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Project Title:
Comparative Study Habits on MBA Full Time and Part
Time Students in GSM, IIUM
Instructor:
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter one: Intruduction .............................................................................................. 3
Background of the study.3
Definitions of Study Habits ........................................................................................ 4
Problem Statement ..................................................................................................... 5
Research Questions .................................................................................................... 6
Hypothesis of the Study ............................................................................................. 6
Significance of the Study ........................................................................................... 6
Limitation and Future Study ...................................................................................... 7
Chapter two: Literature review ..................................................................................... 8
Introduction .................................................................................................................... 8
Previous Studies and Theories ....................................................................................... 8
Time Management...................................................................................................... 9
Theories and practices of Time Management ....................................................... 11
Class attendance and participation ........................................................................... 12
Class Attendances .................................................................................................... 12
Class Participation .................................................................................................... 14
Exam Preparations.................................................................................................... 15
Theoretical Framework of the study ............................................................................ 17
Figure 1: Conceptual framework ................................................................................. 17
Chapter three: Research Methedology ......................................................................... 18
Methods and Data Collection ................................................................................... 18
sampling and sample size ........................................................................................ 18
sampling and sample size ........................................................................................ 18
Data Analysis ........................................................................................................ 189
Validty & Relaibility ............................................................................................... 19
Conclusion and Recommendation ............................................................................ 20
References .................................................................................................................... 21
It was very interested by many scholars to address the effectiveness of study habits on
academic performance. There is no doubt that the education plays a very important
role to the development and shaping of a students mind. The acquisition of new
knowledge, information and the way one responds to the learning environment makes
him a holistic student. It must be uncalculated in our minds that one of the purposes of
education is to train students on how to formulate solutions to potential problems,
how to grow independently, how to apply what they learned during classroom in their
study journey. Students cannot learn simply by being told what to do or by watching
others but they have to practice and practice frequently.
Successful students employ time management systems to create study patterns that
work and use active learning methods to add meaning and interest to their study time
and maintaining their motivation by connecting reasons for study to their life goals
and values. Students must develop, establish and demonstrate good study habits in the
educational process which can raise their academic performance. High educational
achievement attained by the learners in schools is the primary objective of human
development.
Nonis & Hudson (2010) found that through his study about the skills or study habit
was a significant and had direct relationship with the academic performance of
college students. Study habits or strategies is to pay attention in class discussion,
being on time, taking good notes, completing homework in a timely manner, and
reading the study material before a lecture. It is clear that effective study habit
produces useful results in terms of academic achievement, because it has been
expected that students who possess good study habits in general are better performers
than those with poor study habits as this empirical evidence showed.
Nevertheless, no one can ignore the importance of teaching and learning in the whole
process of educational system. This process can only become successful when
academic; teachers are fully co-operated and decide the young generation a bright
future and students must show respect to their parents, and lectures that are their
nurtures. Students are required to come up with effective study habits that help them
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to understand the course and be flight colors in the exams. Learning and studying
effective way in the education is easy for everyone but mostly for smart people and
those who are conscious about the time utilization are expected to be achievers and
excellent in their studies.
Borg et al. (1989) and Okpala, Okpala, and Ellis (2000) found that good study
strategies positively contributed performance in economics courses. Davidson (2002)
also reported a deep study approach that demonstrated a positive relationship with
course performance on standard examination questions in the schools, colleges and
universities. These results taken as a whole suggest that study habit skills have a
significant relationship with student performance but the nature of this relationship is
likely to be more complicated than in some other studies.
Problem Statement
Graduate School of Management provides three important programs which are DBA,
MBA program and MOM program that encompasses for both type of study status to
local and overseas students in International Islamic University. Part time students are
those who working and at the study as a part mode in this program while full time
students are only free to study in their enrolled courses. There is a notion that says
part timers can do better than full time students in their studies because they have
work experience while others say that full timers can do better than part timers
because they have an ample time to study and focus the courses. Therefore, the focal
point of our research problem is to compare the difference of study habits between
MBA full time and part time students in GSM.
Research Questions
The objective of this study is to investigate whether there is any difference between
MBA Full-time & Part-time students in GSM in terms of study habits, more
specifically:
Is there a difference between MBA full time and part time students study
habits in time management?
