Wydawnictwo Międzynarodowej Akademii Nauk Stosowanych w Łomży

ISSN 2300-3170 Wydawnictwo
Międzynarodowej Akademii Nauk Stosowanych w Łomży Seria: Zeszyty Naukowe Nr 97
NAUKI SPOŁECZNE, HUMANISTYCZNE I PEDAGOGICZNE
Redaktor prowadzący: dr Wiesław Zawadzki Łomża 2025
ZESZYTY NAUKOWE MANS w Łomży 97 s. 461-472
data przesłania 12.10.2024 akceptacji artykułu 20.02.2025 Nataliia Yermakova 1
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6163-8313
1 Sumy State Pedagogical University named after A.S. Makarenko
PECULIARITIES OF PROCRASTINATION IN STUDENTS OF
HIGHER EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS Summary
The article presents the results of a study of procrastination among students of higher
educational institutions. Theoretical approaches to studying this phenomenon are considered,
as well as an analysis of the results of own empirical research. The differences in the
manifestation of procrastination in female and male students studying at various higher
educational institutions in Sumy were analysed. The main methods used in the empirical study
were K. Ley's Procrastination Scale, Ye. L. Bazyka's Procrastination Detection Questionnaire,
Ch.Spielberger - Yu.Khanin's Scale of Reactive and Personal Anxiety and J. Rotter’s Level of
Subjective Control Questionnaire. Statistical processing of the obtained data was carried out
using correlation analysis to the Pearson coefficient.
It turned out that procrastination among students is a widespread phenomenon. Students
put off "for later" not only academic but also non-academic tasks. Errands imposed from the
outside are in the first place among those postponed by students; on the second – those with
remote consequences and a long implementation period; on the third – are routine, boring and
unpleasant tasks and tasks related to statistics.
It was established that procrastination among students of higher education institutions
is statistically reliably associated with external locus of control and increased personal anxiety.
Domestic procrastination prevails among female students, and academic procrastination prevails among male students. Keywords: procrastination, students, domestic (daily) procrastination, academic
procrastination, personal anxiety, external locus of control 461 Introduction
In psychology, the concept of procrastination refers to the tendency to constantly
procrastinate and "put off for later" unpleasant thoughts and things to complete tasks late, even
though this will cause specific problems. Since the implementation of the tasks that society sets
before a modern person requires a developed will and motivational sphere, this negative
phenomenon becomes an obstacle to the successful self-realisation of an individual. It
significantly weakens his competitiveness in all spheres of life. In today's student environment,
procrastination is quite widespread. Moreover, often, having formed precisely during student
age, the mentioned phenomenon, as a rule, does not disappear by itself and passes into the next
period of life, bringing the procrastinator a lot of experiences and disappointments, hindering
his successful professional and personal mobility, restraining the movement in the direction of
self-development and self-efficacy.
Researchers such as M. Kagan, O. Chakir, T. Ilkhan and M. Kandemir [5], K. Lay [8],
J. Ferrari and S. Sher [10] made a significant contribution to the study of various aspects of this
problem. At the same time, among the prominent researchers of this topic are A. Onwugbuzi
[9], J. Stober and J. Jorman [11], A. Onwugbuzi and K. Jiao [12], as well as Ukrainian scientists,
in particular Ye.Bazyka [1], N. Hrysenko [2], K. Dubinina [3], G. Chuyko and N. Komisaryk [5] and others.
The modern world has recently seen a significant increase in articles devoted to
procrastination. In particular, under the auspices of the USA’s Procrastination Research Group,
international conferences on scientific and applied problems of studying this phenomenon are
constantly held. Many foreign colleges have psychological counselling offices, the task of
which is to help students overcome procrastination.
In particular, the authors J. Ferrari and S. Sher [10], investigating the features of student
procrastination, found out that both academic and non-academic tasks are postponed by
students "for later". Quite interesting is the assumption of these authors that, to a greater extent,
the teachers are "to blame" for this since the overwhelming majority pay too little attention to
discipline and often take for granted (without evidence) the excuses of students who have
violated the deadlines for completing assignments, thus reinforcing and stimulating procrastination in students.
In his research, A. Onwugbuzi [9] mentions the fear of statistics (fear of making
statistical calculations) as one reason for academic procrastination. The research revealed that
about 60% of graduate students annually report procrastination when writing semester papers, 462
preparing for exams, and completing weekly assignments. It is interesting that this indicator
among graduate students was higher (approximately 3.5 times) than among undergraduate students.
M. Kagan, O. Chakir, O. Shakir, T. Ilhan, and M. Kandemir [5], after conducting a study
among university students in Turkey, concluded that academic procrastination is associated
with perfectionism and obsessive-compulsive personality traits. This conclusion is also
confirmed by other studies conducted in various countries of Europe and America.
