Factor Focus: Organization

The "Factor Focus" series is designed to review various noncognitive factors and their relevance to student success.

Organization is one of the more interesting factors in the ISSAQ model. On one hand, it is familiar to us and can be an easy foray into the world of holistic student success. In fact, when defining noncognitive skills, I often list it as one of the exemplars, as most educators are well aware of how important time management is to nearly every student’s success.

On the other hand, Organization dips its toe into a vast ocean of “study skills,” which can be a nebulous domain. Given that so many strategies and dispositions can be lumped under that moniker, you and I can both use the term study skills but mean very different things depending on our experience and perspective.

What’s more, I might even argue that we are too well aware. Historically, our understanding of students has focused on academics. Subsequently, efforts to support students have tended to focus on academically adjacent areas, such as study skills. While each institution faces its own struggles with regard to student success, you would be hard pressed to find one that does not list tutoring or student success courses - often laden with time management and studying content - as a featured part of its efforts.

Take, for example, the NCAA. While student-athletes have, at times (and most often in popular media), gotten a bad rep for their perceived lack of focus on student academic success, every NCAA program I have worked with provides intensive support to help students off the field, court, or track. However, most of those resources are focused on classroom engagement, studying, and time management, often neglecting some of the social and emotional aspects of student success.

In the end, regardless of our perception of it, Organization is important. College requires students to manage competing deadlines, balance coursework with work and family obligations, and independently structure their time in ways that may be entirely new to them.

What Is Organization?

Within ISSAQ, Organization is defined as the behaviors and strategies students use to manage their work and time. It is worth emphasizing that this is we focus specifically on the behavioral aspect of this domain, encouraging the use of tools and strategies such as checklists, planners, calendars, and task-management systems.

Organization is closely related to constructs such as study skills and conscientiousness, both of which have been studied extensively in higher education research (Credé & Kuncel, 2008; Poropat, 2009). Importantly, the focus is not on being naturally “organized” as a personality trait. Rather, Organization reflects learnable behaviors that can be developed with appropriate structure, tools, and support.

In a previous role, I was on a retreat with a group of colleagues and was asked to complete the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. My results suggested that I was disorganized. “But Ross,” my colleagues protested, “we’ve been in your office - you have charts, to-do lists, diagrams, and notes covering your walls - How can you be disorganized?”

I explained that my organization is not inherent: it comes from the use of those tools and strategies. Without them, I would be a mess! For me, this was an early lesson in framing noncognitive skills as tools and strategies - specifically behaviors whenever possible - rather than as fixed characteristics or dispositions. No matter how we work naturally, there are approaches, such as managing time and work, that are effective for all of us.

How does Organization impact success?

Decades of research have demonstrated that organizational and study skills are strongly related to academic success in college. Poropat’s (2009) meta-analysis showed that conscientiousness - a broad personality domain that includes organization, planning, and self-discipline - was as strong a predictor of academic achievement as cognitive ability.

In a more focused meta-analysis, Credé and Kuncel (2008) found that study skills had a meaningful and consistent relationship with academic performance, even rivaling traditional indicators such as admissions test scores. They argued that institutions should consider study skills as a core component of understanding student success.

In a previous effort, colleagues and I (Markle et al., 2013) found that organizational skills were significantly related to first-semester GPA, retention, and performance in entry-level math and English courses. In that study, the conceptualization of Organization was closely aligned with the one currently used in ISSAQ.

One of the most important insights from the research literature is that Organization impacts students in multiple ways. First, organizational behaviors have direct effects on learning, as students who plan ahead, manage deadlines, and spend time on task are more likely to engage deeply with course material and perform well academically (Gettinger & Seibert, 2002; Hattie, 2009).

Second, Organization often serves as a mediating factor, helping to explain why certain students succeed while others struggle. For example, MacCann, Fogarty, and Roberts (2012) found that time management played a particularly important role for part-time community college students, mediating the relationship between enrollment status and academic performance.

Organization can also affect the impact of other noncognitive factors. Margolis and McCabe (2006), in their work with unconfident learners, emphasized helping students identify concrete learning strategies they can apply when self-doubt arises. In practice, leaning on organizational strategies can help students build confidence and tackle new, difficult, or complex academic challenges.

How can we foster organization?

By operationally defining Organization as the behavioral use of strategies and tools, it becomes inherently malleable. As institutions provide tools and help students develop effective strategies, they can directly improve Organization by helping students to adopt these behaviors. This makes Organization one of the more competency-based factors in the ISSAQ model.

As noted earlier, many institutions already address Organization - implicitly or explicitly - in their student success efforts. Thus, supporting students in this area is often less about developing entirely new resources and more about intentionally connecting students to those that already exist.

Skill-Building Workshops and Courses. Workshops focused on study strategies, time management, and academic planning can provide students with concrete tools they can apply immediately. Research suggests these efforts are most effective when embedded in first-year seminars, student success courses, or orientation programs rather than offered solely as optional stand-alone workshops (Robbins et al., 2004; Kuh et al., 2008).

