In Vocational Education in Switzerland, students must be able to cope with several different learning tasks at the same time. Thus time management strategies (TMS) are in addition to other motivational strategies (e.g. motivation, concentration), cognitive strategies (e.g. information processing) and metacognitive strategies (e.g. reflection) seen as important factors for success in school. Therefore, the use of TMS is embedded into LS-instruction. In order to measure the continuous and final effects of an intensive TMS-instruction, the students' knowledge and use of time management strategies has to be recorded before, during and after the 3-year intervention. For such a measurement most often standardized questionnaires (Learning-Strategies Inventories) are used. In recent years, however, the exclusive use of self-reports has been increasingly criticized, arguing that (1) both reflection and action should be taken into account, (2) the specific learning context is important and (3) self reports are biased in many ways. Therefore it is claimed, that both more authentic and qualitative measures should be used such as microanalyses, trace methodologies or think aloud protocols. Most typical of these methods is that the students have to accomplish concrete learning tasks, which are as authentic as possible. However, examples can rarely be found in field-research, which show how and to which extent the task performance can be traced back to the use of those LS which – from an expert's point of view – are required by a specific learning task.

Therefore, for this study it was decided to measure the students' use of generalized time management strategies before the intervention by the German version of Weinstein's LASSI (WLI; Metzger, Weinstein & Palmer, 2002). The TMS-inventory was given to 90 vocational students from two schools and different tracks, when they entered the school, i.e. before any TMS-instruction had taken place. After one year of intervention, the students filled in the TMS-inventory for the second time and were asked to apply their TMS-knowledge by evaluating a 3-school-weeks time management record of a fictitious student who was expected to perform several exams during the following weeks. This time management records consisted of (1) a table listing all forthcoming exams in the next three weeks (situational factors), (2) another table with additional information about the fictitious student such as personal aims and actual performance in the relevant courses and planned learning time for the preparation of each exam (personal factors), (3) the fictitious student's personal planning. The students had to name positive and negative aspects concerning the planning and explain their answers. In addition they were asked to make suggestions for improvement. The students' answers were rated based on the experts' view of strategic time management.  In the third year, the students were expected to apply actively their TMS while creating a project-oriented, 10-20 pages paper. As this authentic task has to be performed over a few months apart the regular classroom the students should carefully plan their activities concerning the essay and their other learning tasks. The students' personal time management records were collected as a trace of TMS-use and rated based on the experts' expectations of effective TMS-use. Again the TMS-inventory was administered. After having communicated the results concerning the essays, the students filled in a questionnaire concerning the chosen procedure, their experiences and consequences for future similar tasks.

By this, the following questions should be answered: (1) How far did the self-reported generalised TMS-use change during the intervention? (2) How far can students apply their TMS-knowledge by evaluating the TMS-use of a fictitious student? (3) What TMS do students actively use while fulfilling a complex learning task over a longer period of time? (4) What is the relationship between students' self-reported generalised TMS and both knowledge and use of TMS in specific learning tasks?

Conclusions will focus on the methodological triangulation chosen in this project, and instructional implications will be discussed.