It Takes Work: How University Students Manage Role Boundaries when the Future is Calling

Managing boundaries between students’ work and study roles is crucial for success at university. Little research has examined the strategies used to manage these roles, the factors that relate to implementing them, and the outcomes associated with their use. Boundary management theory, an identity-based perspective, explains boundary management processes; yet, few studies have examined how identity affects the enactment of boundary strategies. We investigated the extent to which identity-based concepts (i.e., student role salience and future-self) were related to different types of boundary strategies (i.e., temporal and communicative), how these related to work-study balance, and, in turn, academic satisfaction. We tested our model on a sample of 266 working university students (MAge = 20.07 years, SD = 2.63; 74% women) and it accounted for 41% of the variance in academic satisfaction. Significant relationships were found among identity-based concepts, boundary strategies, work-study balance, and academic satisfaction, highlighting the importance of student identity and the use of temporal strategies in achieving greater work-study balance and academic satisfaction. Suggestions for how education providers can retain students who are struggling to manage work and study are discussed.