Abstract
Future Time Perspective (FTP) has been characterized by researchers as how far individuals plan into the future, how they perceive individual future needs, and the degree to which the present is connected to the past and future. FTP has important implications for individual learning, cultural and societal facets of learning, and for practical implementations in learning environments. As has been illustrated by several studies using Zimbardo’s Time Perspective Inventory, TP contributes to students’ motivation for learning, it influences students’ valuing of their coursework, the academic choices they make, and their persistence in the face of failure. Research has shown that future oriented students are likely to be more successful especially when classroom activities foster students’ FTP.
Although a consideration of future consequences can be adaptive for learning, research from social, developmental and motivational psychology implies that focus on the future, without regard for the present, or how the future is connected to present action is not adaptive, rather consideration of the past, present, and future is necessary for optimal functioning.
Research on Future Time Perspective and its influence on student learning has occurred in many varied cultural contexts. Social and cultural norms do influence students’ development of FTP. Fluctuating societal conditions may make it difficult to have an extended FTP. In this case faculty may need to utilize techniques in the classroom to help extend their students’ FTP.
Thus it is not properly said that there are three times, past, present, and future. Perhaps it might be said rightly that there are three times: a time present of things past; a time present of things present; and a time present of things future. For these three do coexist somehow in the soul, for otherwise I could not see them. The time present of things past is memory; the time present of things present is direct experience; the time present of things future is expectation.
–Augustine, Confessions, Book XI, Chapter XX
Funding for the current study was provided by National Science Foundation Grant, REC- 0546856, CAREER: Connecting with the Future: Supporting Career and Identity Development in Post- Secondary Science and Engineering
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Husman, J., Brem, S.K., Banegas, S., Duchrow, D.W., Haque, S. (2015). Learning and Future Time Perspective: The Promise of the Future – Rewarding in the Present. In: Stolarski, M., Fieulaine, N., van Beek, W. (eds) Time Perspective Theory; Review, Research and Application. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07368-2_8
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