Why do students leave coursework to the last minute?
Procrastinating students planned to work as hard as everyone else but did far less early on and crammed at the end, and low energy and distractibility explained most of their delay.
Source
Examining Procrastination Across Multiple Goal Stages: A Longitudinal Study of Temporal Motivation Theory
Study at a glance
- Design
- Cohort — Longitudinal field study logging assignment completion at 77 time points in a self-paced course, linked to personality and self-regulation questionnaires; Study 2 is a cross-sectional online survey.
- N
- N=171 · Study 1: 171 undergraduates in one course (90 completed the intentions measure). Study 2: 7400 online respondents, of whom 2435 were full-time students.
- Population
- Undergraduates in a 15-week computerised self-paced introductory psychology course at a US university; online adults in Study 2
- Outcome
- Trait, course-specific and observed procrastination (timing of assignment completion), and their links to intentions, temptation and self-regulation skills
Structured fields used in claim comparison tables when every cited study has a complete layer.
What they did
The researchers followed 171 undergraduates through a 15-week self-paced psychology course and recorded when each of 77 assignments was completed, turning each student's progress curve into an observed procrastination score. Students also completed personality and self-regulation questionnaires and, mid-course, stated how much work they planned to do over the next two weeks. A second, cross-sectional online survey re-tested the self-regulation predictions in a much larger sample.
What they found
Work followed a curve that bent upward near the deadline, and the curve was steeper the more a student procrastinated. Procrastinators intended to work as much as others but fell further short of their plans, especially for goals two weeks away rather than one. Distractibility, low energy, weak planning and lack of study routines each predicted procrastination, together explaining 74% of its variance, while fear of failure added nothing once energy was accounted for.
The limits
What it doesn't show
The design is correlational, so it cannot show that low energy or distractibility cause procrastination; unmeasured third variables could explain the links, as the authors note. Study 1 covered one course at one university, and only 90 students completed the intentions measure. Many predictors are self-report scales that overlap in wording with procrastination items, which can inflate correlations, and Study 2 is a cross-sectional online survey. The reported ACT coverage figures also do not match the stated sample size, a small inconsistency in the text.
Key terms
- Temporal motivation theory
- A theory that motivation rises with expectancy and value but falls with the delay before a reward, especially for impulsive people.
- Intention-action gap
- The difference between how much work a person plans to do and how much they actually do.
- Hyperbolic curve
- A pattern where effort stays low while a deadline is far away and rises sharply as it gets close.
- Observed procrastination
- A behavioural measure, here the area under each student's cumulative progress curve, rather than a self-report.
- Personalized System of Instruction
- A self-paced course format where students work through units and quizzes on their own schedule.
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Quiz yourself
How did the study mainly measure procrastination behaviourally?
Common questions
Do procrastinators just not care about the course?
No. Their stated work intentions were as high as, or slightly higher than, other students'; the problem was following through, especially on goals further in the future.
Is procrastination mainly caused by fear of failure?
In this data, not really. Fear of failure's link to procrastination disappeared (Study 1) or shrank sharply (Study 2) once low energy was taken into account.
What might actually help a procrastinating student?
The results point to building study routines, managing energy and reducing distractions, and suggest combining several techniques, though the study did not test any intervention.
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