Is there a difference between MBA full time and part time students study
habits in Class Attendances and Participation?
Is there a difference between MBA full time and part time students study
habits in Exam Preparation?
According to Crow & Crow (1992), the effective habits of study included good
planning and suitable places to study such students rooms, libraries and other
relevant materials as well as having well-restricted time table and schedule for the
study during the whole semester. To study successfully, a student must decide what
information is important and how to extract concepts from the text books and course
materials. All these things must be done to the best of ability in the shortest possible
span of time. Knowledge is very important to every person; hence it is wise to learn
how to study in the most effective way.
According to Azikiwe (1998) described that the good study skills are good asset to
all learners because these skills are helpful for students to attain mastery in areas of
specialization and consequent excellent performance, while the opposite constitute
constraints to learning and achievement leading to failure. Sorenson (1991), while
outlining the good basic study habits stated that one must study with the primary
intention of understanding. This requires one not to be hurry in getting through
instead sustained concentration is necessary.
Being a good student is not born and can be learnt and acquired in the learning
process. It needs more efforts and tolerance as well as constant and deliberate practice
of good study habits and there is no substitute for this as (Ames & Archer, 1988)
narrated. Thus, in order to improve academic performance of students, it seems
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essential to improve their study habits without which desired outcomes cannot be
achieved. Development of good study habits in children depends upon the combined
efforts of parents and teachers (Kizlik, 2001). A measuring an academic performance
is a complex
Time Management
The phenomenon of time management initially has appeared in the McCays book
which was titled The Management of Time (McCay, 1959) model of time
management has suggested the efficiency use and the effective way in order to
monitor a managers use of the frame time. It was also seen as way of certainty that a
manager should spend his or her time on a certain activity that is in line with the
business goals. In the recent decades also, it has been recognized the importance of
managers time as being a critical factor in the success of their daily and strategic
executives.
However, a number of authors have interestingly discussed the need for better
including time in theoretical models and research designs. Whereby, other authors
have focused on the ways in which people in organizations tend to manage their time.
In this proposal in particular, we will review some definitions of time management,
and we will discuss also some methods for studying time management and how time
management can influence on the study habit.
McCay, as the first author on this area, he has developed a concept for a time
management training program, which is still being used by many organizations.
Critical elements while discussing about time management efficiency are; giving
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approaching into time consuming activities, changing time spending, and increasing
work day efficiency by teaching people how to make a daily planning, how to
prioritize tasks, and how to handle circumstances. In this regard, many books and
articles have been written to suggest similar ideas to managers, promising them a
greater effectiveness while using less time.
Over the past years, the focus of time management publications and training courses
has moved from managers as the major target group to broad viewers of working
people. As (Brigitte J.C. Claessens, A review of the time management literature,
2007) defined the term time management that it is actually misleading which means
it is invisible subject. Strictly speaking, time cannot be managed as other resources,
because it is an inaccessible factor. It is about only the way that mankind tends to deal
with time can be influenced.
Time management can be viewed as a way of monitoring and controlling time. In this
respect, it would be more appropriate to speak about self-management as an
interrelated aspect with regard to the performance of multiple tasks within a certain
time period. But in the literature, the term self-management has a different meaning. It
refers to monitoring and regulating oneself, but without any specific reference to
techniques for monitoring time use. Therefore, we will attach to the use of the term
time management in our proposal.
Nowadays, time management was emphasized more in the education industry, (Paul
Barron, 2008) the workplace was regarded as the only context in which time
management was practiced so that production line in certain companies may be
enough efficient. There was study that was conducted on time management skills
among 143 undergraduate business students. The results were used to develop
monitoring tools to assess students effective use of time and the variables that
affected their habit of study. However, specific student groups have their own needs
and issues when managing their time. For instance, mature students may be used to
managing their time independently but may also have more commitments to manage.
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Overall, the definition of time management should change for each person who does it
efficiently. But there are some determinants that directly affect on the time
management. These are the goal setting; planning; decision making and prioritizing
the timely basis activities. In this regard; (Covey, 1991) has mentioned about the
challenge of time management which is to balance human commitments with the
personal needs, the most two aspects that have been seen in our review, where to
gaining certain skills and usable methods, to manage time effectively, a person needs
certain skills, for instance, efficiency to identify and list tasks as methods in order to
recognize and remember the tasks that will be used in the time managing.
