“YOU CAN’T RECYCLE WASTED TIME”

Victoria Hinkson

THE EFFECT OF TIME-MANAGEMENT

TRAINING ON EMPLOYEE

ATTITUDES AND BEHAVIOR: A FIELD

EXPERIMENT

EXPERIMENT #1:

HYPOTHESIS

Training in time management increases one’s effectiveness

and success.

VARIABLES

Independent Variables: Two groups of

people (a control group and an

experimental group) randomly assigned to

either time management training or non-

training treatment.

Dependent Variables: effects of treatment

(time management training) on attitudes

and behavior

PROCEDURES 52 employees at an Australian manufacturing company

Subjects were told at a meeting that they would be attending one of two

identical time-management programs (randomly selected half to attend

actual time management and other half not experimental and control

group)

Experimental group included a mixture of lectures, group discussions,

exercises and role pays and covered major topics of setting goals,

learning time planning, setting priorities for tasks and jobs, dealing with

interruptions, using diaries, and learning techniques for incoming

information

Trainee reactions were assessed by asking the subjects whether or not

they felt the program achieved its objectives and how much they

benefited immediately after completing the program (1=not al all to 5=a

great deal) (program lasted for 1 month)

After completing the 4 week program subjects completed an 8-item scale to assess how well they felt they were managing various demands on their time (1= not at all well to 5=very well indeed). Total scores on a scale provided self-report measure of time-management effectiveness (TME)

When brought back to their jobs, subjects were asked to complete activity diaries of how they spent each half hr of the day providing basis for behavioral measure of TME (diary must describe the activity, whether it was planned or unplanned, high or low priority, how much interrupted time they needed for important tasks that they needed to do alone)

Diaries were examined and rated the extent to which the entries in the diaries reflected an effective use of time (1=very ineffective to 7=very effective) judges were not aware of which group the subject had belonged to (experimental or control)

Procedures

RESULTSThe mean score of training group on the behavioral measure (time

management diary) was significantly higher than the control group

subjects. The self-report measure correlated significantly with the

behavioral indicator in the total sample.

Prediction was supported. Subjects in the training group rated higher

in time-management effectiveness than the control group. The results

suggest that employees can be taught to improve their time

management skills, especially when they feel positively about the

training they receive.

EXPERIMENT #2

The Dynamics of Learning

and Allocation of Study

Time to a Region of

Proximal Learning

HYPOTHESIS

People studying optimally should devote the bulk of their study time to the items that gave the greatest rate of return per second of study, and the return rates should mirror people’s study-time allocation patterns.

DESIGN AND VARIABLES

~The experiment was a 3 (difficulty of the

materials: easy,

medium, difficult) X 3 (time allowed per triad: 5

s, 15 s, or unlimited time up to 60 s) within-

participants design.

~16 word pairs per treatment combination. The

order of the timing conditions, which was a

blocked variable, was counterbalanced across

participants

~ Independent variable: study time and difficulty

of materials

~Dependent variable: performance

PROCEDURE

- Subjects: 12 Columbia University students who received partial

course credit for their participation

- Participants were informed that they would be asked to learn

144 English–Spanish vocabulary pairs but they would be given a

pretest first.

- On the pretest, Subjects were asked to write the Spanish

translation of any English word they knew on a list of 144.

- During the study, on each trial, 3 English words would appear on

the computer screen with a question mark button below each

word. The Spanish translation of a given word would show when

they clicked on the question. The Spanish translation remained

on the screen until they clicked on another question mark or the

study time for that triad of pairs finished.

PROCEDURE- Participants were informed that the words on the left were relatively easy,

those on the right relatively difficult, and those in the middle of intermediate

difficulty. Also, they were free to allocate their study time however they wished,

including visiting the same item multiple times. They were also informed of the

study time allowed for each triad in each block of the study phase.

- During the 5-s and 15-s blocks, the computer automatically went to the next

trial when the time period completed. In the unlimited-time block, a next triad

button was present. In this block, the computer went on to the next triad

automatically if the participant did not click the next triad button for 60 s.

- Once completed, the computer ran a test—an English word was displayed, and

the participant was asked to type the Spanish translation (random order).

Participants were told that they could change their answers up until they hit

the return key and that their data would be scored both strictly and leniently,

so if they had some idea of what the words might be, they should type in their

answers, even if they were not entirely certain. They were similarly encouraged

to guess on the pretest.

RESULTS

The Time Allowed X Difficulty interaction was significant:

easier items were easier, more time resulted in better

performance, and more time was ineffective in improving

performance on the most difficult items, although it did help

the easy and medium items.

people tended to devote more time to the pairs of medium

difficulty than to either the easy or the difficult pairs.

In summary, time spent on the easy items was especially

effective when there was little total time. With longer total

time, the advantage to spending it on the easy items

diminished