The role of engagement and temporal perspective in the academic performance of postgraduate students.

• Student engagement in the university context predicts academic performance. • Future time perspective is a variable that contributes to explain academic performance. • Engagement may contribute to reduce academic stress. Conventionally, engagement has been portrayed as an opposing construct to burnout and academic stress, and has been positively related to performance in the educational environment; nevertheless, few studies include at the same time both of these in addition to the time perspective of individuals. The purpose of this investigation is to analyse the construct of engagement and time perspective factors associated with academic performance. To this effect, a cross-sectional study was performed in which 298 postgraduate university students participated and multiple regression analyses were performed. From the selected independent variables, three were identified as statistically significant in the final model. Results show that gender, time perspective oriented towards the future and engagement are associated to the average score of the student's academic record. Consequently, it becomes necessary to consider the future time dimension as well as engagement to promote improvement of the university system and access to teaching professions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]