research about academic procrastination

REVIEW article

How study environments foster academic procrastination: overview and recommendations.

• 1 Department of Psychology, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway
• 2 Evaluation of Studies and Teaching and Higher Education Research, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany
• 3 Department of Psychology, Paderborn University, Paderborn, Germany

Procrastination is common among students, with prevalence estimates double or even triple those of the working population. This inflated prevalence indicates that the academic environment may appear as “procrastination friendly” to students. In the present paper, we identify social, cultural, organizational, and contextual factors that may foster or facilitate procrastination (such as large degree of freedom in the study situation, long deadlines, and temptations and distractions), document their research basis, and provide recommendations for changes in these factors to reduce and prevent procrastination. We argue that increased attention to such procrastination-friendly factors in academic environments is important and that relatively minor measures to reduce their detrimental effects may have substantial benefits for students, institutions, and society.

Procrastination, voluntarily delaying tasks despite expecting to be worse off ( Steel, 2007 ), is common among students. Conservative estimates indicate that at least half of all students habitually procrastinate tasks that are important to them, such as reading for exams, writing term papers, and keeping up with weekly assignments ( Solomon and Rothblum, 1984 ; Tice and Baumeister, 1997 ; Pychyl et al., 2000 ; Schouwenburg, 2004 ; Steel, 2007 ). Consequences are negative, both for academic performance and retention ( Ellis and Knaus, 1977 ; Klassen et al., 2008 ; Zarick and Stonebraker, 2009 ; Grau and Minguillon, 2013 ; Kim and Seo, 2015 ) as well as for health and well-being ( Flett et al., 1995 ; Tice and Baumeister, 1997 ; Stöber and Joormann, 2001 ; Sirois, 2014 ).

Despite the possibility that academic environments may contribute significantly to this situation, the majority of research efforts to clarify mechanisms involved in procrastination has focused on individual variables related to personality, motivation, affect, and others (for reviews, see van Eerde, 2003 ; Steel, 2007 ; Klingsieck, 2013 ). The present paper takes a different view, focusing on situational, social, contextual, cultural, and organizational factors common in academic environments. Based on the procrastination literature, we present a selection of such factors and show how they increase the probability of procrastination. Negative effects may be general in that most students suffer. Often, however, “procrastination-friendly” factors may also affect students differentially, those being prone to procrastination in the first place being particularly vulnerable (e.g., Nordby et al., 2017 ; Visser et al., 2018 ). Thus, ideas on how to address these factors to make the academic environment more “procrastination- un friendly” are important.

We identify nine broad factors known to increase procrastination. The factors selected serve as important examples rather than an exhaustive list. For each factor, we link it to common features of academic environments, providing examples and other forms of documentation to demonstrate its significance in facilitating procrastination. We then formulate specific advice on how the negative influence of each factor may be alleviated or remedied by relatively simple structural, organizational, and educational measures.

Characteristics of Academic Procrastination

Academic procrastination occurs when a student delays work related to academic tasks ( Solomon and Rothblum, 1984 ; Tice and Baumeister, 1997 ; Pychyl et al., 2000 ; Schouwenburg, 2004 ; Steel, 2007 ). For such delays to be regarded as procrastination, the student voluntarily chooses to delay despite expecting to be worse off ( Steel, 2007 ). Thus, there is an important distinction between delays that are sensible and rational (e.g., “I chose to postpone my thesis submission because my supervisor advised me to revise the discussion part”) and those that are not (e.g., “I did not prepare for the seminar today, I watched a movie instead”). In effect, academic procrastination is a form of irrational delay, as the person acts against better judgment.

The delays seen in academic procrastination may result from late onset (e.g., “I did not start writing until just one week before deadline”) and impulsive diversions during work (e.g., “I was working, but got tired and had a coffee with a friend instead”) ( Svartdal et al., 2020 ). As is well documented in the research literature over the past 40 years, such delays and diversions are related to personality factors, as for example impulsiveness and a preference for short-term gratification, deficiencies in planning and self-regulation, low self-efficacy, tiredness, and low energy, and task avoidance ( van Eerde, 2000 ; Steel, 2007 ; Steel et al., 2018 ). The majority of this research has been correlational. Because procrastination is a complex phenomenon unfolding over time and in interaction with situational, social, contextual, cultural, and organizational factors, it is important also to focus on exogenous factors involved in this complex and dynamic phenomenon. The relative lack of such studies is unfortunate and clearly represents a gap in the procrastination field. We argue that this is particularly unfortunate in the academic area, as the student is confronted with situational, social, contextual, cultural, and organizational factors that are prone to instigate and maintain procrastination in tasks that constitute core student activities.

