HANOI UNIVERSITY

FOUNDATION STUDIES DEPARTMENT

------------oOo--------------

Survey on FSD’s students’

time management skills

Teacher: Tran Thi Ngoc Bac

Students: Le Mai Anh
Do Bich Ha
i Do Minh Ngoc
Class: 4TC – 15
Course: ESP Writing
Date: 20/05/2016
 ABSTRACT

It is clear that everyone has the same amount of time: sixty minutes in an hour,
twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week. Time is the most valuable resource
that we have. We can deal with non-renewable resources like fossil fuels by using
alternative resources of energy such as electricity, solar energy, wind energy... But
the important point is that time once lost, is lost forever. There is not any alternative
resource for time. Hence, we have to use time with its best advantage. As the title
suggests, the aim of this paper is to reflex how did Foundation Studies Department
(FSD) students use their time and find worrisome problems affecting their time
management. We studied this research based on the data obtained from
questionnaire, our project's team analyze and assess gathered information. The
readers can have obvious awareness about drawbacks in their own performance to
change and improve it. Besides, effective strategies to accomplish all own work is
pointed out for students to consult. It is hoped that this research can provide time
management skills for individual to get the most effective result possible and this
could be a potential inducement for further studies in the future.

ii
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................................. ii

LIST OF FIGIRES .................................................................................................................................... iv

1. Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 1

2. Method.................................................................................................................................................. 2

3. Results .................................................................................................................................................. 2

4. Discussion of findings .......................................................................................................................... 4

4.1. Student’s attitude toward time management ............................................................................ 4

4.2. Student’s way to manage time .................................................................................................... 5

4.3. Student’s problems when managing time ................................................................................ 6

4.4. Solution for these problems................................................................................................................. 7

5. Recommendations ............................................................................................................................... 8

6. Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................ 8

REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................................... 9

APPENDIX ............................................................................................................................................... 10

iii
 LIST OF FIGIRES

Figure 1: The percentage of students who struggle managing there time ............................................. 2

Figure 2: The percentage of students who have different activities ......................................................... 3

Figure 3: The percentage of how frequently students meet the issues of finishing tasks ................ 4

iv
1. Introduction

With the fast pace of today, the success of a person requires constant efforts. However,
effort is not enough, success will come to those who seize the time and use them in a
reasonable manner. Although time management skills are an essential component of the
independent study at university, many students are still unaware of the importance or
difficulties in the process of using time. Hence, it is essential that a research be conducted
to raise students’ awareness of the important of time management skills. That will provide
them information about this skill and help them use time more effective. It is particularly
crucial to us, students of FSD – a department which students must spend a lot of time for
study. Therefore, this issue will demonstrated in our research, which focuses on their
attitude and problems on managing time.

In general, there are a number of researches on time management skills, but these studies
have tended to focus on worker, rather than on students, especially student at university.
The research (Kim et al. 2010) suggested that students who do not have a good time
management skills feel stress and anxiety more than others. According to Kim, failure to
manage time can impact on completing and submit assignments, which directly related to
academic achievement. However, her research just focuses on student’s problems and
gave some solutions. University of Cambridge’ research (2014) showed that during
studying at university, improving time management is one of the most crucial skills, which
help students can find a better job when graduated. Having the same ideal with Kim’
research, University of Cambridge’ research had also solutions for this topic. The main
aim of this research is providing information about student’s attitude and their problem to
have better solutions.

Bearing this in mind, this research paper which is based on data from students of FSD,
Hanoi University will focus on clarifying three main questions. Firstly, what is the
students’ attitude towards time management? Secondly, how do students use their time?
And last but not least, what are the problems that students face to when managing time?

