite their excellent time management skills, the time all these different activities take may keep these students from spending the necessary time studying, with negative consequences for their academic performance. In groups of students with less extensive lives, a similar excellent level of time management skills may lead to higher academic performance. More generally, the impact that time management behaviour has on academic performance may be different for different students under different situations or circumstances. Furthermore, the results of the present study did not show a direct relationship between students’ time management behaviour and academic performance, and between students’ time use and academic performance (cf. the results of recent studies of Nonis and Hudson 2006; Plant et al. 2005).