How Is Academic Procrastination Measured?

Academic procrastination is typically measured with self-report tools, as is general procrastination. In measuring academic procrastination, some scales focus on general tendencies to delay tasks unnecessarily, with few if any items covering academic tasks specifically. For example, the General Procrastination Scale (20 items; Lay, 1986 ), academic version, has 16 items common with the general version and four items addressing academic tasks specifically (e.g., Item 2, “I do not do assignments until just before they are to be handed in”). Similarly, the Tuckman procrastination scale (16 items; Tuckman, 1991 ) measures academic procrastination solely by general items (e.g., item 1 “I needlessly delay finishing jobs, even when they’re important”). Other academic procrastination scales focus on academic tasks exclusively, such as the Academic Procrastination State Inventory (APSI; Schouwenburg, 1995 ) and the Procrastination Assessment Scale (PASS; Solomon and Rothblum, 1984 ). The PASS contains 44 questions that address various forms of academic tasks (e.g., studying for an exam, writing a term paper) in terms of how often they are procrastinated, to which extent such procrastination represents a problem, and willingness to change.

Importantly, scores on academic procrastination scales have been validated against procrastination in real academic tasks. For example, Tuckman compared scores on his scale against actual performance points on voluntary homework assignments, where students had the opportunity to write and submit written material to gain extra course credits. He found a negative correlation, r =−0.54, between these measures, concluding that “students are well aware of their own tendencies and can report them with great accuracy” (p. 9). More recent findings (e.g., Tice and Baumeister, 1997 ; Steel et al., 2018 ) confirm a relatively close correspondence between students’ self-reported procrastination and relevant behavioral measures.

Detrimental Effects of Academic Procrastination

It is important to recognize that procrastination is not only an issue related to effective academic work. Although performance (grades) is negatively related to procrastination (for review, see Kim and Seo, 2015 ), other important problems associated with procrastination are stress, reduced well-being, and mental and physical health problems (e.g., Tice and Baumeister, 1997 ). For academic procrastination, the increased stress associated with procrastination seems to be important (e.g., Sirois, 2007 , 2014 ). Recognition of the procrastination problem as a health issue, as well as a performance issue, is imperative. In Norway, as well as in other European countries, surveys of student health indicate that an increasing number of students report psychological problems, often of serious nature. For example, in a large-scale survey among Norwegian students, the Students’ Health and Wellbeing Study ( Knapstad et al., 2018 ; N = 50,000), 29% of all students reported serious psychological problems. We do not know the role of procrastination in this situation, but it is likely that procrastination may be a contributing factor as well as a consequence. Hence, the role of the environmental factors in encouraging procrastinating is important to assess from a health perspective also.

Social and Contextual Factors Facilitating Procrastination

Rationale for selection of factors.

In the sections to come, we address situational, social, contextual, cultural, and organizational factors that are documented as facilitators of procrastination. In selection of factors, the authors first discussed a larger pool of factors and evaluated their relation to the academic situation. Then, based on expert judgment, we selected nine factors that met the following criteria: They (a) reflect well-documented research findings in the procrastination field; (b) represent factors present in the academic situation beyond the student’s control (e.g., long deadlines), or factors that cannot easily be remedied by the student independently of educational, social, or organizational measures (e.g., task aversion); and that (c) measures taken to change the factor is likely to reduce procrastination. The discussion of each factor is not intended as a complete review, as a review at this stage of research would be premature. Rather, for each factor, we highlight central findings connecting the factor to procrastination research, its relation to the academic environment, and remedies that may alleviate the detrimental effects associated with a given factor. Table 1 presents an overview of the factors discussed.

Table 1. Factors reliably associated with procrastination, and their relation to the study environment.

