Time management skills and student performance in online courses

Abstract

As educators, we have the almost daily task of turning students' goals into the reality of completed degrees. In part, we accomplish this by requiring students to spend time with course content. Students, in turn, must plan and use their time effectively in order to accomplish course goals and objectives. Online courses present special challenges for student engagement and effective time management; thus, effective course design built on an understanding of the nature of time management in an academic setting is essential for faculty designing the courses. The authors' path to the current study began with investigation related to online instruction and learning followed by several more investigations that considered issues of time management. The authors first considered which elements of online course delivery were perceived by students to be valuable [1]. In a subsequent study the authors found that students believed they learned to manage their time from participation in online courses [2]. Another study revealed that specific course features included in the design of online courses were both used by students and perceived as beneficial to students with respect to their management of time [3]. The study reported here focuses more specifically on relationships among students' self-reported time management behaviors, demographic characteristics of the students, course format (online versus face-to-face), and perceived use of particular course elements. The paper addresses the following issues. • Are there identifiable characteristics of students who are proficient in specific time management skills? • Are these time management skills related to student use of course design features? • What are some of the specific time management strategies that are utilized by students?.