Time Management of First Year Accounting Students of the University of Batangas

Leonila Rivera
[email protected]

Abstract

The aim of this research was to determine the Time Management of First Year
Accounting Students of the University of Batangas. Time management is very important and it
may actually affect individual's overall performance in school. However, all of these are related
by how individuals manage their time to suit their daily living or to make it flow steadily with their
routines. Conducive settings and environment will surely promote positive outcomes to the
students, besides having good lectures given by their professor. Nevertheless, students' time
management can be considered as one of the aspect that can move a student to be a good
accounting student. A good time management is very important for students especially in
accounting students. However, some of the students do not have a good time management
skills that has negatively affect their life and their academics. The usage of time by accounting
students is related to their daily routines and activities. Students' time management can also
affect stress level of students as they need to cope with their tasks and their personal
achievements. This descriptive study examined time management and study skill techniques as
well as among the different subscales of those skills. In this regard, the data was collected from
the students of University of Batangas to analyze that how effectively they are managing their
time for achieving their academic standards.

Keywords: Time Management, First Year Accounting Students, University of Batangas

Campuses: Hilltop | MH del Pilar | Pallocan East | Pallocan West | Lipa

Telephone Numbers: +63 43 723 1446 | 980 0041
Website: www.ub.edu.ph
 1.0 INTRODUCTION

Time is a paradox. The solution to the paradox of time, then, is to focus on the most
important things. One of them is realizing that there is always enough time for the real essential
matters. Time possesses another paradox - it disappears anyway. The attitude toward time is
also affected by the fact that time is free and equitable. Everyone receives exactly the same
amount each day. Since quantity of time is immutable, quality is the only changeable variable.
Managing time means adapting to its passage in some appropriate, satisfying manner.
The only way to manage time better is to spend time in appropriate way and consummates an
exact amount.
Delegation creates total responsibilities. It is finding people to assist in carrying the load
and to accomplish a certain task. Since delegation is time-bound, it is important thereof to
consider it subjectivity to time.
Planning requires objectives, without objectives, nothing to plan. For managers, it is
virtually impossible to achieve carefully determined objectives without planning. Planning need
not be a complex attempt. It is simply thinking about the future in a systematic way. It bridges
the gap between the present and the desired objectives. Unless there is some way to bridge this
separation, you will never be able to reach the destination. It is a central factor in all time-
management success stories and a road map to accomplishment and result, for it gives control
over the most valuable resource-time.
Planning time means setting timeframe or a time to the planned task. Time is the limiting
factor; therefore, a plan must be built around the most critical element-time. To manage time is
to control time. The secret to controlling time is through planning by remembering that there is
always enough to do what is important.
Time management plays a vital role in improving student’s academic performance and
achievements. Each and every student should have time management ability which includes
setting goals & priorities, using time management mechanism and being organized in using
time.

Campuses: Hilltop | MH del Pilar | Pallocan East | Pallocan West | Lipa

Telephone Numbers: +63 43 723 1446 | 980 0041
Website: www.ub.edu.ph
 Successful time management depends on more than a carefully planned system. It is
couple with positive action against the time wasters that threaten to destroy the plans.
Systematic time planning plus positive action equals effective time utilization.

Objectives of the Study

1. Determine how an accounting students manage their time

2. Determine how Time Management affect their daily life especially in school
3. To explore more and more knowledge about time management of an accounting
students

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
INPUT PROCESS OUTPUT

Time Management of  Information  Research

First Year Accounting Analysis Paper
Students of University  Survey  Knowledge
of Batangas about the Time
Management of
the students

A paradigm identifies a program’s input, its output, in the processing step required to
transform the input into the output. The Input Process Output (IPO) model developed by Harris
and Taylor (1997) was used as a guide in general direction of the study.

Campuses: Hilltop | MH del Pilar | Pallocan East | Pallocan West | Lipa

Telephone Numbers: +63 43 723 1446 | 980 0041
Website: www.ub.edu.ph
 The Input box contains the Time Management of First Year Accounting Students of
University of Batangas.
In the Process box, the content of the input box is joined together and undergo
processes like surveys questionnaire and information analysis of the information gathering.
The output box is finally the product of process input which is the Research Paper and
Knowledge about the Time Management of the Students

2. LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Time Management
There is a titanic difference between secondary and higher education when it comes to
managing time and academic responsibilities. In secondary education, there was the kind of
learning that includes an explanation of everything. On the other hand, when students enter
university, they find out that what they learn is a lecture, that only includes superficial
information and the rest is their job to know about and explore further (Britton & Tesser, 2001).
Time management is a skill that every student should not only know, but also apply. A lot of
university students complain about running out of time when asked to do a certain task, they
get frustrated because they are not able to make it before the deadline. Time management is
extremely important, especially when it comes to university students because it will boost their
grades and enhance their productivity (Laurie & Hellsten, 2002). However, most of the time
students face problems like task aversion and uncertainty, so they start to procrastinate
because they lack organizational skills. As a result, students will not be able to organize duties
according to their priorities, so they get distracted easily, ending up procrastinating. As we can
see, time management is quite essential to any university student, and it is one of the
keys to higher academic achievements (Kelly, 2004).