Integrated Advising and Coaching. Advisors and coaches play a critical role in helping students translate goals into actionable plans. When Organization feedback (such as ISSAQ results) is used in advising conversations, it allows staff to move beyond general encouragement and toward specific strategies - such as building weekly schedules, planning backward from major deadlines, and creating accountability structures (Kuh et al., 2006; Drake, 2011).

Technology and Resource Alignment. Digital tools such as calendars, task managers, and learning management systems can support organizational behaviors - but only when students are taught how to use them effectively. Institutions that align these tools across courses and provide explicit instruction reduce cognitive overload and increase consistency, particularly for students navigating college for the first time (Kirschner, Sweller, & Clark, 2006).

Tutoring. Tutoring is one of the most widely available academic support strategies across colleges and universities and is often positioned as a content-focused intervention. However, effective tutoring frequently addresses organizational behaviors alongside course material.

Research on tutoring and supplemental instruction suggests that these supports are most effective when they explicitly teach students how to approach learning - such as planning study time, organizing materials, and breaking assignments into manageable steps - rather than focusing solely on disciplinary content (Arendale, 2014; Dawson et al., 2014). In this way, tutoring can function as an applied setting for developing Organization, helping students practice time management, task planning, and strategic studying in real academic contexts.

Importantly, tutoring may be especially beneficial for students who struggle with Organization because it provides structure, external accountability, and modeling of effective learning behaviors - elements that are often missing for students navigating college independently for the first time.

What Can Faculty Do to Support Organization? Faculty influence students’ organizational behaviors in powerful, often unintended ways. Clear course design and transparent expectations can significantly reduce organizational strain and help students allocate their time more effectively.

Effective practices include:

• Structuring assignments with intermediate deadlines to reduce procrastination.

• Providing consistent course layouts in the learning management system.

• Modeling organization through clear communication, timely feedback, and predictable routines.

• Explicitly teaching learning strategies, such as effective note-taking or reading approaches.

When faculty assume students already know how to manage their time and coursework, organizational gaps can widen - particularly for first-generation students or those unfamiliar with the hidden curriculum of college (Margolis, 2001).

Conclusion

Organization is not simply about keeping a tidy planner or meeting deadlines - it is about giving students the structure they need to turn effort into progress. When institutions intentionally measure and support organizational skills, they move from reacting to academic difficulty toward proactively building the conditions for student success.

By recognizing Organization as a core noncognitive factor - and by treating it as a skill that can be developed - colleges and universities can create more equitable, supportive environments in which all students have the opportunity to thrive.

References

• Arendale, D. R. (2014). Understanding the peer assisted learning model: Student study groups in challenging college courses. International Journal of Higher Education, 3(2), 1–12.

• Comeaux, E., & Harrison, C. K. (2011). A conceptual model of academic success for student-athletes. Educational Researcher, 40(5), 235–245.

• Credé, M., & Kuncel, N. R. (2008). Study habits, skills, and attitudes: The third pillar supporting collegiate academic performance. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 3(6), 425–453.

• Dawson, P., van der Meer, J., Skalicky, J., & Cowley, K. (2014). On the effectiveness of supplemental instruction. Review of Educational Research, 84(4), 609–639.

• Drake, J. K. (2011). The role of academic advising in student retention and persistence. About Campus, 16(3), 8–12.

• Gettinger, M., & Seibert, J. K. (2002). Contributions of study skills to academic competence. School Psychology Review, 31(3), 350–365.

• Hattie, J. (2009). Visible learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement. Routledge.

• Kirschner, P. A., Sweller, J., & Clark, R. E. (2006). Why minimal guidance during instruction does not work. Educational Psychologist, 41(2), 75–86.

• Kuh, G. D., Kinzie, J., Schuh, J. H., & Whitt, E. J. (2006). Student success in college: Creating conditions that matter. Jossey-Bass.

• Kuh, G. D., Kinzie, J., Buckley, J. A., Bridges, B. K., & Hayek, J. C. (2008). Piecing together the student success puzzle. ASHE Higher Education Report.

• MacCann, C., Fogarty, G. J., & Roberts, R. D. (2012). Strategies for success in education: Time management is more important for part-time than full-time community college students. Learning and Individual Differences, 22(5), 618–623.

• Margolis, E. (Ed.). (2001). The hidden curriculum in higher education. Routledge.

• Margolis, H., & McCabe, P. P. (2006). Improving self-efficacy and motivation: What to do, what to say. Intervention in School and Clinic, 41(4), 218–227.

• Markle, R., Olivera-Aguilar, M., Jackson, T., Noeth, R., & Robbins, S. (2013). Examining evidence of reliability, validity, and fairness for the SuccessNavigator assessment. ETS Research Report.

• Poropat, A. E. (2009). A meta-analysis of the five-factor model of personality and academic performance. Psychological Bulletin, 135(2), 322–338.

• Robbins, S. B., Lauver, K., Le, H., Davis, D., Langley, R., & Carlstrom, A. (2004). Do psychosocial and study skill factors predict college outcomes? A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 130(2), 261–288.