Assessment of Time Management Practices and Students’ Academic Achievement: The Moderating Role of Gender

Abstract

Quality time management is an imperative tool that leads to greater academic performance and reduces depression, anxiety and stress among students. However, most college students seemed to face difficulties in balancing their academic and social life. The rationale of this inquiry was to examine the influence of time management practices on students’ academic achievement in the Colleges of Education (CoE) in Ghana and as well to explore the moderating role of gender in this relationship. The research employed descriptive survey design and a sample of 325 students from six CoE were selected to participate in the investigation using the multistage sampling approach. The data was collected using adapted Time Management Questionnaire (TMQ; Britton & Tesser, 1991). Data gathered were analysed using AMOS, Moderation Analysis and Independent sample t-test. The findings showed that time management practices (short-range planning, time attitudes, long-range planning) does not predict academic achievement of CoE students. The study again, revealed that gender does not moderate the relationship between time management and academic achievement of the students. The results showed that there was no significance gender difference in time management practices of CoE students. The study concluded that ineffective time management behaviours among college students could lead to poor academic achievement and other psychological effects. The Management of the CoEs in Ghana in collaboration with other policy makers should hold seminars and workshops for students at the start of each semester to discuss the value of good time management activities in order to improve their achievement. Faculty are sensitised to inculcate in the students the skills and positive attitude towards effective time management so as to increase their self-efficacy in time management. Students should be conscious of ineffective time drivers and assume responsibility for quality time management.

Keywords

• academic achievement
• coe
• long-range planning
• short-range planning
• time attitudes
• time management