A study on university student’s time management and academic achievement

Abstract

Background: Time management is a skill that perhaps impacts the students’ academic achievement. The objective of the study is to study the time management skill and perceived academic achievements among university students.Methods: A cross sectional study was done among medical students studying in one of the private medical colleges of Odisha. Time management questionnaire developed by Britton and Tesser was used as a study tool. It includes 18 questions distributed in 3 dimensions: short-range planning, time attitudes and long-range planning. All the questions were value based on the Likert scale of five value scores. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics. Means of various dimensions were compared.Results: 51.90% of the participants possessed moderate to low level time management score. Participants who obtained higher percentages of mark (70-80%) also had high mean score on general time management.24.1% of the participants never write a set of goals for their self for each day and 21.5% never spend time for each day planning. Whereas 48% always keep their desk clear of everything other than what they are working on it, 40.5% sometimes review their class notes, even when a test is not imminent, 37.9% sometimes make a schedule of the activities that they have to do on work days and 37.9% sometimes make constructive use of their time.Conclusions: To improve academic performance, students are in need of IEC programs in relation to time management.