1
2. Method

This research paper is based on primary source of data obtained by conducting

questionnaires within FSD on Hanoi University. At the beginning, a questionnaire
consisting of 10 multiple-choice questions was designed with respect to our three research
questions. In the next step, with 100 students in FSD, 80 students were randomly selected
directly and 20 students answer online questionnaire, and then each of them is gave a
question paper to fill in it with their choice. In this paper, 10 questions are divided to many
different structures such as closed question, partially closed question, scaled question...
Therefore, the result obtained achieved is exactly and authentically. Furthermore, because
the main those surveyed is students in FSD at Hanoi University, we also directly distribute
questionnaires to warrant about data and object.

3. Results

The research carried out by making a survey on 100 FSD students of the subject “Time
management”. About 80 students were directly asked to do the questionnaires, and the
others did the survey online. We requested the bigger group to fill in some simple
questions that we had prepared and then asked them some specific questions in order to
diversify the answers.

Figure 1: The percentage of students

who struggle managing their time

26%
46%
Yes
No
28%
Not sure

2
Regarding Figure 1, nearly a half of students had problems with managing their time while
the figure for not having problems was much lower with 28%. The number of students
who confused between two options was 26%. The data clearly showed that the majority of
students have difficulty in managing their time. In addition, the figure of 26% reflected the
percentage of students who can deal with deadline but they are not sure whether they can
handle other task effectively.

The percentage of students who have

different activities
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Outdoor Part-time jobs Surfing the Doing Social activities Others
activities Internet housework

With regard to activities, surfing the Internet was the most popular activity to student,
which accounted for over 90%. The percentage of students who have outdoor activities
was rather high with nearly 60% but they did not have the tendency to take part in social
activities. That made the figure for this was just over 20%. Besides, doing housework was
the second most popular activities with nearly 80%. This figure came out owing to the fact
that most students are boarding students, they live in the dormitory or lodgings and they
have to do everything themselves. For local students, they live with family so they can
share their duties to other family members.

3
 The percentage of how frequently students
meet the issues when finishing tasks
60%

50%
Always
40%

30% Sometimes

20%
Rarely
10%

0%
Interruption Stress Punctuality

Finally, when being asked if they had any problems that affected on their process, the
results were surprising. They are always distracted by different factors, sometimes get
stress and rarely set up the deadline and follow it. The figures for those were 48%, 43%
and 52% respectively.

4. Discussion of findings

4.1. Students’ attitude toward time management

In fact, in the university environment, students are required to do its best to achieve high
performance. Therefore, learning is always a top priority. Besides, many students choose
to participate in activities outside the margins to increase revenue and improve soft skills.
These are all time-consuming activities, they forced the students to know how to take
advantage of a maximum time. It gave students no small pressure on the issue of time. A
successful student always knows the most effective way to use time. Time of everyone is
the same, but how to use it is dependent individuals. Most students are aware of the
importance of time management skill, even they can accurately assess the level of time

4
management by itself, however, only part of which said use efficient use of time. Time
management skill is a key to success, so students are very interested in this issue. There
have been many meetings discussing this skill and get the attention of the majority of
students. Students are excited in this regard. They realize that this is essential for success.
Besides, some students are not care about this problem. They said that this skill is not
practical because everyone's time is the same. Time management skills are not helping
them or they have tried to apply multiple solutions but were difficult after repeated failures
should they conclude that it is the skills training is a waste of their time. Students must
really be wise to assess the skill level of the self to have a specific schedule.

Students should focus on time management skills because this is an important key in the
future. Students should actively acquire and hone skills further, because the time students
is the appropriate time to complete the service of soft skills for the future.

4.2. Students’ way to manage time

Each student has at least several ways to manage your own time. This approach is
effective or not reflected in the results of studies and other activities. Almost students
manage and arrange a time through a timetable or a schedule. Students who have a
detailed and science timetable often have good performance in class (Cirillo, 2009).
Specifically, many students responded that they often create to a list of things to do and
put them in order of priority. And then, students just need follow the order without having
worry about missing work or delay. By this way, students can define objectives which
need to do and focus on it. The schedule is divided into two main types: long-term and
short-term. Long-term tasks are common from six months to one year or more, even it is
in far future. Long-term tasks help students can navigate the future of themselves and use
it as a target. Short-term tasks from one day to one week or more help students can arrange
work effectively and without delay the work because if you stop one of tasks, the others
will delay leads to overload. To increase affective, students create some deadlines to make
time pressure for themselves, they can finish the task more quickly. Many students admit
that, only when there is pressure on the time they can ask for their finished work. Beside
school-hours, Students am also join in other activities such as having part-time jobs,
volunteer, following passions, ... Because the number of classroom hours FSD