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the undergraduate students in college classes and data showed a significant correlation
between class attendance and final grade performance in the course. Similarly,
another study was done by (Davenport, 1990) at Broom Community College located
in New York banned its attendance policy in 7 years periods. In those periods, the
attendance rate and grade point averages of students at the college had been dropping.
This study done by (Davenport, 1990) and conducted a research with 78 students
enrolled three sections of business law course to determine whether there is
relationship between attendance designs and final grades in the final exams. Their
Data was used Chi Square tests to analyze data an the analysis revealed that there was
statistically significant positive correlation between poor attendance and law grades in
the final assessment and the study recommended the Broom Community College to
re-implement the attendance policy to improve the performance of the students.
The importance of class attendances is being highlighted in many different working
and researches. One of among these studies is conducted by (Tsu-Ming, 2011)
investigated the relationship between students attendance class and their overall
grades in the multiple computer science course. They found that there is strong
correlation in the attendance of the first class and overall students grade in the final
evaluation. The literature review in the past on class attendance gives clear evidence
that attendance is strongly associated with grades as meta-analytic results done by
(Marcus Cred, 2010) showed.
There are motivating factors that let students to attend the class regularly. Among
motivators are allocating marks to the class attendance, existence of attendance
policy, lectures encouragement, curiousness and overall motivation to learn and
having ambition to be excellent in the class and overall program. There are some
exceptions of missing classes and some of common exceptions are as follows:
Death of the family members where students feel gloomy and busy with the
funeral event
Involving accidents and injuries along the way to the school, college or
university
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Class Participation
Class participation is involve actively answering the questions raised by the
professors and gives your constructive opinions and comments as well as sometimes
asking questions where necessary and relevant to the discussion at hand. In the class
discussion, everyones perspective is necessary and contributive to the course
comprehension. Class participation concept was considered to be one of the
performance indicators in the students grading and some research showed that some
professors suggest that they determine active students from participating class
activities.
In reference to study of (Herrington, 2006) highlighted that students will be required
to actively participate in the subject they enrolled.
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John and Peterson are professor and assistant professor at Seattle University in U.S
respectively. They develop different attendance and class participation policy to
facilitate and improve learning style habits. Some of the common ways that they have
highlighted in their course description and used to encourage students to participate in
the class discussions are as follows:
The first most common participatory classroom used in the academic studies is what
we might call open class discussion. Wherein the instructor poses questions aimed at
drawing all class members into conversation. To facilitate whole-class discussion, the
instructor might request a U-shaped case classroom, move chairs into a horseshoe or
circle, or otherwise adjust space so that students can address each other without
passing all commentary through the instructor (Welty 1989).
The second mode of class participating that is common among professors is to call
students according to their class list. This happens when professor poses a question
and then calls on students at random to formulate their answers. In assessing student
responses, many professors take into account the difficulty level of the question
posed, often using taxonomy such as that of Bloom (1956) whereas the opendiscussion professor tends to value any kind of question or response from students.
The last but not least common ways to make the class active is to employ
collaborative learning, in which students work in small groups toward a consensus
solution of problems designed by the instructor and then report their solutions in a
plenary session. Differences among group solutions often lead to whole-class
discussions during the plenary session (Bruffee, 1993).
Exam Preparations
Examination is stet of written or oral questions that are intended to test learners
knowledge, skills and talent on the subject matter. Examinations and test are set by
schools, colleges and universities to assess students capability to recall what he or
she was taught in the class and it serves for variety purpose. For example, if students
know they will be having test or exam in the middle of the semester or at the end of
the term, they will study hard and devote some amount of time and energy to
understand the subject. Thus, exams are seen as a instrument to assess learning and
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self-development process. Students have different style of studying and different way
of preparing the exam.
