Time Perspective Profile and Study Engagement

Academic dropout in French universities is significant. The lack of study engagement partly explains this phenomenon. Pursuing academic studies requires switching effectively among temporal orientations (past, present, and future). Although the relationships between study engagement and each temporal orientation have been studied, to the best of our knowledge, the association of all temporal profiles (present in all individuals) has not been considered in the relationship with study engagement. This study aimed to address this gap in the literature. In total, 451 French first- and second-year students enrolled in the humanities and social sciences Bachelor's program completed a questionnaire including scales measuring time perspectives and study engagement. Using latent profile analyse, we obtained five profiles. We considered three of these as problematic profiles, including 40% of the students, and two had no problematic profiles. Among the latter, there is one in which 26% of the students are relatively oriented toward all temporal dimensions, and one balanced profile including 33% of the students. As expected, the balanced time perspective profile presented the highest study engagement scores, unlike past negative profiles, which showed lower scores. We discuss the implications of this new result for student academic success.