The Temporal Perspective in Higher Education Learners: Comparisons between Online and Onsite Learning

Higher Education increases flexibility with online learning solutions. Nevertheless, dropout rates in online university are large. Among the reasons, one aspect deserving further study is students’ Time Perspective (TP), which has been studied in onsite HE. It is necessary to know the TP profile of the growing population of online students, and consider its relation with students’ preference and convenience factors for choosing online or onsite contexts. In this study, learners’ TP in an online and an onsite Catalan HE institutions are compared. Results show that HE students present a high future orientation in general, while online students showed a higher orientation to past negativism. Basic guides are given to help institutions and students in the choice of the better suited learning context according to their TP.