Note that the factors are quite heterogeneous. Some factors (e.g., large degree of freedom in the study situation, long deadlines) identify organizational and structural properties of the academic environment, whereas others emphasize subjective evaluations (e.g., task aversiveness). Also note that the factors discussed may demonstrate “main effects” as most students may be affected, as well as interactive effects where individual characteristics act as moderators. For example, temptations and distractions in the academic environment may be detrimental for most students, but particularly so for individuals high in impulsivity and distractibility (e.g., Steel et al., 2018 ). Furthermore, the order of factors discussed does not indicate differences in importance. In fact, the effect sizes associated with each factor may be difficult to quantify in academic contexts. Finally, a caution on the use of the term “factor.” We use this term to denote facets or variables in the academic settings that identify features known to relate strongly to procrastination. As these are exogenous factors in the procrastination equation, they represent potential conditions that can be altered in order to affect the probability of procrastination. In the present context, we do not make strong assumptions about causality; rather, we argue that such potential causal relations should receive increased attention in future research.

Large Degree of Freedom in the Study Situation

Relevant research.

In his comprehensive review of research on procrastination, Steel (2007) coined procrastination a quintessential self-regulatory failure. Procrastinators are present-oriented and impulsive and tend to score low on tests measuring conscientiousness and planning, and high on susceptibility to temptation ( Lay and Schouwenburg, 1993 ; van Eerde, 2003 ; Steel, 2010 ). Procrastinators make plans, only to reverse them when encountering distractions and temptations during goal implementation ( Steel et al., 2018 ). Hence, procrastinators are particularly vulnerable when working under unstructured conditions and when long-term plans are delegated to the individual.

Relation to the Academic Environment

Results from qualitative studies exemplify the negative role of freedom in the study situation in several ways, as too little regulations in studies ( Grunschel et al., 2013 ), low degree of external structure ( Klingsieck et al., 2013 ), or insufficient direction of lecturers ( Patrzek et al., 2012 ). Overall, students reported feeling lost and overwhelmed by the task of planning a whole course of studies, a semester, or even an exam phase on their own. Thus, students lacking self-management skills such as planning and prioritizing tasks (e.g., Lay and Schouwenburg, 1993 ) and metacognitive learning strategies (e.g., Wolters, 2003 ; Howell and Watson, 2007 ) should feel particularly lost when facing a situation with a large degree of freedom. The autonomy associated with a large degree of freedom in the study situation makes the student particularly vulnerable if skills are low (→Low focus on study skills training) and if the student fails to develop good habits and routines. Habits help people accomplish more and procrastinate less (e.g., Steel et al., 2018 ). Of note, study topics may vary in how much freedom they offer to the student. Some study programs are strictly structured and may even involve a common study group from start to finish (e.g., medicine), whereas other study topics are less structured and may also, by the nature of their contents, appear as more “procrastination friendly” (e.g., Nordby et al., 2017 ).

While direct procrastination prevention and intervention programs train the self-management skill of students (for a summary, see van Eerde and Klingsieck, 2018 ), remedies should also be implemented on the level of study programs and the level of courses. Especially for beginning students, unnecessary options present opportunities for students to procrastinate and should be accompanied by remedial measures. For example, Ariely and Wertenbroch (2002) compared student performance under no-choice fixed working schedules determined by the teacher versus choice working schedules (the students could determine their own schedules) and found that performance was better when students had to follow the no-choice fixed working schedules. If possible, a detailed syllabus including a “timetable” of the course, all deadlines, expected learning outcomes, and resources such as literature can help downsize the large degree of freedom of a study situation (cf. Eberly et al., 2001 ). Concerning the study program, an orientation event in the first semester or even each semester might support students in seeing the program’s inherent structure. One should not only focus on the contents of the program but also on the best way to run through the program. An individual twist to the orientation could be a short workshop in which each student is encouraged to plan her or his semester, thereby downsizing the large degree of freedom by establishing a unique structure which, ideally, should take into account all other activities they wish to make time for (e.g., sports, family, job), as well. Teaching styles that support student autonomy ( Codina et al., 2018 ) may also be helpful. Finally, note that a large degree of freedom in the study situation is not alleviated by the introduction of more external control. Indeed, procrastination research demonstrates that external control is associated with increased procrastination (e.g., Janssen and Carton, 1999 ). We argue instead that unnecessary freedom should be reduced, as in the Ariely and Wertenbroch (2002) study discussed.

