Psychological Perspective On Academic Procrastination
I’m sure it has happened even to the best of us. Deadline is fast approaching, but we cannot bring ourselves to finish the unwritten essay or a report. As much as we want and are committed to completing the task, chances are that we simply find ourselves stuck and are unable to do it.
INTRODUCTION
We endlessly scroll on our phones and browse online…
Anything but getting the job done.
And the term we are describing above… Yes, you guessed it, procrastination.
It is the act of delaying and putting off tasks until the last minute. Until the deadline is so close, the stress level is so high, and we have no other option than to rush through the assignment and finish it just before time runs out.
If we flip through various research that has been made among students in an academic environment, it quickly becomes clear, that procrastination is very common. More than half of the students that were questioned reported the need for help concerning procrastination (Galagher, et. al, 1992).
If we look at another research (Day, et. al. 2014), where “The academic procrastination questionnaire” was used, only 1% of questioned students reported having no problem with procrastination whatsoever and one-third of the questioned sample could be considered severe procrastinators. The more we investigate it, the bigger problem of procrastination seems.
Now first let us look at the most common reasons behind this phenomenon.
CAUSES
We can list a few possible patterns underlying procrastination:
1. Evaluation of anxiety
This pattern is associated with fear of failure and perfectionism. Students avoid work because they feel that their efforts may not be enough to succeed. Their response is often perfectionism, which causes them to focus too much on details rather than on important things. Their progress is therefore slow, which reduces their motivation to continue solving problems. In the process, they are afraid of failure and its consequences. And the thought of failure prevents them from completing the task.
2. Discouragement/ depression
This pattern ranges from emotional states that include simple discouragement about academic work to severe depression. Some students may simply not be interested in completing the task or are discouraged by other environmental factors (loud noises, electronic devices, other people talking…). But let us also look at how depression and procrastination are linked? Depressed people often lose interest in all activities, even the fun ones. They have problems with planning out a sequence of behavior and even planning out multi-step tasks can feel overwhelming. Therefore, completing an academic task (that usually requires some planning and work) seems like an impossible task.
3. Lack of self-regulation strategies
An important aspect of learning is self-regulated learning. This concept can also be understood as »learning to learn«. it is the ability to regulate our studying process, to understand and manage our behavior (for example regulating strong emotions like anger, frustration, and calming down when anxious) and it helps us focus on a task. Therefore, a student with no self-regulation strategies will have difficulties controlling their learning process and will also have difficulty planning their learning and sticking to it.
HOW TO DEAL WITH PROCRASTINATION
There are different ways to help with procrastination.
1. Take baby steps
Break the final goal (for example writing an essay) into manageable and trackable steps. The best way is to plan our steps and write them down. We should evaluate the success after each step and reward ourselves. Either with a break, with a snack or whatever motivates us. For example, if I am writing an essay, in the beginning, I break the process into steps:
- Research the topic and findings so far
- Write down an introduction
- Set your hypotheses
- And so on and on
After every complete step, I tick the successful part of the task and reward myself with 10 minutes of something I find pleasure in (e.g., listening to the music). Planning is one of the self-regulating strategies that can improve our task-completing process.
2. Set your own deadlines
If we know that a deadline set from outside no longer compels us, we set our deadline and try to stick to it. We promise ourselves a reward, e. g. a trip, a get-together with friends, or whatever stimulates us after we accomplish what we have set out to achieve. But this is hard for most of us since this self-regulation technique requires inner motivation, which sometimes we lack. The simple solution is that we ask someone to check on us and ask us, how successful have we been so far. Knowing that someone else also knows about the deadline, can stimulate us because it provides an outside stimulation that can increase our motivation.
3. Find the right time and eliminate distractions
Research shows that there are some rules we should follow if we want to be the most productive when working or studying. Firstly, you should never work for half an hour before and after lunch. Right before, we can be irritated, impulsive, and easily distracted by intrusive thoughts. Right after the meal, we can be too full, and thoughts are easily directed to the dis/comfort.
The obvious tip is also to remove distractions — shut down the TV, move your phone to another room, and so on. If your argument is »But how am I supposed to know how much time has passed if I cannot check the time on my phone? « GET A CLOCK!
4. Set appropriate space
We should also avoid completing tasks on the bed and in comfortable positions. Mental concentration requires a certain amount of physical tension. On a soft bed, we will quickly close our eyes and doze off for a few moments and will easily be distracted by our phones or daydream to avoid work.
The room where we work must be adequately lit and ventilated and not too hot or too cold. If we do not mind music in the background, we can listen to ambient music, preferably without lyrics, as there may be interference between our thoughts and the lyrics.
SUMMARY
PROCRASTINATION is the behavior of doing less urgent tasks instead of more urgent ones, or of doing more pleasant tasks instead of less pleasant ones. As a result, otherwise unavoidable tasks are postponed until the last minute. But procrastination can have a crucial impact on our potential and make it impossible to achieve our desired goals and that is why it is important to be aware of this widespread phenomenon and to know how to get rid of unwanted behavior. First, we need to be aware that we are procrastinating before we follow the advice above.
REFERENCES
Day, V., Mensink, D. and O’Sullivan, M. (2000). Patterns of Academic Procrastination. Journal of College Reading and Learning, 30(2), 120- 134.
Gallagher, R. P., Golin, A. and Kelleher, K. (1992). The personal, career and learning skills needs of college students. Journal of College Student Development, 33, 301–309.