J. Stöber and J. Jorman [11] studied the signs that distinguish anxiety from somatic
anxiety and depression. The authors note that theoretical models of the worry process are
closely related to procrastination. One hundred eighty-five students of the Free University of
Berlin were interviewed for the study. As a result of the correlation analysis, as expected, a high
level of correlation between anxiety, on the one hand, and anxiety and depression, on the other,
was revealed. As for what the researchers call "trait anxiety," i.e., procrastination and
perfectionism, they also demonstrated significant correlations with anxiety.
In their study, J. Stober and J. Jorman [11] also note that perfectionistic concerns (fear
of making a mistake and doubts about actions) can be responsible for procrastination and
indecision of anxious people. If worry is viewed as "anticipatory anxiety," when this component
is excluded from anxiety and depression, it ceases to correlate with procrastination and
perfectionism, suggesting the potential fruitfulness of further study of worry for cognitive research and therapy.
Onwuegbuzy A. J. and K. Jiao [12] studied the role of expected success and general
anxiety as mediators of "library anxiety". The model the researcher developed includes
variables directly related to information retrieval performance. According to this model, library
anxiety and student self-perception serve as factors that link research project writing
performance and other cognitive, personality, and demographic variables. The author notes that
this is influenced by age, GPA, learning style and academic procrastination.
Ukrainian psychologists began studying procrastination from the end of the 20th to the
beginning of the 21st century (Y. Bazyka [1]; N. Hrysenko [2]; K. Dubinina [3]; H. Chuiko
and N.V. Komisaryk [4]). Before that, this problem was studied as a tendency to laziness.
In particular, Y. Bazyka [1] emphasises that procrastination is a sign of underdeveloped
volitional processes, an inability to self-organize, and purposefulness, connecting it with
laziness, sybarism, and depression. According to the researcher, postponement, time-wasting,
and counterproductiveness are variants of this phenomenon. 463
Purpose, subject and research methods
Our work aimed to conduct our empirical study of procrastination among students. Our
experimental study of the level of procrastination involved 100 respondents, 50 psychology
students and 50 economics students studying at Sumy State Pedagogical University named after
A.S. Makarenko (Sumy, Ukraine), aged 18 to 23. The primary method was the "General
Procrastination Scale" by K. Lay. The additional method was the method of Y. Bazyka. A
psychological interview was conducted with the subjects to study procrastination in students
qualitatively. To study the severity of factors and personal characteristics of the process of
procrastination among youth, the following questionnaires were used: "Level of subjective
control" and "Scale of situational (reactive) and personal anxiety" by Ch. Spielberger – Yu. Khanin. Research results
These standardised questionnaires were conducted only on a sample of people who
showed high and medium levels of procrastination according to the methods of K. Lay and Y. Bazyka (N=100).
Let's consider the results of psychology and economics students according to the K. Lay
method (Table 1 and Figure 1).
Table 1. The percentage ratio of the levels of procrastination according to the method of K. Lay
Source: original research conducted at Sumy State Pedagogical University named after A.S. Makarenko Psychology students Economics students Levels Female Male Female Male High 9% 3% 10% 4% Average 15% 17% 11% 15% Low 4% 2% 2% 8% Total 28% 22% 23% 27% 464 70% 60% 50% 40% Female 30% Male 20% 10% 0% High Average Low
Fig. 1. Indicators of procrastination levels according to the K. Lay method (in %)
Source: original research conducted at Sumy State Pedagogical University named after A.S. Makarenko
Therefore, the comparative analysis of the results of male and female students, obtained
according to the basic methodology of K. Lay, shows that the high level of procrastination in
the sample of female respondents (detected in 37%) is more pronounced than in the sample of
researched male respondents (inherent in only 14 %). As noted by the author of the method, K.
Lay, those studied with a high (chronic) level of procrastination, among whom, according to
our research, a third are female students and 1/7 are male students, can be characterised as
individuals who are unable to overcome themselves, their laziness. These are individuals with
low volitional self-regulation, characterised by a lack of persistence, impulsivity, insecurity, a
low level of self-management and self-perception, and, accordingly, a high level of internal conflict.
65% of men and 51% of women reported an average level of procrastination. Therefore,
half of the female students and almost two-thirds of the surveyed male students tend to put off
"for later" matters that do not bring satisfaction and do not have a clear deadline.
A low level of procrastination, characteristic of successful students who procrastinate
extremely rarely, is observed in 12% (1/8 of all studied) female students and 20% (a fifth of the
entire sample) of males. These are successful people who have a high quality of life, willpower,
and the ability to allocate their time effectively, even finding time for hobbies and self- improvement.
