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

Abstract

This paper 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. 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. 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 and geographical marginalisation.