Date Presented 4/21/2018
This research presents evidence that preprofessional occupational therapy doctoral students who had stronger biases toward thinking negatively about their past and who focused on the past instead of the present or future tended to be less successful academically than their peers. Application to academia is discussed.
Primary Author and Speaker: Pat Precin
PURPOSE: Few publications have identified predictors of occupational therapy doctoral students’ academic success, yet doctoral degrees in occupational therapy are becoming more prevalent. This study examined the relationship between subjective time perspective and grade point average (GPA) in occupational therapy doctoral students enrolled in online, hybrid, and classical learning environments. Research questions were as follows: What is the strength and direction of the predictive nature of past negative time perspective on GPA in occupational therapy doctoral students in the United States? How do the variables of age, gender, and type of learning environment influence the prediction of GPA?
METHOD: This study used a quantitative, cross-sectional, nonexperimental, online survey design. The 56 participants were aged 18 and older and enrolled in occupational therapy doctoral programs (preprofessional, postprofessional, PhD) in learning environments (classical, online, hybrid) throughout the United States. Participants completed the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory (Sword et al., 2014), a measure of time perspective bias that has strong psychometrics, and self-reported their current cumulative doctoral GPA via SurveyMonkey (San Mateo, CA). Multiple linear regression analyses using the enter method were performed to determine characteristics of the predictive nature of the independent variables—past negative time perspective, age, gender, type of school, and learning environment—on the dependent variable of GPA.
RESULTS: Past negative time perspective predicted GPA in the negative direction (p = .001) for students in preprofessional occupational therapy doctoral programs but not for postprofessional students. Age, gender, and learning environment did not significantly influence prediction of GPA in either group.
CONCLUSION: Results indicate that preprofessional students who had stronger biases toward thinking negatively about their past and who focused on the past instead of the present or future tended to be less successful academically than their peers in preprofessional programs. This finding may be attributable to their spending less time focused on learning in the present and an inattention to setting and obtaining future goals, all necessary for the occupation of being a successful student.
A past negative time perspective did not predict GPA in postprofessional students. This nonsignificant finding might have had to do with differences between the types of students enrolled in pre- versus postprofessional programs or with program differences. All postprofessional students had occupational therapy work experience, whereas preprofessional students did not
Time perspective can be changed through intervention (Sword et al., 2014), which has implications for occupational therapy doctoral programs. The Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory, an instrument used in the field of psychology, may have value in the field of occupational therapy and occupational therapy doctoral programs. This study introduces the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory to the field of occupational therapy so that academicians can use it to identify students’ time perspectives and provide interventions that can alter a past negative time perspective to one that correlates with better academic outcomes (Horstmanshof & Zimitat, 2007).
References
Horstmanshof, L., & Zimitat, C. (2007). Future time orientation predicts academic engagement among first-year university students.British Journal of Educational Psychology, 77, 703–718. https://doi.org/10.1348/000709906X160778
Sword, R. M., Sword, R. K., Brunskill, S. R., & Zimbardo, P. G. (2014). Time perspective therapy: A new time-based metaphor therapy for PTSD.Journal of Loss and Trauma, 19, 197–201. https://doi.org/10.1080/15325024.2013.763632
