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Do procrastination-friendly environments make students delay unnecessarily?

DOI:10.1007/s11218-017-9386-x
Authors:
Kent Nordby at UiT The Arctic University of Norway
Kent Nordby
Katrin Klingsieck at Universität Paderborn
Katrin Klingsieck
Frode Svartdal at UiT The Arctic University of Norway
Frode Svartdal
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Abstract and Figures

Research on procrastination emphasizes trait explanations for unwanted delay, yet environmental factors are most probably significant contributors to the problem. In this paper, we review literature related to the influence of environmental factors on academic procrastination and investigate how such factors may be assessed in facilitating academic procrastination in students. Study 1 asked students to evaluate three different fields of study—natural sciences, medicine, and humanities—on environmental variables assumed to be relevant for academic procrastination (e.g., structured course progression, freedom in the study situation). Distinct differences between the academic fields were observed. In Study 2, participants from these three fields of study rated their own academic procrastination as well as peer procrastination and peer influence. Dispositional (trait) procrastination was also measured. The results demonstrated that environmental factors have a negligible impact on low-procrastinating students, whereas procrastination-friendly environments seem to facilitate and augment academic procrastination in students at medium-level dispositional procrastination, i.e., the majority of students. We conclude that social and environmental factors should receive increased attention in measures taken to reduce and prevent academic procrastination.
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Do procrastination-friendly environments make
students delay unnecessarily?
Kent Nordby
1
•Katrin B. Klingsieck
2
•
Frode Svartdal
1
Received: 7 March 2017 / Accepted: 5 June 2017 / Published online: 14 July 2017
Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2017
Abstract Research on procrastination emphasizes trait explanations for unwanted
delay, yet environmental factors are most probably significant contributors to the
problem. In this paper, we review literature related to the influence of environmental
factors on academic procrastination and investigate how such factors may be
assessed in facilitating academic procrastination in students. Study 1 asked students
to evaluate three different fields of study—natural sciences, medicine, and
humanities—on environmental variables assumed to be relevant for academic
procrastination (e.g., structured course progression, freedom in the study situation).
Distinct differences between the academic fields were observed. In Study 2, par-
ticipants from these three fields of study rated their own academic procrastination as
well as peer procrastination and peer influence. Dispositional (trait) procrastination
was also measured. The results demonstrated that environmental factors have a
negligible impact on low-procrastinating students, whereas procrastination-friendly
environments seem to facilitate and augment academic procrastination in students at
medium-level dispositional procrastination, i.e., the majority of students. We con-
clude that social and environmental factors should receive increased attention in
measures taken to reduce and prevent academic procrastination.
Keywords Academic procrastination Peer effects Procrastination
environment Procrastination antecedents Self-control
&Frode Svartdal
frode.svartdal@uit.no
1
Department of Psychology, UiT the Arctic University of Norway, 9037 Tromsø, Norway
2
Department of Psychology, Universita
¨t Paderborn, Paderborn, Germany
123
Soc Psychol Educ (2017) 20:491–512
DOI 10.1007/s11218-017-9386-x
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.
... Students avoid working on assignments which make them feel uncomfortable. They delay less when assignments are perceived as interesting and include clear instructions (Akerman & Gross, 2005), and more often delay assignments perceived as dreary, frustrating and vague (Blunt & Pychyl, 2000;Nordby, Klingsieck & Svartdal, 2017). Studies have found a strong correlation between being deterred by an assignment and procrastinating in the face of it (Wilson & Neguyen, 2012). ...
... It was decided to examine the factors influencing academic procrastination among the group of 67 actual procrastinators (based on their self-reporting), due to the gap between the number of students perceiving themselves as procrastinators and the reports of the actual date on which the paper was completed. Since the research literature distinguishes between degrees of student academic procrastination (Nordby et al., 2017) and because the issue concerns a long-term assignment, we decided to examine the factors influencing procrastination from three levels of academic procrastination : ...
... The nature of academic assignments (for example: assignments are perceived as interesting/dreary, instructions are clear/not clear) and their due date constitute one of the factors in academic procrastination (Akerman & Gross, 2005Nordby et al., 2017). This is especially prominent in term papers and theses (Allen, 2010). ...
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