5
plenty student ought to be able to balance work other needs a reasonable timetable and
efficiency. Students often assume that 24 hours per day with added is not enough for
activities. So they have to balance between the activities of the day together. One of them
chooses to reduce sleep time again. However this is not a good and long-term solution,
because for students ages 18 to 22, sleep is very important in the process of development
and recreation. Average an adult should sleep at least 6-7 hours per day. The lack of sleep
can lead to depression, fatigue, stress... which lead to reducing quality of learning and
work.

In general, there are many ways to manage time effectively, but depending on the
individual selection of the most appropriate way. Students can try out various methods
until he saw increased work efficiency.

4.3 Student's problems when manage time

According to the results of our survey (Figure 1), the majority of student said that they
struggle with time management, whereas a very confident segment of 28% stated that they
never struggle. The rest of students felt difficult to determine whether they have problem.
For college students, the difficulty of time management may occur during the busy and
stressful time when they have a lot of work to do and they are overloaded by studying
before examination. Some students who have part time job really felt stuck on work. The
outcome of further questions gave a surprised result: a significant percentage of college
students used the large amount of time for surfing the Internet (Figure 2). It means that
young people waste time to overuse the technology of computers instead of learning and
doing homework. Another outstanding point is the least percentage of student using time
for social activities which can give a lot of useful life experiences. After studying the
result of Figure 3 (the issues when finishing tasks), we found that interruption is the most
influenced factor causing the difficulty of the completion. Nearly fifty percent of FSD's
students said that they always be interrupted when doing tasks. Even when they do a
simple work such as cleaning house, they are easily distracted. Moreover, students are
under stress because of time limitation and deadlines of their assignments and homework.

6
Overall, they became unfocused or did not pay enough attention to perform the task as
scheduled.

4.4 Solutions for these problems

As mentioned in before section, students need to have ability to perform tasks on time.
This part of paper suggests some useful strategies for college students in the midst of busy
schedules. The most effective way is planning ahead. Every people should create a plan to
balance all the work and giving themselves correctly guidelines. Students should make
daily or weekly schedule about all works in prioritize orders and check them off when they
complete. It is also a helpful way to remembering everything you need to done and avoid
disturbed factors. Students should not let unexpected tasks displace their currently
scheduled work or appointments (Raymond ,2008). People can easily download “Personal
scheduling software” to synchronize scheduling information among computer or cellular
phone.

Moreover, students should organizing the time by identifying where they are wasting time
and trying to reduce these. The effective way is develop a regular work routine and keep
the work space tidy so that they can work efficiently (McKay; Brett; Kate, 2013). At the
end of the week examine your time log and ask yourself the following questions: "Are
there any periods that I could use more productively? At what time of day do I do my most
effective work?" Some people are most alert in the morning, whilst others concentrate best
during the afternoon or evening. The key point is setting all of the most important tasks for
these times of day.

7
5. Recommendations

For managing time is an important skill with every student, solutions are necessity. Lack
of time management skills mainly derives from students’ old habits. They do not have the
manner of planning or setting up a schedule. As mentioned in discussion section, a wise
student should have a timetable for what they do daily. However, the issue should be
resolved radically. Students in general should be aware of the significance of time. They
might be young and have a future ahead but they should bear in mind that if they
underestimate their youthfulness and use time ineffectively, they certainly miss their
bright future. “Practice makes perfect”, so they should make a habit of arranging time
suitably for any kinds of tasks they are dealing with. Besides, domestic education is also
an important factor. As early childhood is a determining factor of one’s growth, parents
should pay more attention in educating children the importance of time management. If
the custom was shaped at an early age, a child will easily get through his or her obstacles
when they enter their adulthood in terms of time pressure.

