Academic motivation
Why do students leave coursework to the last minute?
Open access · cc by · source: Europe PMC
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.
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.
Key findings
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.
Methodology
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.
Limitations
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.
How this study connects
Role on claims
Each row is a claim on a concept or method page where this paper supports, challenges, or qualifies the statement. Roles are hand-checked — not a model guess.
Procrastination looks more like a self-regulation gap than a lack of good intentions.
Procrastinating undergraduates intended to work as much as others but fell further short of their plans, especially for goals two weeks away; distractibility, low energy, weak planning and lack of routines together explained 74% of procrastination variance, while fear of failure added nothing once energy was accounted for.
Evidence for the claim as stated.
Procrastination looks more like a self-regulation gap than a lack of good intentions.
Procrastinating undergraduates intended to work as much as others but fell further short of their plans, especially for goals two weeks away; distractibility, low energy, weak planning and lack of routines together explained 74% of procrastination variance, while fear of failure added nothing once energy was accounted for.
Scope note — one course at one US university; predictors are self-report scales overlapping with procrastination items
Limits the claim's scope: a different population, assay, or outcome.
Fear of failure mattered as a motivational predictor of German students' grades, but it added nothing to explaining undergraduate procrastination once low energy was accounted for; the studies used different outcomes (grades versus task timing) and populations.
Same question, contrary or null result.
Open questions
Tensions this paper is part of
From concept pages' “where studies disagree.” Disagreement means the same question; scope means different assays, populations, or outcomes.
Fear of failure mattered as a motivational predictor of German students' grades, but it added nothing to explaining undergraduate procrastination once low energy was accounted for; the studies used different outcomes (grades versus task timing) and populations.
Related papers in this topic
Same topic cluster — not a recommendation engine.