Evaluación de la autorregulación y gestión del tiempo mediante una herramienta on-line en educación superior

Abstract

The good performance of university students depends largely on adequate self-regulation of their behaviour in the management and organization of their study time and learning. This is in addition to knowing how to plan the work, applying good techniques, and being motivated and confi dent (Gadbois et al., 2011, Wang et al., 2011; Wintre et al. 2011). To analyze how university students plan and organize their study time, we have produced an on-line tool consisting of a series of steps or activities, through which the current situation of the student is analyzed in order to propose changes to improve their skills in this area. The activities are organized so that the information collected in one exercise helps with the following one. Therefore, the system does not allow any of them to be omitted (http://venus. uca.es/administratutiempo/). There is a 30-item questionnaire, rated on a Likert scale, referring to specifi c strategies in various areas of personal time management in general, and study time in particular. In this paper, we present data from 452 questionnaires completed by a group of fi rst year students doing degrees in Teacher Training, P.E. and Psychology at the University of Cádiz (UCA). The results showed the difficulties faced by higher education students in planning their study time, and the need to provide appropriate assistance in order to improve and optimize their academic performance. In this regard, the UCA Psychological Counselling Service offers various resources, such as the Learning Support Programme (PAA), part of which analyzes and discusses the different variables involved in effective time management from a practical point of view and in a small group setting.