6. Conclusion

To conclude, the majority of FSD students are aware of the issue of their skill in managing
time but they still cannot find a way to deal with these problems. This presumption came
out from the findings of the survey which showed that a large sum of students have
difficulties in managing time. The way students use their time varies. While high-
performed students often arrange their schedule well, the students who cannot handle or
do not have a timetable often show worse results in the exam. They feel 24 hours per day
is too short for them to finish their tasks. The main activities that a freshman often has are
surfing the Internet, outdoor activities or doing housework. These activities account for
quite a big amount of time and if they do not have enough skills to tackle the issues, they
will run into troubles. Therefore, solutions to these problems had been given in order to
change students’ attitudes and to improve their skills in this field.

We hope that our research will partly effect on students thoughts about their skill of
managing time, and that our study could support further projects. We have found out some
of the weaknesses while carrying out the survey. We perceived that we should focus on
detail such as whether the participants are local or boarding students. In the future, there
would be more studies in order to figure out the issue and to contribute the knowledge to
further research.

8
REFERENCES

1) Cirillo, Francesco (November 14, 2009). “The Pomodoro Technique”. Lulu.com

2) Kim Shahabudin, Angela Taylor, Judy Turner & Michelle Reid (2010), University Study
Advice team & LearnHigher CETL, University of Reading.
http://archive.learnhigher.ac.uk/resources/files/Time%20management/time_staff_rese
arch_overview.pdf

3) Le Blanc, Raymond (2008). “Achieving Objectives Made Easy! Practical goal setting
tools & proven time management techniques”

4) McKay; Brett; Kate (October 23, 2013). "The Eisenhower Decision Matrix: How to
Distinguish Between Urgent and Important Tasks and Make Real Progress in Your
Life".A Man's Life, Personal Development.

5) University of Cambridge, The Old Schools, Trinity Lane, Cambridge CB2 1TN,
22 August 2014
http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/univ/plagiarism/students/skills/time.html

9
 APPENDIX
TIME MANAGEMENT

QUESTIONNAIRES
We are Le Mai Anh, Do Bich Ha and Do Minh Ngoc, ESP students, Foundation Studies
Department, Hanoi University. We are doing a research project on the Time management
skills of FSD’s students. This questionnaire is designed to help us obtain data for our
research project. We highly appreciate your opinions which are apparently crucial to the
completion as well as the quality of our paper. Please return the completed questionnaire by
29 April 2016. Thank you for your cooperation.

1. Do you think 24h/day is enough for you?

a. Yes
b. No
c. Not sure
2. How many hours do you use for study after hours in class every day?
None
Less than 4 hours.
More than 4 hours.

3. How often do you spend for these below activities?

(1 is “always”, 2 is “sometimes”, 3 is “rarely” and 4 is “never”)

1 2 3 4

Going out, outdoor activities, ...

Following your passions

Having a part-time job

Getting Relax (watching TV, reading book...)

Using smartphone, computer, Internet…

Joining clubs, organizations, volunteer activities…

Other activities…

10
4. How often do you make a list about tasks you must to do in a certain period or
even in far future?
Never
Rarely
Sometimes
Always
5. Do you struggle with managing your time?
Always
Sometimes
Never
6. What problems do you have in managing time?

Don’t know how to have a good timetable

So lazy
Just do tasks when near deadline
Don’t have motivation to do
Neglected by other things
Others problems:_______________________

Option Usually Sometimes Rarely Never

7. During working process, do you meet interruption

of any other activities?

8. Are you stressed about deadline and commitments?

9. With long-term goals, do you create standing time

for each part and do them punctually?

10. How would you evaluate the effectiveness of your time management skills?

Quality Tick
1. Bad
2. Normal
3. Good
4. Very good

Thank you for your cooperation!

11