This paper presents research on the amount of time students spend studying, the impact that time spent studying has on exam performance and the reasons why students are investing less time than ever before on their education

1. In search of lost time:
invest
investigating the temporality of
student engagement, the role of
learning technologies, and
implications for student performance
Córais Faisnéise Bainistíochta
Scoil Ghnó Lochlann Uí Chuinn
An Coláiste Ollscoile, BÁC 4
Éire
Niamh O Riordan
Management Information Systems
School of Business
University College Dublin, Dublin 4
Ireland

2. Agenda
1. Motivation
2. Background
3. Research design
4. Findings
5. Discussion and future directions

3. 1. Motivation
Student engagement
• Is as much about time as it is about effort
• Is diminishing for a variety of reasons
• Is linked to student performance
• Is an under-researched phenomenon
Our objective was to investigate college students’
time use, to identify the factors that affect it and to
assess its impact on exam performance

4. 2. Background
• Student engagement is defined as the time and effort students
invest in educational activities (Kuh, 2009)
• We know that
– Students’ study time is decreasing (Mortenson, 2011; Babcock and Marks,
2010; Young, 2002)
– Students are struggling to manage their time effectively (Yorke
and Longden, 2007) and are experiencing increased time pressure
(van der Meer et al., 2010)
– Time spent studying (George et al., 2008) and time management
skills (Krause and Coates, 2008) are significant predictors of academic
success
• But knowledge of the relationship between students’ study time,
perhaps the most basic input in the education process, and
student learning remains “virtually non-existent” (Nonis and Hudson,
2010; Stinebrickner and Stinebrickner, 2004).

5. 3. Research Design
• Grounded theory approach
– A systematic, empirically driven approach
– Used to generate theory inductively
– Typically applied to interview data
– But may begin with data of any kind (cf. Hallberg, 2006)
• Applied to found practitioner texts*
• To generate an analytical framework
• Which was used to ‘read’ the academic literature
* Two forum discussions on the Babcock and Marks (2010) paper over 8,000 words long

6. 4. Findings

7. Core phenomenon: college students’ time use
• (Reduced) time spend
• The changing nature of work

8. Consequences
• Skill acquisition
• Exam performance

9. Factors
Student factors
• Incentives and motivations
• Attitudes and abilities
• Financial pressures
• Work and family commitments
• Student body composition
Technology factors
• Enabling effects
• Distracting effects
Institutional norms and practices
• Consumerisation of education
• Extracurricularisation of activities
• Grading practices and inflation
• Lecturers’ working conditions
• Reduced access to resources
• Unclear expectations
These days pretty much anyone who wants to go [to
college can get in somewhere
Jolly, S1
As a current college student, I often wonder what
people did with their free time and/or to
procrastinate before the invention of the Internet and
television. I mean, I suppose “we did our work” is
an answer, but I mean….that can’t be right, can it?
Colin, S1
Lower grading standards lead to less studying. They
also lead students to give better course evaluations
Michael Bishop, S3

10. Contextual issues
• Which course?
• In which discipline?
• In which faculty/college/school?
• What academic level?
• Historical, social, political, economic and cultural context

11. 5. Discussion and future directions
• There is a pressing need to know (a lot) more about how
college students are spending their time
• Future studies are also needed to better understand the
impact of college students’ time use on both exam
performance and skill acquisition
• Going forward, there is a need for future research that also
addresses the interplay between student-related,
institutional and technological factors
• But as educators control the technologies that are used to
support teaching and learning, our next steps will focus on
probing the impact of specific technologies on college
students’ study time.
• Finally, our analysis identified several important contextual
factors that should be brought to bear in any future research
on college students’ study time

12. THANK YOU
Dr Niamh ‘Neve’ O Riordan
University College Dublin, Ireland.
niamh.oriordan@ucd.ie
www.niamhoriordan.com
ie.linkedin.com/in/niamhoriordan/