Self-management apps augmenting academic success?

This contribution endeavours to share experiences of a self-management course’s assignment as a core element in the first semester. 89 students from three study programs at an Austrian university had to research an app that supports one aspect of self-management. The chosen app was tested for one week in order to report and present the experiences and explain for which situations or problems students recommended the app.

From a theoretical perspective, all steps of Bloom’s taxonomy on educational objectives are included: students described the app, experienced one week of usage, analyzed the app’s impact on their behavior, and evaluated the experiment to share a recommendation. The task aimed to facilitate the transition to university as students observed upcoming problems when beginning a study program and looked for support.

The results of the mainly ‘digital native’ students show that they perceive their needs in self-management differently when comparing the three study programs. The assignment resulted in an impressively positive reflection. Students emphasized that they would continue using the self-management tools.