How vehicle ownership affect time utilization on study, leisure, social activities, and academic performance of university students? A case study of engineering freshmen in a rural university in Thailand

This study aims to investigate how the ownership of a private vehicle influences time utilization of university students, and whether it impacts their academic performance. This research analyzes travel/activity patterns of 130 engineering freshman students at a rural university in Thailand. An analysis of travel/activity data shows that vehicle ownership seems to play an important role in university student's time utilization on various activities. It was found that those students who own a vehicle tend to spend less time for academic purposes, and more on leisure and social activities than non-owner students. Nevertheless, a further study using regression analysis on academic performance shows that the ownership of a vehicle does not seem to have a significant impact on the grade point average of students, once the cognitive ability and gender are accounted for. The findings imply that campus policies/measures that restrict the ownership or usage of a private vehicle in rural universities would improve the campus learning environment by influencing university students to put more attention on school-related activities, but such policies do not seem to impact on the academic performance of the college students.