The Study On The Characteristic And Difference Of Time Perspective Among Senior High School Students, Vocational School Students And Youth Offenders

Time perspective not only refers to people’s cognition, understanding and experienceabout time, but also includes the behaviors and behavior disposition based on it. Timeperspective covers past time perspective, present time perspective and future time perspective.Based on the existing study about time perspective at home and abroad, and by usingdocument analysis, interview, questionnaire survey and statistical analysis, this researchobserves and studies the characteristic of time perspective among three different groupsincluding294senior high school students,206vocational school students and252youthoffenders. Meanwhile, this research analyzes the difference of time perspective at everydimension on demographic variable among those three groups and compares them. The mainconclusions are as follows:1. As a whole, three groups all own fine time perspective since they had a positiveattitude toward the past and have their eyes on the future.2. Time perspective of senior high school students is at intermediate or above level.Gender difference makes outstanding difference on future dimension of time perspective.Whether they are the single child or not cause little difference on every dimension of timeperspective.3. Time perspective of vocational school students is also at intermediate or above level.Different family background shows great difference only on time perspective’s futuredimension. Which gender they belong to and if they are the single child or not cause littledifference on every dimension of time perspective.4. Time perspective of youth offenders is still at intermediate or above level, especiallyin the dimension of past positive and past negative attitude. However, the score of futuredimension is about the mean level. Whether they are the single child or not results in greatdifference on the present epicurean dimension of time perspective but does not affect otherdimensions. Different family background makes no notable difference on every dimension.Different educational attainments and criminal types cause conspicuous difference on presentpredestination dimension. Different prison term cause little difference on every dimension oftime perspective.5. Three groups’ time perspective contains notable difference on every dimension.Compared with senior high school students, youth offenders pay close attention to their past and emphasize present reforming life. Meanwhile, since most informants are from the city,senior high school students show present hedonism inclination. On future dimension, the twogroups get similar score. Although youth offenders are more past negative than vocationalschool students, their score on other dimensions is close. Time perspective of senior highschool students differs from that of vocational school students greatly, especially on futuredimension and present epicurean dimension.A developmental and balanced perspective of time will change one’s life. We shouldthink highly of the important turning point of those three groups and provide focused leadingand educating. We should guide students to enhance future time orientation which is aneffective way of improving their study and living attitude. As to youth offenders, we mustadjust and change their present predestinate and epicurean perspective of time, and lead thembuilding a correct future time orientation perspective, which is the rational choice ofimproving correcting effects.