College Students’ Time Management: a Self-Regulated Learning Perspective

Abstract

Despite its recognized importance for academic success, much of the research investigating time management has proceeded without regard to a comprehensive theoretical model for understanding its connections to students’ engagement, learning, or achievement. Our central argument is that self-regulated learning provides the rich conceptual framework necessary for understanding college students’ time management and for guiding research examining its relationship to their academic success. We advance this larger purpose through four major sections. We begin by describing work supporting the significance of time management within post-secondary contexts. Next, we review the limited empirical findings linking time management and the motivational and strategic processes viewed as central to self-regulated learning. We then evaluate conceptual ties between time management and processes critical to the forethought, performance, and post-performance phases of self-regulated learning. Finally, we discuss commonalities in the antecedents and contextual determinants of self-regulated learning and time management. Throughout these sections, we identify avenues of research that would contribute to a greater understanding of time management and its fit within the framework of self-regulated learning. Together, these efforts demonstrate that time management is a significant self-regulatory process through which students actively manage when and for how long they engage in the activities deemed necessary for reaching their academic goals.