EJEL Volume 6 Issue 1
March 2008

A Sociological Inquiry into Time Management in Postgraduate Studies by e-Learning in Greece

Marios Vryonides
University of the Aegean, Greece

This paper examines the way postgraduate students respond to new forms of education recently introduced in the Greek educational context. It presents the findings from a small scale sociological investigation which studied the way mature students manage their time while attending to postgraduate studies by e-learning. Managing time is an issue that draws the attention of many researchers and social scientists because in its core lies much of the social inequality found in contemporary societies as some groups are more disadvantaged than others in managing it amidst multiple and conflicting social roles. Thirty postgraduate students from the University of the Aegean, Greece, were asked to record their daily activities using a semi-structured time use diary over a period when the demands of the course were at their peak. Follow up interviews with the students were conducted once they handed in their diaries whereby they were asked to reflect on their recorded activities. Two groups of students have emerged from analysing the diaries as having distinctive patterns of time usage; namely, married women with children and married men and single individuals. It appears that men and single individuals without familial obligations take better advantage of this innovation. It fits their lives much better because they have the flexibility to structure their daily routines as other people’s needs and priorities do not affect their time management strategies. On the other hand married women with children can not make the most of this innovative opportunity simply because they have little control and freedom to structure their day in terms of time and content. Policy implications are discussed, as the disparities in the experience of attending to e-learning programmes while at home constitute a severe source of resistance to the stated aim of e-learning programmes, which is to overcome social marginalization and exclusion.

Keywords: e-learning; Greece; postgraduate studies; time-management; widening participation

Download FULL PAPER

Back to Contents