The data obtained according to the method indicate that young male students are less
inclined to procrastinate and mostly put off tasks without a clear deadline and satisfaction. The
researched females are mostly at an inconsistent average level of procrastination, always putting 465
off uninteresting tasks which completion date needs to be precisely determined. We discovered
that for a third (37%) of the female students examined by us, a high chronic level of
procrastination was dominant, which requires corrective work.
Based on the data obtained according to the methodology of Y. Bazyka’s Questionnaire
for Detecting the Presence of Procrastination, we also divided the experimental sample into
three groups: subjects with a high level of procrastination, respondents with an average level of
procrastination and subjects with a low level of procrastination. The study's results are
presented in Table 2, Figure 2.
Table 2. Indicators of procrastination levels according to the method of Y. Bazyka (in %)
Source: original research conducted at Sumy State Pedagogical University named after A.S. Makarenko Psychology students Economics students Levels Female Male Female Male High 2% 10% 1% 7% Average 15% 4% 10% 11% Low 11% 8% 12% 9% Total 28% 22% 23% 27% 25% 20% 15% Female 10% Male 5% 0% High Average Low
Fig. 2. Indicators of procrastination levels according to the method of Y. Bazyka (in %)
Source: original research conducted at Sumy State Pedagogical University named after A.S. Makarenko
Using Y. Bazyka's methodology among students of youth age yielded the following
results: a high level of general procrastination was observed in 3% of female and 17% of male 466
respondents. The average level was found in 25% of female and 15% of male students. The low
level was in 23% of female and 17% of male students.
Comparing the results of quantitative analysis using the methods of K. Lay and Y.
Bazyka, it may seem that they are contradictory. However, during a detailed qualitative analysis
of the results of both methods, we concluded that they are consistent. The level of general
procrastination is somewhat higher in males and lower in females, according to the method of
Y. Bazyka, and it is caused precisely by the level of their academic procrastination. It turned
out that a higher level of academic procrastination characterises male respondents, and female
students are characterised by procrastination related to educational activities to a lesser degree.
The results obtained by both methods indicate that girls have a higher level of general procrastination.
We attempted to investigate what exactly causes psychology and economics students to
put things off “for later”. The study's results are presented in Table 3.
Table 3 Things that are most often postponed “for later” (in %)
Source: original research conducted at Sumy State Pedagogical University named after A.S. Makarenko Psychology students Economics students Activities Female Male Female Male
Uninteresting activities, tasks 4% 2% 2% 4% Learning 1% 4% 2% 6%
Difficult, time-consuming tasks that do not 2% 2% 1% 4% bring pleasure Tasks imposed from outside 2% 1% 2% 2% Theses 0% 2% 1% 2% Unimportant tasks 2% 1% 2% 3% Household chores 7% 1% 5% 1% Matters that need planning 0% 2% 3% 2% Non-urgent tasks 2% 2% 2% 1%
Activities that were not foreseen in advance 3% 1% 1% 0% Non-essential matters 3% 2% 1% 1% Tasks that take a lot of time 2% 2% 1% 1% Total: 28% 22% 23% 27%
Let’s look at the results of the content analysis of things that students postpone "for
later". It was found that 13% of female students very often put things off "for later"; 6% of
females out of the entire sample procrastinate when they are not interested in matters; 4% –
non-essential matters; 4% – activities that were not foreseen in advance; 4% – tasks imposed 467
from outside; 4% – unimportant tasks; 4% – non-urgent tasks; 3% – learning; 3% – difficult,
time-consuming tasks that do not bring pleasure; 3% - matters that need planning; 3% - tasks
that require a lot of time; 1% - theses.
According to the results of our research, 10% of the surveyed young males most often
postpone their studies. 6% predominantely procrastinate uninteresting activities and tasks; 6%
- difficult, time-consuming tasks that do not bring pleasure; tasks imposed from outside - 3%;
theses - 4%; unimportant matters - 4%; household chores - 2%; matters that need to be planned
- 4%; non-urgent tasks - 3%; activities that were not foreseen in advance - 1%; non-essential
matters - 3%; tasks that take a lot of time - 3%.
It was also revealed which types of procrastination dominate among students. The
results are presented in Table 4.
Table 4. Types of procrastination (in %)
Source: original research conducted at Sumy State Pedagogical University named after A.S. Makarenko
Types of procrastination Psychology students Economics students Female Male Female Male Everyday procrastination 14% 4% 11% 2% Decision-making 4% 2% 5% 6% procrastination Neurotic procrastination 2% 4% 2% 2% Academic procrastination 6% 12% 5% 17% Total: 28% 22% 23% 27%
So, it turned out that everyday (domestic) procrastination prevails among females,
characteristic of a quarter of the respondents (in particular, in contrast to 25% of females, only
6% of males have this type). 9% of females and 8% of males are dominated by procrastination
in making important decisions, including minor ones. Postponement of vital decisions "for
later" (neurotic procrastination) was expressed in 4% of female and 6% of male respondents.
