Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

It is no secret that many college students study far less than is required to excel in their courses. Students’ lack of studying is often attributed to laziness or procrastination. However, an alternate explanation is that students study too few hours because they make inadequate study plans. In particular, students may both underestimate the demands on their time outside of studying and fail to set aside enough dedicated time to study. As a result, students may study for far fewer hours than they intend.

To address the possibility that inadequate plans are contributing to limited studying and poor academic performance, we design and implement an online planning tool in a large nonprofit online university. Specifically, students randomly assigned to the treatment condition complete a detailed log of weekly time use which is aggregated into categories of study, work, recreation, and family time. Students then use this time-use log to designate study times in a Google calendar associated with their student account. Students also receive random reminders about their scheduled study times and also receive notifications about their course-completion plans.

In our primary analysis, we estimate the impact of the planning treatment on academic performance and retention. While the study is still ongoing, our preliminary results suggest that the treatment increases the number of credits earned. In addition to estimating the effects of our treatment on academic outputs, our study will also investigate how the planning treatment affects academic inputs. Specifically, we will estimate the effects of the planning tool on the timing, frequency, and duration of studying and whether the effects of the treatment vary by student characteristics. In total, this study will inform whether problems with planning contribute to poor performance in online education settings and identify potential tools to improve online student outcomes.