In the relevant literature there are great number of academic studies focusing on the
relation between time management and academic achievements. The related literature showed
that the time management attitude and skill levels of university students and the effects of these
skills on their academic achievement. The research revealed that a majority student possesses

Campuses: Hilltop | MH del Pilar | Pallocan East | Pallocan West | Lipa

Telephone Numbers: +63 43 723 1446 | 980 0041
Website: www.ub.edu.ph
 moderate level time management skills and only a significantly small portion has high level time
management skills (Yilmaz, Yoncalik & Bektaş, 2006). The literature revealed that the students’
time management skills affect their academic achievement at a significant level and the skills
are one of the predictors of academic performance. The relevant literature suggested that
students should start to acquire time management senses on their own in their primary school
years by reading materials on the issue or via the framework of psychological counselling and
guidance studies applied in schools and adopt effective time management attitudes and
techniques to determine how and where they spend their time (Lisa & Robert, 2008). The
various group of students who exploited time-saving proficiencies notably had rich academic
achievement. They accomplished those students who do not use time saving techniques in
their educational surrounding having significantly lower academic as compared to results
students who employ time- management tactics have considerably higher achievement
(Mercanlioglu, 2010). To calculate the cumulative time spent working during a week, these
objects were also added. Time management practices have been proven to be some of the top
indicators toward achieving a high level of academic success and performance. They not only
influences on the achievement but using time management techniques also serve only one
reason meaning that there are multipurpose fulfilled by time management (Fazal, 2012). Taking
part in proceedings and being engaged in other outside class activities, not inevitably a job, but
being energetic in institution also has a strong correlation to reaching high academic
achievements. Various studies showed that time management practices serve for many
purposes not only for challenging performance of the students. Time management practices
show the way not only to a high level of academic performance, but to good physical condition
and lower levels of stress. The foremost purpose of the present study was educational
competency, using time managing techniques, test pressure, and test proficiency (Faisal,
Miqdadi, Abdulla & Mohammad, 2014). Academic competence scores were established to some
extent improved in the current sample indicating that students found course material/content
encouraging and enjoying their classes.

Campuses: Hilltop | MH del Pilar | Pallocan East | Pallocan West | Lipa

Telephone Numbers: +63 43 723 1446 | 980 0041
Website: www.ub.edu.ph
 2.2 Dimensions of Time Management
The effectual utilizing of time and managing time requires procedures and good quality
planning behaviors. One can make use of time effectively and competently by keeping time
logs, setting immediate and long- standing goals, prioritizing responsibilities, constructing to-do
lists and arrangement, and organize one’s workspace, as studies of earlier period and plentiful
how-to books proposed (Sabelis, 2001). Time saving techniques and behaviors can be
categorized into numerous groups and be liable to contribute to a number of fundamental
qualities in general. There are three surfaces of time management behaviors: short-range
planning, long- range planning and time attitudes (Laurie & Hellsten, 2002). Short-range
planning is the capability to set out and systematize responsibilities in the short period of time.
Long-range planning competence is to handle everyday jobs over a longer time perspective by
keeping follow of significant dates and setting objectives by putting adjournment (Alay & Koçak,
2003).

A. Long Range Planning

Long-range planning means to have long-range objectives and having disciplined
routines. Various researchers named it as having perception of a preference for organization
and it is comparable to long range planning. To acquire a summary on the everyday jobs that
necessitate to be executed, time limits and priorities which increases the perception of having
control over time so, in the long run, planning enables one to deal with all activities (Kelly, 2004).
It directs to have less perception of control over time because it may be tackling to be familiar
with how much effort requires to be completed within hours, days or weeks; it may even be the
immediately measurable effect of planning. This gives the impression to indicate that time
management practices accomplish to have an influence on educational achievement, but that’s
not all they affect (Brigitte et al., 2005). It was also found that the students had advanced overall
academic achievements who accounted using goal-oriented time management practices.

B. Short Range Planning

Campuses: Hilltop | MH del Pilar | Pallocan East | Pallocan West | Lipa

Telephone Numbers: +63 43 723 1446 | 980 0041
Website: www.ub.edu.ph
 Short-range planning was defined as time management activities surrounded by daily or
weekly time structure and cover the activities such as setting objectives at the commencement
of the day, planning and prioritizing daily behaviors and creation work contents (Yilmaz et al.,
2006). Numerous studies invented that short-range planning behavior, forecasting of time in the
short run, surrounded by the time enclose of a week or less, established a constructive
relationship to grade point average. Short range planning in interface with accomplishment
determined was optimistically associated to dealing performance as well (Noftle et al., 2007).
Likewise, most of the studies that control for the student time do so by determining total time
committed to the course, a variable normally found to be unimportant. Academic achievement
means the educational objective that is accomplished by a student, teacher or institution realize
over a definite short period (Lisa & Robert, 2008). In a different research finding it has been
demonstrated that there exists a positive significant relation between students’ grade point
averages and the time attitudes and the short-range planning.

