Adolescent time attitude scale (ATAS) scores and academic outcomes in secondary school females in New Zealand

Abstract

Multiple associations between time-related variables and several educational outcomes have been established previously. Of these time-related variables, the majority have focused on attitudes and perceptions related to the future, but not to the present or the past. This paper examined the psychometric properties of a multidimensional measure of time attitudes, and whether time attitudes were related to several academic variables and to attitudes to teachers and towards school. A total of 579 students at an all-female New Zealand high school completed the adolescent time attitude scale (ATAS). Results from the confirmatory factor analysis showed that the six-factor ATAS model had acceptable fit indices with robust internal consistency estimates for each of the factors in that model. Time attitudes had no meaningful relationships with GPA, academic self-ranking or wagging/cutting school, but were related to attitudes toward school and teacher. However, time attitude profiles had meaningful relationships to all variables except wagging school.