Student Engagement in the First Year of Higher Education: The Influence of Temporal Orientation

Abstract

The aim of this investigation was to test the influence of temporal orientation on student engagement for first year university students at an Australian multicampus university. The study adopted a repeated correlational method to identify the relationships between temporal orientation factors and student engagement variables in the first phase and to confirm these relationships in the second phase. Survey data from two distinct cohorts of commencing students, who completed a university-wide on-line first year experience survey, were examined. To ensure that the relationships and influences that were identified were not merely characteristics of a particular first year cohort, this investigation ran two separate studies, one in 2003 and the other in 2005. In this way, the relationships between the temporal orientation factors and the student engagement variables, and the influence exerted by the temporal orientation factors on the student engagement variables could be tested, retested, and confirmed. Over the decades, several psychological theories have been proposed as influencing students’ engagement with their studies and on their approaches to study. This study proposed that the five factors of Zimbardo and Boyd’s (1999) Time Perspective Inventory (ZTPI) would provide a quick and efficient means of assessing psychological concepts that have been considered instrumental in promoting student engagement. Specifically, it was hypothesised that these five factors (Past-Positive, Past-Negative, Present-Hedonistic, Present-Fatalistic, and Future) would act as useful predictors of students’ adoption of deep, conceptual approaches to study, academic application, academic orientation, and satisfaction with their first year university experience. This hypothesis was supported by the study’s findings.