Abstract
Despite findings showing first-year undergraduates persistently engage in academic procrastination, research exploring students’ perceived reasons for their procrastination and procrastination-related emotions is lacking. The present exploratory study utilized Weiner’s (2010) attribution theory to examine the relationships between procrastination as well as students’ causal explanations and emotions specific to procrastination. Findings of 429 first-year Canadian undergraduates showed students to attribute procrastination mainly to internal and stable factors, and less so to personally controllable factors. Students who attributed procrastination to reasons within themselves reported higher levels of negative emotions, with strong direct effects of procrastination on negative emotions also observed. These findings demonstrate the importance of considering students’ causal attributions as potential contributors to their emotional experiences surrounding procrastination and encourage future longitudinal research on relations between academic procrastination, attributions, and emotional outcomes.
Highlights
Over 70% of undergraduate students report procrastinating on academic tasks (Ellis and Knaus 1977; Ferrari et al 2007; Schraw et al 2007; Steel 2007)
Students who procrastinated more often were expected to perceive a greater sense of personal ownership or personal influence over their academic procrastination and, in turn, report more negative emotions specific to procrastination
First-year students were recruited via internal email in coordination with the campus student affairs office, with participants first completing an informed consent form outlining in detail the study protocols
Summary
Over 70% of undergraduate students report procrastinating on academic tasks (Ellis and Knaus 1977; Ferrari et al 2007; Schraw et al 2007; Steel 2007). Following from studies showing greater perceived responsibility for academic outcomes (locus of control, Rotter 1966) correspond with procrastination frequency (Carden et al 2004; Janssen and Carton 1999; Rothblum et al 1986), scattered research based on attribution theory further shows students’ more specific causal beliefs to impact their procrastination behavior. According to Weiner (2010) attribution theory, negative emotions like helplessness can be elicited by attributions for academic challenges to stable and permanent factors (e.g., ability, intelligence), with more positive emotions instead elicited by attributions to personally controllable factors (e.g., hope) Research examining these plausible theory-informed links between students’ causal attributions for their procrastination and their procrastination-related emotional experiences is currently lacking
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