Category: BCM210

With everything that’s been going around, it’s a relief that we are finally done with this semester and through this period I’ve learned a lot new things this semester. Firstly, learning to make a survey questions and coming up with focus questions were some of the difficult part of this course. I had done something similar like this during my AD course in AAEPC. It was quite similar, setting a survey form and writing a report but it was an individual project so unlike this research project I didn’t had to work with other group members or rely on them. So for a change we had to be in a group and work together to build a better project by listening to each other’s suggestions and respect the other members. 

Through the process, one of the fun part was designing a survey form and asking our friends to look it and give us some suggestions or feedbacks before we put it out for the real participants. After getting some suggestions we would shorten or sometimes change the questions to make it easier for the participants to understand. Hence it was a successful process because after that we got more than 50 respondents who were not only from Hong Kong but Australia too. 

Last but not the least, I would like to thanks some of the people who helped me get through this project. First, my fellow group mates who worked hard to make sure that we don’t fall behind during the online course period as we saw some of the other groups were struggling to keep up with the deadlines since we were having online classes. But thanks to one of my groupmate, Deeran he kept on giving us deadline reminders which helped a lot on the way. I would also like to thank all the participants for helping us out by completing the research form and the focus group for BCM210 for taking part in the interview. Finally, a huge thanks to Maria our course leader for helping me out when I had problems with my topic, sending emails to remind us of the assignment deadlines and just being there to listen and give us feedbacks all the time. I appreciate all the little things that you all teachers do to look after us, know that it doesn’t go unnoticed. Thank you for being phenomenal.  

My research investigation had come to an end after weeks of work. Even though it was stressful it was also very rewarding to explore the topic with my classmates and observing and learning their expectations with the group works and assignments pressure during this course. Thank you all for being a part of this journey with me. 

Just to recall your memory, my research topic for this project was to find the relation between academic procrastination of university students and their assignment performances to determine how the student’s academic procrastination could impact the student’s academic achievement.  The main focus of my research was to investigate where the students place their attitude and values in education. 

Throughout this project, one of my weakness was trying to remain objective. Since the procrastination topic was most talked about almost everywhere I approached this topic with some pre-existing beliefs about how the procrastination works or how it affects the students which at times posed as a problem for my research. I thought that most of the students felt the same way as I did about the procrastination and the similar opinions would make it easier for my research but I must say I was kind of wrong about it as I went on with the research. 

In order overcome by biased opinion/beliefs, we circulated google surveys with over 50 people we also had an interview with the focus group to get better and in-depth answers to our focus questions. 

It was a little difficult to come up with the research focus questions and for that, we had to go through three trials before finalizing the questions. Together with the consultations from our course leader Maria we also made good use of George Soros’ General Theory of Reflexivity (2009)  “thinking participants” by asking our friends to take a look at our draft survey forms and give us any kind of feedbacks of suggestions to improve. After the third draft, our survey questions were finally good to send it out to the participants. With the help of (N. Whiteman’s guide on How to Write Good Survey Questions), we used it to form our focus group questions for the other group to answer. We also put a disclaimer at the beginning of the survey to make sure that the participants knew their role in our research and what the research was about what our objective was. Even during the interview, I again mentioned the same information verbally to our focus group to remind them why they were there. 

The most obvious obstacle was my time management. I found that with the outbreak of this new COVID19 virus, it made the situation even worse. Since we were mostly locked in our house I found it extremely difficult to focus because I was mostly with my family and when we are together I rarely get anything done cause all we do it watch moves, cook or we’re always doing something which makes it difficult for me to just ignore them and focus on the assignment. Originally, we were trying to get more in-depth with the research by getting more people involved but due to the virus we had to negotiate and instead, we did an online interview with the other focus group from out tutorial class.   

