The Relationship Between Importance and Time Allocation: Conceptualisations and Conditions in Learning, Social and Spiritual Domains

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis was twofold. Firstly, to investigate university students' conceptualisations of the relationship between importance and time allocation in their learning, social and spiritual domains. Secondly, to investigate the conditions that govern the strength of those relationships in the three domains. Specifically, this research focused on conceptualisations and conditions in the university studies, marriage and Christian faith sub-classifications of the three domains. In order to examine this twofold aim, 30 university students of New Zealand European, Pacific Island and Chinese descent were interviewed about their conceptions of the relationship between importance and time allocation, and the conditions that govern the strength of those relationships, in the three domains. Understanding these conceptions and conditions implied, first and foremost, understanding students' beliefs about the importance of, and the amount of time allocated to, each of these domains. Thus, this information was also obtained in the interviews, the latter via a retrospective diary completed during the interview, which required students to record the amount of time allocated to these domains in the week prior to the interview. Results revealed that students believed their university studies, marriage and Christian faith to be of similar importance, although the Christian faith was consistently believed to be the most important domain. There were, however, large differences in the amount of time allocated to these three domains with university studies being allocated the most time, and marriage, the least. It was, therefore, not surprising that students' conceptualisations of the relationship between importance and time allocation were very complex. To begin with, these conceptualisations were not solely based on associating the importance of the domain with the amount of time allocated to it. Even when they were solely based on this association, their conceptualisations of what that association should be were highly varied. To add to the complexity, students' conceptualisations of the relationship between importance and time allocation in the three domains varied across the domains. In contrast, the conditions governing the relationship between importance and time allocation were not domain specific. Most conditions were common across two of the three domains. The Christian faith domain shared similar conditions to the university studies and marriage domains. The university studies and marriage domains did not share any similar conditions. Conditions were related between and within domains, and appeared to be hierarchical, as some conditions appeared to be pre-requisites of other conditions. There were few gender differences across the three domains in the main findings of the study. There were, however, ethnic group differences. Chinese and Pacific Island students had similar beliefs about the importance of the domains, and similar conceptualisations of the relationship between importance and time allocation in the domains. These were different from New Zealand European students. In contrast, Chinese and New Zealand European students reported similar conditions governing the relationship between importance and time allocation, which were different from Pacific Island students. A higher order conceptual framework offers an integration of the conceptualizations of the relationship between importance and time allocation with the conditions governing those relationships. This framework suggests that conditions governing the relationship between importance and time allocation are hierarchical in nature, and are linked to conceptualisations of the relationship between importance and time allocation. This thesis concludes by discussing some possibilities for future research in this area.