C. Time Attitude
Time management demands a key shift in emphasis: concentrate on results, not on being
busy. There are a lot of cases with people who waste their lives in discolored doings and attain
very small since they are placing their labors into the incorrect responsibilities or weakening to
focus their activity successfully, established that two time management workings directly affect
the collective academic achievements (Mercanlioglu, 2010). The perception of how their time
requires to be used up or planning including utilizing short and long period goals and time
attitudes or students accomplished that both planning and encouraging time attitudes initiated
that they had much more time to finish their everyday jobs because they experiences more in
control of how their time

Campuses: Hilltop | MH del Pilar | Pallocan East | Pallocan West | Lipa

Telephone Numbers: +63 43 723 1446 | 980 0041
Website: www.ub.edu.ph
 2.0 METHODOLOGY
The design of this research study is ‘quantitative-cum-qualitative’ thus, for the purpose, both
numerical data and textual was mustered and questioned by applying the inferential and
descriptive tools. To rationalize the textual/qualitative data, thematic analysis by using
argumentation was applied. Whereas, for the ‘field/numerical/quantitative date, different
statistical tools were applied to analyze the same facts and figures.
f
p  100
n
Where
P = percentage
f = frequency
n = total number of respondents
100 = constant multiplier

The weighted mean formula:

x
 fx
n
Where
f = frequency
x = mean
n = total number of respondents

After computing the weighted mean, the computed value was interpreted using the scale
below:
2 – 2.16 Sometimes
2.16 - 3 Agree
1 – 1.5 Disagree

3.0 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Campuses: Hilltop | MH del Pilar | Pallocan East | Pallocan West | Lipa

Telephone Numbers: +63 43 723 1446 | 980 0041
Website: www.ub.edu.ph
 Table 1.1
Distribution of Respondents According to Gender
Frequency Percent
Male 9 30
Female 21 70
Total 30 100
Table 1.1 shows the description of the respondents in terms of gender. The male
respondents were 9 with a percentage of 30. The female respondents were 70. This means that
there are 21 female respondents. Based on the table, there are more female respondents
compared to male.

Table 1.2
Distribution of Respondents According to Age
Frequency Percent
17 to 18 18 60
19 to 20 12 40
21 and above 0 0
Total 30 100
Table 1.2 shows the distribution of respondents in terms of age. It shows that there are
18 students who were ages 17 to 18, amounting to 60 percent. Those who were 19 to 20 got a
percentage of 40 which means there are 12 respondents. There are no ages 21 and above
among the respondents. This means that most of Accountancy freshmen are from ages 17 to
18.

Table 2
Percentage Distribution of Efficiency of Time Management of First Year Accounting
Students of University of Batangas
Perception Weighted mean Interpretation

Campuses: Hilltop | MH del Pilar | Pallocan East | Pallocan West | Lipa

Telephone Numbers: +63 43 723 1446 | 980 0041
Website: www.ub.edu.ph
 1. I accomplish what needs to 2.16 Sometimes
be done during the day
2. I always get assignments 2.16 Agree
done on time
3. I am able to meet deadlines 1.5 Disagree
without rushing at the last
minute
4. I tackle difficult or 2.1 Sometimes
unpleasant tasks without
procrastinating
5. I prepare a daily or weekly 2 Sometimes
“to do” list
Composite Mean 9.92 Sometimes
Table 2 shows that first year college students accomplish what needs to be done during
the day amounted to a 2.16 weighted mean and interpreted as sometimes. Always get
assignments done on time got a 2.16 which interpreted as agree. Able to meet deadline without
rushing the last minute got a 1.5 weighted mean and is interpreted as Disagree. Tackle difficult
or unpleasant tasks without procrastinating got a 2.1 mean and is interpreted as sometimes.
Prepare a daily or weekly “to do” list got a mean of 2 and is interpreted as sometimes. This
shows that the First Year College Accountancy Students of University of Batangas use Time
Management sometimes.

4.0 CONCLUSIONS AND DIRECTIONS FOR FUTURE USE

Conclusion
This research aims to determine:
1. The Time Management of First Year College Accountancy Students of University of
Batangas
2. How students develop their Time Management

Campuses: Hilltop | MH del Pilar | Pallocan East | Pallocan West | Lipa

Telephone Numbers: +63 43 723 1446 | 980 0041
Website: www.ub.edu.ph
 It was found out that the First Year College Accountancy Students get their assignments
done on time.

Recommendation
1. Students must persevere and be more responsible
2. It would be beneficial if the accounting students would strive more and create their
foundation to their determination on this course
3. Reminding themselves of the perks of being an accountant can help raise moral lessons
4. Accountancy students must eliminate distraction and get rid of anything that distracts
and allows them to procrastinate from studies

References:
Mercado, P. & Mago, D (2002). Time Management: Theory, Research, and Applications. Makati
Recto, Philippines

Campuses: Hilltop | MH del Pilar | Pallocan East | Pallocan West | Lipa

Telephone Numbers: +63 43 723 1446 | 980 0041
Website: www.ub.edu.ph