As much as I would like to think that I have got all my research questions answered the relation between academic procrastination of university students and their assignment performances to determine how the student’s academic procrastination could impact the student’s academic achievement and where the students place their attitude and values in education. I think there’s always a room for improvement so here are some of the findings to offer a small insight into our research.

• Despite students knowing that procrastination leads to poorer academic performance, they rarely try to overcome it and instead believe that the pressure to perform enables them to complete the assignments. 

• Procrastination mostly brings a negative attitude in the students which results in lower grades or affects their mental health. 

• Students are merely putting off their work because they lack motivation or just don’t thinks its important and just suffer last minute by fighting deadlines at the end.

• Some of the students think procrastination related to a self- reliance behaviour because if one is used to working alone and finds the self-capable of working well by themselves then they probably have lower tendency to work alone or it can be seen also in a way that they tend to procrastinate because they believe they can do it well by themselves so they push it up to the last minute.

Working on this research project was stressful but at the same time, a very wonderful journey and it has helped to better understand how students procrastinate and the affects and how to avoid and so on. I will try to implement the solutions given by some of our participants in my daily life to lessen my procrastination habit. Thank you all!

References

• Subscribe to the FT to read: Financial Times Soros: General Theory of Reflexivity. (2009, October 27). Retrieved April 1, 2020, from https://www.ft.com/content/0ca06172-bfe9-11de-aed2-00144feab49a

• Whitman, N. (2020, March 17). How to Write Good Survey Questions. Retrieved April 1, 2020, from https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/how-to-write-good-survey-questions

Summary

To recap my study, I am researching the relation between academic procrastination of university students and their assignment performances to determine how the student’s academic procrastination could impact the student’s academic achievement.  The main focus of my research is to investigate where the students place their attitude and values in education. 

“Procrastination makes easy things hard, hard things harder.”- Mason Cooley 

Going back to my previous annotated bibliography, we already know that academic procrastination in schools and universities are frequently observed in tasks such as preparing for examinations, doing homework, and completing projects. And these and some of the most common reasons for poor academic performance and despite students knowing that procrastination leads to poorer academic performance, they rarely try to overcome it and instead believe that the pressure to perform enables us to complete the assignments. But my curiosity is about the students’ attitude and value in education. 

“Much of the stress that people feel doesn’t come from having too much to do. It comes from not finishing what they’ve started.” – David Allen

Method overview

We made good use of both quantitative and qualitative methods to conduct in-depth research. 

To begin with, we (the group of 4 students) conducted a google survey of 17 questions to gather some quantitative data. It was focused on measuring students reasons, time management, impacts, and the negative effects of procrastination of university students. The purpose of this study was to find to what extend the university students procrastinate in their assignments. Besides, a focus group interview was conducted as a qualitative method to enhance the research results. 

Quantitative analysis

Our research questions mainly contained descriptive questions for instance “what are” questions just like in questions number 2 to find out the reasons for their procrastination in general assignments to get a better understanding of their attitude in the education. Looking below at questions number 2, we can see that most of the respondents about 50-55% chose the red and blue bars which are always lack of motivation and sometimes see no relevance or not important. Through this question, we can see the students are merely putting off their work because they lack motivation or just don’t thinks its important and just suffer last minute by fighting deadlines at the end. They don’t approach the school assignments with a positive approach which results in around 40% of anxiety and fear of failure in general assignments. All in all, it results in a negative attitude towards your education. 

One of my research questions in the survey was focused on the experience of procrastination on school assignments. As seen in question number 6, 76% of respondents experienced stress and 72% frustration, decreased productivity and so on after procrastinating. It clearly shows that procrastination mostly brings a negative attitude in the students which results in lower grades or affects their mental health. 

We also included a short open question to not limit the respondents’ answers. As seen in question number 8, we asked if they think procrastination related to a self- reliance behaviour. It was interesting to see the variety of opinions some of them agreeing and saying that “ Yes, in a sense because if one is used to working alone and finds the self capable of working well by themselves then they probably have lower tendency to work alone or it can be seen also in a way that they tend to procrastinate because they believe they can do it well by themselves so they push it up to the last minute.” While on the other hand, few disagreed and said: “No, I think it’s more to do with self-control”. 

