Learning well-being is an important indicator of students’ positive academic experience, yet the mechanisms linking time management disposition to learning well-being remain insufficiently understood, particularly among Chinese university students born after 2000. This study examined the relationships among time management disposition, academic self-efficacy, and learning well-being, with a particular focus on the mediating role of academic self-efficacy. A questionnaire survey was conducted among 600 Chinese undergraduates from four universities using the College Students’ Learning Well-Being Scale, the Adolescents’ Time Management Disposition Scale, and the Academic Self-Efficacy Questionnaire. Data were analyzed through reliability and validity testing, Pearson correlation analysis, multiple regression analysis, and Bootstrap mediation analysis. The results showed that time management disposition, academic self-efficacy, and learning well-being were all at moderately high levels and were significantly positively correlated. Time efficacy and learning ability self-efficacy emerged as the most stable and strongest positive predictors across multiple dimensions of learning well-being. Mediation analyses further indicated that academic self-efficacy significantly mediated the relationship between time management disposition and learning well-being: time efficacy enhanced academic self-efficacy, which in turn promoted learning well-being, while time value and time monitoring also exerted indirect effects through ability-related and behavior-related efficacy, respectively. These findings suggest that time management disposition contributes to learning well-being both directly and indirectly through academic self-efficacy, extending the literature on self-regulated learning and student well-being by clarifying an efficacy-based mechanism underlying this relationship. Practically, universities may enhance students’ learning well-being by combining time management training with interventions aimed at strengthening academic self-efficacy.
Shen et al. (Wed,) studied this question.