Academic procrastination; it may be more than meets the eye.

Abstract

We read, with great interest, the article by Hayat et al. (1). We are glad that such a pertinent issue is finally being explored. As medical students, we are aware of how vital productivity is; therefore, this paper is key to helping us find reasons and answers to any hindrances in our productivity. Moreover,it was interesting and shocking to learn that procrastination behaviours are not only linked to lower academic achievements, but also higher course withdrawal. Having said that, we would like to point out some discrepancies in the research methods and results. The authors acknowledged that because the study was carried out on medical students, the results are consequently less generalizable to allstudents, thus decreasing its external validity (2).However, we would like to argue that the results are also not generalizable to, or representativeof, medical students either. This is because the sampling method selected -convenience samplingmaypresent higher levels of inapplicability and invalidity due to the method being subject to selection bias. This is because the sample method has two main inherent flaws:1) It magnifies the unconscious biases of the researchers as only certain cohorts are convenientfor them to sample. Moreover, despite the somewhat balanced gender ratio, there are otherconfounding variables that may have affected the results which we shall illustrate below.2) Certain personality traits, eg extraversion, are also amplified in a non-random sampling method (3). This can explain the low response rate of 71% as those with more introverted tendencies may not have completed it.