Abstract
College students with learning and attention disorders face obstacles related to time and time management. This qualitative analysis delineates and describes the types of strategies that students use to compensate for time-related challenges across multiple domains, which include academics, career preparation, and social and daily life. Understanding these strategies and how they are used is important for informing interventions that support occupational performance.
Primary Author and Speaker: Consuelo Kreider
Additional Authors and Speakers: Mackenzi Slamka, Sharon Medina
College students with learning and attention disorders (L/AD) experience obstacles related to time and the management of both time and their invisible disability (Kreider, Bendixen & Lutz, 2015). For students with L/AD, cognitive processing difficulties can interfere with temporal understanding, processing speed, and working memory (Moll et al., 2016). These challenges can impact abilities for effectively managing time, daily routines, and social roles related to developmental and occupational performance expectations of being a college student. Students must find ways to compensate for these difficulties by creating and utilizing strategies to overcome the multifaceted aspects of time-related challenges. The purpose of this analysis was to delineate and describe strategies created and used by college students with L/AD to address time-related challenges across the multiple contexts of their everyday lives.
This analysis examined the strategies described by study participants who were 52 undergraduates with L/AD in science, technology, engineering, and math fields and registered with the campus disability office. Participants were enrolled in a larger four year study testing a multi-component model of campus-based L/AD supports. Recruitment was assisted by the campus disability office and incorporated flyers, listservs, email, and word of mouth. Undergraduates met as a group monthly; meetings included presentation of educational material and guided discussion which included strategy and experience sharing.
A qualitative approach was used; data are transcripts, field notes and focused questions from 30 group meetings where guided discussion took place. In addition, data came from transcribed individual interviews from year one of the study. A content analysis was done to identify the data pertaining to time-related strategy creation and usage of those strategies by the students. Structural coding was used initially to identify large amounts of text related to temporal strategies. Process coding was then used to pinpoint more specific strategies used (Saldaña, 2013). Lastly, data was categorized into themes and subthemes.
Data yielded themes that included habits and routines, reframing, utilizing supports, cognitive strategies, communication, and self-evaluation. Habits and routines refer to strategies that students use to stay on task and prioritize academic and social demands. Reframing describes how students redefine their disability challenges to increase personal understanding used to explain L/AD-related challenges to others. Utilizing supports delineates resources, accommodations, and guidance used and/or garnered from others to support performance. Cognitive strategies describe the planning, thinking and decision making involved in everyday life. Communication refers to strategies used to advocate for time-related needs. Self-evaluation strategies are techniques students used to identify personal strengths and understand how to improve weaknesses. Strategies were for the domains of academics, career development, and social and daily life related to current goals and future anticipated expectations for students with L/AD.
Study findings identified patterns in the strategies created and used by college students with L/AD to overcome time-related challenges and support performance in current and anticipated upcoming situations. Findings expand understanding of the range and multi-dimensional nature of strategies needed by college students with L/AD to overcome disability-related activity and participation challenges associated with temporal concerns. Understanding strategies for addressing time-related challenges is important for advancing interventions that support occupational performance of individuals from this population.
Kreider, C. M., Bendixen, R. M., & Lutz, B. J. (2015). Holistic needs of university students with invisible disabilities: A qualitative study. Physical & Occupational Therapy In Pediatrics, 35(4), 426-441. doi:10.3109/01942638.2015.1020407
Moll, K., Göbel, S. M., Gooch, D., Landerl, K., & Snowling, M. J. (2016). Cognitive Risk Factors for Specific Learning Disorder: Processing Speed, Temporal Processing, and Working Memory. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 49(3), 272-281. doi:10.1177/0022219414547221
Saldaña, P. (2013). The Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications Inc.