Although some people believe that exam causes some problems such as anxiety, more
fear, stressful in mind and anger but still serves as a tool of evaluation students
performance in the academic fields. As natural, when students are tested on their
courses, there are three criteria that they fall in such as excellent, good and poor in
their performance. This performance depends on how they are genius and level of
preparation for the exam. According to study done by the American Council on
Education in 2010 in U.S, they have studied why student at institutions not
performing well in their exams and they have identified four primary reasons that let
students fail in their assessments such as 1) taking wrong course, 2) inadequate
preparation for the exam 3) failure to understand well the exam questions, 4)
managing exam time.
In this part of paper, the main focus is to identify how adequate preparation helps
students to become high achievers in their studies. According to several studies shown
in their analysis and explore wide variety of exam preparation style, there no one
single exam preparation style to be recommended but some sort of strategies that
worked best and assumed to useful in the future are mentioned in those studies.
As usual, some students will like to study gradually during whole term immediately
after the lecture while others prefer to study when exam nears specially last minutes
and they do cramming by studying hastily for impending examinations. The first one
is more likely to perform well. In addition, some students prefer to study along and
concentrate their own materials while some other wishes to study with group and
share the ideas as well as helping each other. Moreover, there is another group of
students who rely on memorization and not trying to understand the concept for the
course enrolled. This type of students may not score in the exam because they may
forget some of details for course components.
There are three stages of exam preparations which are before, during and after exam.
Before exam you need to attend lectures, tutorials and workshops as well as taking
notes during the class and making note after the class. This will help to comprehend
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easily and recall in the final exam. During the exam, you need to review your notes
briefly, have a slight nutritious breakfast, have enough sleep at night, pay attention to
all instruction, review all question and start the one you know better and then so on.
After the exam, you need to compare your expectation with actual performance.
Discover what went well and what went wrong and check how far your preparation is
successful what areas will need to improve in the future.
Factors Affecting
Study Habits
Low
-Ve
Time management
Study
Class participation
Habits
Exam preparation
+Ve
Performance
Higher
Performance
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The study of this project paper was based on survey that will be collected from Master
of Business Administration (MBA) from both full time and part time students enrolled
at graduate School of Management (GSM) at International Islamic University
Malaysia. The instrument used to gather data is questionnaire that will develop and
designed and will be administered to the potential respondents. Qualitative research
will be used to conduct the research that attempts precisely to measure the interested
elements of the research. It usually measures the behavior of
respondents, their
The cost of studying all items in the population will be very high and cannot
affordable
The sample are representing the population and results are accurate and
precise
The size of sample should be more than 60 students for both samples of MBA full
time and part time students at GSM and should be randomly selected from these
students. We anticipate 40 respondents from each group so that the total will be 80
respondents.
Data Analysis
The statistical tools used in this project will be SPSS of version 20 to analyze the data
and come up with result. Self-administered questionnaire will be distributed to the
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potential respondents who are MBA full time and part time students at GSM. All data
will be collected carefully to avoid missing and not returned questionnaires, this
questionnaire will be consisted of four parts namely demographics, time management,
class attendance and participation as well as exam preparation, and each part has eight
items that measures study habits among full time and part time students at GSM.
The research will use the measurement Likert scale that was developed by Rensis
Likert. This measurement scale is the most frequently used variation of the summated
rating scale. It consists statements that expresses either favorable or unfavorable. In
this paper, participants will be asked to agree or disagree with each statement from 1
to 5 scales that measures study habits as a whole and particularly in specific factors.
The first part, from Question1 to 8, they will be asked to express how they set their
study schedule for the course without interruption and come up with effective time
management schedule. Second, we will be measuring the level of attending class and
their participation in the class discussion from Q9 to 16. Thirdly, the intensity of exam
preparation will be also measuring from Q17 to 24 to see whether they are preparing
in the same way or not.
Reliability & Validity
Validity refers to how well a test measures to what it is purported to measure. While
reliability is the degree to which an assessment tool produces stable and consistent
results.
Internal validity refers to how well an experiment is done, especially whether it avoids
confounding. The less chance for confounding in a study, the higher its internal
validity is.
External validity is the extent to which your results apply to
populations/situations/times/environments different from those in your experiment.
External validity refers to how well data and theories from one.
According to the validity of this research, we are going to formulate a questionnaire
applicable in order to get relevant information about the factors influencing students
performance. Also we will do a survey and we will choose a probabilistic random
sampling in order to be a good representative sample that will be more reliable and
valid.
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References
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