The impact of a time perspective educational course on students' intellectual styles, locus of control, and subjective well-being

Abstract

Both intellectual styles and time perspectives have been well studied. Although these constructs appear to be vastly different, literature suggests important conceptual links between the two. For example, research has demonstrated that both constructs are malleable and value-laden; specifically, certain styles and time perspectives have been found to be correlated with a wide range of learning and developmental outcomes, including two psychosocial developmental outcomes—locus of control and subjective well-being. However, very few studies have examined the relationships between intellectual styles and time perspectives directly. This research aims to: 1) explore the relationships between time perspectives and intellectual styles; 2) determine if a time perspective based educational course could help students develop and optimise their time perspective profile, and at the same time, develop more effective intellectual styles, internal locus of control, and higher levels of subjective well-being. In addition, it explores intellectual styles’ mediating effects on the relationships of time perspective to locus of control and subjective well-being.

The present research employs a quantitatively driven mixed method approach involving three stages. Stage One was a pilot study of 92 secondary school students in Hong Kong to test the psychometric properties of the inventories to be used in the main study (i.e., Stage Two). Stage Two comprises three phases. The first phase was the pre-test, in which 451 students completed the inventories. During the second phase, 149 students participated in a time perspective based educational course, with the remaining students serving as a control group. Phase Three was a post-test in which the same inventories used in Phase One were administered to both groups of students. Follow-up focus group interviews were then conducted during Stage Three to explore how and why students underwent desirable changes.

Findings show that students’ thinking styles were closely related to time perspectives. Students with a more balanced time perspective profile possessed successful intellectual styles (i.e., preferred using a wider range of styles, especially the creativity-generating Type I thinking styles). Positive time perspectives generally made positive contributions to students’ internal locus of control and subjective well-being, when compared with negative time perspectives. Type I styles and the Type III external style were also more adaptive than the norm-conforming Type II styles, because they were related to higher levels of subjective well-being. Furthermore, students with the Type I hierarchical style also reported stronger internal locus of control.

The intervention successfully optimised students’ profiles with the desired changes in the Present-Hedonistic, Past-Negative, and Present-Fatalistic time perspectives. The intervention also led to significant improvement in students’ internal locus of control and subjective well-being. Students who took part in the intervention also had an increased preference for utilising the external style. Out of 11 thinking styles, the legislative, judicial, liberal, executive, local, and monarchic styles mediated the relationships between time perspectives and subjective well-being. Implications of the findings are discussed in relation to educators, students, parents, school administrators, and the government.