Measuring Academic Procrastination in Australian Undergraduate Students

I found I’m not alone according to two leading experts on procrastination, Joseph Ferrari, professor of psychology at DePaul University and Timothy Phikul, professor of psychology at Carleton University 20% of people identify themselves as chronic procrastinators and up to 70 percent of students in one study said that they procrastinate. This habit affects so many and it one of the most difficult tendencies to kick but fortunately there are ways to go about solving the issue so today I would like to inform you all about why people procrastinate and the effects it can have and also ways to overcome it.

The research article titled “Procrastination, Deadlines and Performance: Self-Control by Precomittment,” authored by psychologists Dan Ariely and Klaus Wertenbroch, aimed to figure out the reasoning behind procrastination. A study was conducted to answer three questions all posed from the central thesis of procrastination. The first question the studies sought to answer was whether people are willing to impose deadlines, with substantial consequences if they are not met, on themselves. The second question whether these self-imposed deadlines were actually helpful in improving overall performance. Lastly, the third question aimed to determine if the deadlines people imposed on themselves, were done so to achieve their best results. It was

Thesis: Procrastination is the main result of disorganization whether it’s at home, work or school.

Attention Getter: A famous author by the name of Wayne Dyer once said, “Procrastination is one of the most common and deadliest of diseases and its toll on success and happiness is incredibly heavy.”(1) In todays society it seems as if procrastination has become a normal and acceptable thing to do. It is often joked about amongst schoolmates and co-workers around the world. Nothing seems to get done until it absolutely needs to get done, then everyone runs around getting things done quickly and often times inaccurately. The trouble with this mentality however is that some things will never get done because something will come up tomorrow or the next day and what you are putting off now gets pushed even further back. Today I will persuade you to stop this habit from continuing. I will be explaining the problems we face when dealing with procrastination as well as how to deal with it and actions you can take to prevent it in the future.

The problem of procrastination starts when a student waits until minutes before a class to study for a class. This may seem like a solution for students who are pressed for time; however, this doesn’t allow time for the information to be solidified and vital information can be lost. These behaviors form because students have found that in the past they were able to successfully pass the class by doing their homework literally hours before the projects deadline. This reckless learning may help pass the class, but doesn’t give the information the time needed to be solidified into memory. This reckless learning also produces effects within projects that are often below the students’ academic level and can cause

Procrastination is a tendency to postpone, put off, delay, reschedule, take a rain check on, put on ice, hold off, or to defer what is necessary to reach a particular goal.(Roget's 21st Century Thesaurus, Third Edition. Philip Lief Group 2009.) While attending College some students find it hard to juggle work, family, and friends. Leading most students down a dangerous path to procrastination; that negative impact affect students from their physical health, mental health, and social health.

According to Semb, Glick and Spencer (1979), the level of procrastination increases as an individual stays longer in universities. It was stated by Ellis and Knaus (1977) that approximately, over 70% of college students engage in this activity. Undergraduates tend to start papers during the last minute; they fail to prioritize what should be accomplished first, and as a result, their academic performance is greatly affected. A detrimental effect on their studies leads to having poor grades and eventually, failure in class (Semb, et.al., 1979).

A) Yes; educators agree that procrastination is the root of several academic problems that lead students to miss deadlines, withdraw from courses, and receive low course grades. For this reason, it is crucial to investigate the underlying factors associated with procrastination in order to find ways to reduce or prevent this maladaptive behavior from occurring.

“A Dictionary of the English Language” written by Dr. Samuel Johnson, defined procrastination as “delay.” This common issue mostly around everyone. Many people struggle with deadlines every day. It is one of the largest problems seen in college counseling centers. (Grohol, Psy.D.)

By definition, the act of procrastinating is to postpone an event until a later time. We as humans have all delayed something in our lives, either related to school, work, or social activities. Although anything in life has the potential to be postponed or put off until the last-minute, procrastination is more commonly seen in schools and colleges among students. There are several reasons why students put off assignments, but, the main reason is that they do not take pleasure in doing their homework. Even though some students are unsuccessful in their dawdling, many students are often successful and benefit from saving coursework until the “last minute”. Taking a look at this process, we can see that procrastinating may actually save time and energy.

“I’ll stop procrastinating…Tomorrow.” This is a mindset that is possessed by a majority of students today. Although putting off writing that English paper until the night before it is due may not seem like a big deal, it has many harmful effects. In fact, what better topic is there for that English paper? Very few are spared from the epidemic known as procrastination. Even less overcome this issue. In order to successfully defeat procrastination, we must first understand it.

A great deal of students don’t develop effective study habits and this ultimately results in feeling a decreased sense of self-esteem, stress, disorganisation, poor academic success, and a negative sense of self-efficacy which is linked to poor self-control (Pychyl & Dann, 2010). This is primarily caused by procrastinating. Procrastination is delaying an activity that possesses important benefits for us in the long-term but is voluntarily delayed in the short-term because of short-term impulsive temptations which offer greater immediate rewards (Steel, 2007). I chose to modify this problematic target behaviour because it was where I exercised poor self-control.

The questionnaire was posted online for psyc121 students of Victoria University of Wellington. “Please read each statement, and select the option that best describes how much you agree or disagree with each one” was the instruction given to the participants when completing a Pure Procrastination Scale (PPS) which was developed by Steel (2010). It had 12 items and on a one to five scale where one is strongly disagree and 5 is strongly agree. A statement “I generally delay before starting on work I have to do”. Higher scores meant higher levels of procrastination.

Understanding that making time for one is not only useful for academic purposes, but for entertainment purposes as well.

Every student sets goals and deadlines to get their work done on time, but some wait until the last minute. As the grade level increases, the work load and difficulty increases, leading to more procrastination. Most students in high school procrastinate, and the question is, why? Is the work too hard? Do their teacher’s leniency cause them to? Do students not have enough time? Do extra-curricular activities take up too much of their time? There has been many other research studies on this topic, but I wanted to see if the students in my survey and interviews had any different correlations.