Lectures, assignments, group meetings and socialising! We all have to get a lot done in the average college week but of course want to make the most of college while we’re here.
According to a study done, our time management skills would improve if we realised how and where we were spending our time. Students estimated they were spending 1.5 times more minutes on Facebook and MySpace than they actually were and twice as many minutes on Moodle. If we became more aware of how much time we were dedicating to the different distractions in our world, we would probably realise we have more time left over than we originally thought. Students’ perceptions about study were also significantly off with students studying 1.3 times more than they actually thought they did. Students also attended lectures 1.25 times less than they believed they did.
Why are our perceptions of time management so off? How can we improve our time management? Should we spend this newly discovered free time studying?
I can’t give a definitive reason for why our perceptions are so different to reality but perhaps this will become clear when further research is done in this area. As for improving our time management, the study states that time management classes or workshops are inadequate. They do say that mature students (aged above 25) are better are time management but this isn’t the most helpful advice.
According to the research there isn’t a significant correlation between the amount of study done and the grade we achieve so perhaps not all of this new found time should go into studying. There is a theory that those with higher grades just have an inbuilt work ethic.
I’m not advising that anyone pack away the books and log onto Facebook. I believe that each individual person needs to find what works for them in terms of time management and study. Some people need to study more than others to achieve the same grade, some need to study less and some people get lucky with the questions and the minimal amount of study they’ve done.
Check out the study I read:
ciarahartigan 