Qualitative analysis

After the google survey, we also conducted a focus group interview with the other group which was approximately 15 minutes long. I started the interview by introducing our topic and what we hope to find through the interview. My first question was asking them to describe the type of task which they procrastinated and was it because it was easy or difficult for them. Vigour, one respondent said he usually procrastinates for almost every task because he finds it complicated and leaves it for the last minute to do his tasks. I followed up with asking how much time did they usually spent to complete the task like does he looks for short cuts to beat the deadlines. Again Vigor said that it takes him a short amount of time to complete his task when he does his assignments at the last minute. And yes, he does looks for shortcuts he usually goes to Google to look for some sample essays or ask his friends to help him better understand the task. So according to my interview, it’s clear that my classmates think that procrastinating saves you a lot of time as they usually finish their task in a few hours when they’re working under pressure. So, they sort of have a positive attitude towards procrastination and their education and even though they do it last minute they still value their education a lot. 

All in all, the use of these two qualitative and quantitative research methods have helped us to get in-depth understanding of our research question.  

Reference

Academic Procrastination And Academic Achievement. (2017, May 9). Retrieved February 1, 2020, from https://www.ukessays.com/essays/psychology/academic-procrastination-and-academic-achievement-psychology-essay.php

The relation between academic procrastination of university students and their assignment performances 

Academic procrastination is one of the most common reasons for poor academic performance and despite students knowing that procrastination leads to poorer academic performance, we rarely try to overcome it and instead believe that the pressure to perform enables us to complete the assignments. 

However, according to an experiment by Ferrari and Tice (2000) where time was limited, the results showed that the participants generally produce poor quality performance when under pressure (limited time was the stimulus for pressure). Thus, as it can be seen, academic procrastination is undoubtedly a common problem amongst students 

Procrastination refers to ‘the lack of intention or willingness to take action’ (Ryan & Deci, 2000 as cited in Rakes & Dunn, 2010, p. 80) that is typically observed in the form of intentional and habitual delay of tasks (Elsworth, 2009). It indicates a discrepancy between a person’s intention to take action and the observed performance of that action (Blunt & Pychyl, 2005). Steel (2007, p.66) defines procrastination as ‘to voluntarily delay an intended course of action despite expecting to be worse off for the delay’. 

Academic procrastination in schools is frequently observed in tasks such as preparing for examinations, doing homework, and completing projects. Steel (2007) found that more than 80% of undergraduate students are involved in procrastination and up to 50% of them are consistent procrastinators. To make things worse, the Internet is a powerful attention distractor owing to its online and entertaining applications (Thatcher, Wretschko, & Fridjhon, 2008). Parallel to the changing technology and learning environments, procrastination in e-learning requires special attention (You, 2015). 

Procrastination in simpler terms is putting off tomorrow what should be done today. As such procrastination is also defined as differing action due to indecisiveness or without good reason (Oxford English dictionary).

There are numerous reasons as to why students procrastinate, despite knowing the negative effect of doing so, and they attribute this to lack of self-confidence, feeling of being overwhelmed, peer influence, evaluation anxiety, task aversiveness, dependency and even fear of success. 

1.    Yilmaz, & Betul, M. (2017, August 31). The Relation between Academic Procrastination of University Students and Their Assignment and Exam Performances: The Situation in Distance and Face-to-Face Learning Environments. Retrieved February 1, 2020, from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1151937

The relation between academic procrastination of university students and their assignment performances was investigated in this study. Empirical research carried out both in face-to-face and online environments have generally shown a negative correlation between academic procrastination and academic performance. However, the effect of academic procrastination on assignments in a distance learning setting has not been analyzed extensively. To understand the interaction between academic procrastination and the learning environment; assignment and exam performances of eighty-eight university students in face-to-face (FtF) and distance learning (DL) environments were investigated. 

