Magister Commercii (Industrial Psychology) - MCom(IPS) / Working students encounter challenges and responsibilities at university and work. In attempting to study the books and chapters assigned, meet assignment deadlines, take part in extracurricular activities and function at work, working students may be overwhelmed sensing inadequate time to complete all their responsibilities. These may lead to certain negative outcomes for the working student, such as languishing, poor grades, taking longer than the expected time to complete studies or, in the worse scenario, quitting their studies. The primary aim of this study was to examine and understand the influence of non-cognitive factors (including PsyCap, time management, and grit) on flourishing and the working students’ intention to quit employing correlational and hierarchical regression analysis.

Magister Commercii (Industrial Psychology) - MCom(IPS) / Working students encounter challenges and responsibilities at university and work. In attempting to study the books and chapters assigned, meet assignment deadlines, take part in extracurricular activities and function at work, working students may be overwhelmed sensing inadequate time to complete all their responsibilities. These may lead to certain negative outcomes for the working student, such as languishing, poor grades, taking longer than the expected time to complete studies or, in the worse scenario, quitting their studies. The primary aim of this study was to examine and understand the influence of non-cognitive factors (including PsyCap, time management, and grit) on flourishing and the working students’ intention to quit employing correlational and hierarchical regression analysis. The secondary objective was to make recommendations to universities and organisations on how to aid working students to develop or increase non-cognitive factors to ensure their flourishing and a reduced intention-to-quit studies. A non-probability sampling technique indicating, convenience sampling and purposive sampling were employed to recruit respondents. Respondents had to be working students (part-time students). The sample included 194 respondents (n = 194) from a university in the Western Cape. The survey instrument included a biographical questionnaire, the academic PsyCap questionnaire, mental health continuum - short form (MHC-SF) questionnaire, Grit-Perseverance of effort subscale, the time management short-range planning subscale, and a self-developed intention-to-quit questionnaire. Numerous studies confirmed the validity and reliability of these instruments. The relationship amongst the non-cognitive variables (PsyCap, grit and time management), flourishing and intention-to-quit studies were assessed through Pearson correlation and hierarchical regression analysis. The non-cognitive variables had a positive relationship with flourishing and a negative relationship with intention-to-quit studies. PsyCap was established to explain the largest proportion of the variance in flourishing and intention-to-quit studies. This is consistent with the findings of studies with similar variables. Recommendations were made for lecturers, counsellors, and university officials to collaborate to incorporate programmes that will aid in developing these non-cognitive variables into the university’s curriculum.