Academic procrastination, that is, in preparing for classes, exams, writing theses and
qualification papers, etc., dominates among young men (29% – almost a third of all respondents,
in contrast to 11% of females).
With the help of a psychological interview, we also recorded what kind of things
students do in a case of procrastination. It turned out that while procrastinating, 13% of girls
mainly walk around and talk with friends; tidy up - 6%; use social media - 6%; watch movies
and series - 5%; listen to music - 4%; other - 3%; do sports - 2%; engage in hobbies - 2%; 468
cooking - 2%; sleep - 2%; do housework - 1%; self-employed - 1%; deal with current problems
- 1%; read books - 1%; play computer games - 1%.
In situations of procrastination, young men also mostly go for walks and talk with
friends (15% of respondents); watch movies and series (9% of respondents); do sports (7% of
students); use social media (5% of respondents); read books (3% of respondents); listen to
music (3% of respondents); rest - 3%; engage in hobbies - 2%; play computer games (1% of respondents).
According to our research data, 84 people have an average and high level of general
procrastination, 45 of whom are male and 39 female. These subjects were selected to identify
the specifics of the development of procrastination factors (locus of control, social attitudes,
personal and situational anxiety).
In the course of the research conducted according to the methodology of C. Spielberger
and Y. Khanin, it was found that the majority of respondents are prone to situational or chronic
procrastination, and the predominant type of anxiety is personal (67.9%), compared to
situational (33.3% ). That is, anxiety manifests in most of the specified student's category. High
indicators of situational anxiety are observed among 17.8% of female and 12.8% of male
procrastinators, and in terms of personal anxiety - 26.7% of females and 23% of males. The
average indicators for the level of situational anxiety in the specified category of respondents
are as follows: 20% of females and 15.4% of males, and for the level of personal anxiety - 40%
of females and 46.2% of males. Low levels of situational anxiety were found in 62.2% of
females and 71.8% of males, and in terms of personal anxiety - 33.3% of females and 30.8% of
males are prone to procrastination.
The results of the study of locus of control in procrastinating students using J. Rotter's
Internal-External Locus of Control Scale showed that among 84 students with dominant high
and medium levels of procrastination, the external locus of control prevails (67.7% of female
and 71.8% of male), compared to internal (33.3% of female and 28.2% of male).
To check the reliability of the obtained data, we conducted a correlation analysis of the
results of our study using the Pearson correlation coefficient (r). The results are presented in Table 5.
Table 5. Indicators of the Pearson correlation coefficient (r)
Source: original research conducted at Sumy State Pedagogical University named after A.S. Makarenko 469
The indicator of the coefficient Scales Female Male
High level of procrastination and high level of personal 0,787** 0,921** anxiety
High level of procrastination and 0,562** 0,560** external locus of control
Note: **. The correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (two-sided)
*. The correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (two-sided).
The results of our correlation analysis indicate a direct relationship between a high level
of procrastination and a high level of personal anxiety in both groups (males (r=0.921; p=0.01)
and females (r=0.787; p=0.01 ). No statistically significant relationship between procrastination
and situational anxiety was found at any of the levels.
A direct relationship between procrastination and external locus of control was also
established both in the sample of males (r=0.560; p=0.01) and females (r=0.562; p=0.01).
However, the relationship between internal locus of control and procrastination was not
established at all levels. It is believed that people with an external locus of control are more
characterised by fear of failure and personal anxiety, which is also a factor in the manifestations of procrastination. Conclusions
Scientists define procrastination as a mechanism for overcoming anxiety, which is
associated with the beginning or completion of a task or decision. They see procrastination as
a form of behaviour that a person develops to deal with the stress of starting and trying to finish a task.
During our experimental research, we determined statistically significant differences in
the manifestation of procrastination among youth. The results of our correlation analysis
indicate a direct relationship between a high level of procrastination and a high level of personal
anxiety, as well as between an external locus of control and a high level of procrastination in
both groups of young student respondents (male and female).
In addition, the results of the qualitative analysis indicate that domestic (everyday)
procrastination dominates in female students, and academic procrastination prevails in male students.
Our further scientific research in the direction of the outlined problems focuses on the
prevention and correction of manifestations of procrastination, aimed at students’ awareness 470
and overcoming of the causes of procrastination as a negative stereotype of behaviour that can
affect physical and mental health. References
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