Participants of the research were students at Faculty of Education, Computer and Instructional Technologies Education Department of a state university in Istanbul, Turkey and taking “Information Technologies in Education I” course during 2015-2016 academic year. Course content included the usage of presentation, word processing, and electronic worksheet programs for educational purposes. A total of 88 students participated in the study. 79 (89.8%) of the students were freshmen, eight (9.1%) of them were sophomores and one of them (1.1%) was junior. 32 of the participants (36%) were female and 56 of them (64%) were male. Ages of students ranged from 17 to 30 and the mean age was 19.3. 

According to the findings of the study, students’ academic procrastination and assignment scores were negatively correlated in both environments but especially in DL setting. Contrary to this, academic procrastination and exam scores were correlated to each other only in FtF environment. On the other hand, there was no correlation between total assignment and exam scores for the DL group, while a medium positive correlation was found in FtF group. The findings of binary logical regression analysis demonstrated that the predictive value of the DL environment for assignment score is much stronger than academic procrastination behaviour of students. 

2. Tan, C. X., Ang, R. P., Klassen, R. M., Yeo, L. S., Wong, I. Y. F., Huan, V. S., & Chong, W. H. (2008). Correlates of Academic Procrastination and Students’ Grade Goals. Current Psychology, 27(2), 135–144. doi: 10.1007/s12144-008-9028-8

This study examined correlates of academic procrastination and students’ grade goals in a sample of 226 undergraduates from Singapore. Findings indicated that self-efficacy for self-regulated learning was significantly and negatively related to procrastination. High self-efficacy for self-regulated learning also predicted students’ expectations of doing well and low self-efficacy for self-regulated learning predicted students’ expectations of not doing well academically. Additionally, help-seeking predicted students’ expectations of doing well academically while academic stress predicted students’ expectations of not doing well academically. Implications for education and educational practice were discussed. 

Some researchers have explained academic procrastination as a deficit in self-regulated performance (the Chu and Choi 2005; DeRoma et al. 2003). Thus, it can be understood as a type of “anti-motivation” wherein individuals decide not to move towards carrying out and finishing a chosen academic task. For example, 80%–95% of college students engage in procrastination (Ellis and Knaus 1977) and about 50% procrastinate in a consistent and problematic fashion (Day et al. 2000). 

Academic procrastination has been found most widespread when writing term papers, studying for examinations, and completing weekly assignments (Solomon and Rothblum 1984), and such behaviour results in detrimental academic performance (e.g. poor grades and course withdrawal) and increased health risks such as depression and anxiety (Semb et al. 1979; Solomon and Rothblum 1984).

Eventually, these two researches helped me understand more about the definition of procrastination through different perspectives and what are some of the ultimate reasons behind it and how can we (students) try to avoid this habit in future. These researchers also gave me an idea to come up with a better research questionnaires for my future study to get better results with the current University students.

To sum up, my preliminary question is: What is the relation between academic procrastination of university students and their assignment performances?

References:

• Academic Procrastination And Academic Achievement. (2017, May 9). Retrieved February 1, 2020, from https://www.ukessays.com/essays/psychology/academic-procrastination-and-academic-achievement-psychology-essay.php
• Tan, C. X., Ang, R. P., Klassen, R. M., Yeo, L. S., Wong, I. Y. F., Huan, V. S., & Chong, W. H. (2008). Correlates of Academic Procrastination and Students’ Grade Goals. Current Psychology, 27(2), 135–144. doi: 10.1007/s12144-008-9028-8
• Yilmaz, & Betul, M. (2017, August 31). The Relation between Academic Procrastination of University Students and Their Assignment and Exam Performances: The Situation in Distance and Face-to-Face Learning Environments. Retrieved February 1, 2020, from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1151937