Long Deadlines

The idea of hyperbolic discounting helps to explain why we procrastinate the start of an activity. For example, according to the Temporal Motivation Theory (TMT; Steel and König, 2006 ; Gröpel and Steel, 2008 ), motivation increases as a function of the expectancy of an outcome and the size or value of a goal, but decreases as the time span before this outcome lengthens and impulsiveness increases. Thus, procrastination is more likely to occur if the outcome of an activity offers rewards in the distant future, and more so if impulsiveness is high (as is the case in procrastinators). Hence, immediate temptations often come to dominate over distant rewarding goals.

Results from qualitative ( Schraw et al., 2007 ) and quantitative studies ( Tice and Baumeister, 1997 ; Schouwenburg and Groenewoud, 2001 ) support the idea that the tendency to procrastinate decreases as the deadline for the task in question is approaching. Students find tentative due dates as especially frustrating ( Schraw et al., 2007 ). In the absence of deadlines, students often set deadlines for themselves. Although such deadlines may work to reduce procrastination, they may actually reduce performance ( Ariely and Wertenbroch, 2002 ). Other research, focusing on planning, has demonstrated that individuals tend to underestimate the necessary time it takes to complete tasks (the planning fallacy; Kahneman and Tversky, 1979 ; Kahneman and Lovallo, 1993 ) and to prefer longer deadlines when allowed to choose ( Solomon and Rothblum, 1984 ). Recently, Zhu et al. (2019) demonstrated that long deadlines induce an inference of the focal task as more difficult, thereby making the student to allocate more time and resources to the task. However, the downside is that such elevated resource estimates may induce longer intention-action gaps (time before starting the task) and higher likelihood of quitting.

While students with a broad range of self-management skills are able to deal with long and tentative deadline by breaking distant goals into nearer sub-goals themselves, students who lack these skills would benefit from structural arrangements defining sub-goals with timely deadlines. For instance, having students hand in an outline for a paper after the first third of the semester, the first draft after the second third, and the final draft at the end of the semester help to break a distant goal down to nearer sub-goals. Ideally, this scaffolding of self-regulating learning and writing might function as a model for future tasks with long deadlines. In general, making goals proximate (e.g., in the form of sub-goals) may help the student increase performance and reduce procrastination (e.g., Steel et al., 2018 ). Also, as reviewed by Gollwitzer and Sheeran (2006) , adapting specific implementation intentions (“if-then”-plans rather than overall goal intentions) may have a strong effect on goal attainment. When students experience difficulties in goal striving, focusing on the main obstacle hindering progress is recommended (mental contrasting; e.g., Duckworth et al., 2011 ).

Task Aversiveness

Procrastination can be understood as a form of short-term mood-regulation ( Sirois and Pychyl, 2013 ). Bad mood and negative feelings associated with a task is often repaired by avoiding the task and engaging in a pleasant task instead. The role of task aversiveness in triggering procrastination has received strong support (for a summary, see Steel, 2007 ). Closer examination of the task aversiveness literature demonstrates that aversive tasks are characterized by lower autonomy, lower task significance, boredom, resentment, frustration, and difficulty ( Milgram et al., 1988 ; Milgram et al., 1995 ; Blunt and Pychyl, 2000 ; Steel, 2007 ). Moreover, Lay (1992) found that procrastinators tend to perceive common tasks in everyday life as more aversive compared to non-procrastinators, suggesting that procrastinators face the world with a negative bias toward task execution in general. As aversive conditions tend to motivate negatively by avoidance or escape, passivity is a likely effect ( Veale, 2008 ). In sum, working under negative motivation is common in procrastinators, and a negative motivational regime is associated with passivity.

As study-related tasks typically are imposed by others (teachers, exams), they represent an important part of the academic environment for students. Such conditions are known to induce aversiveness and thereby procrastination. For example, when applying the Procrastination Assessment Scale-Students ( Solomon and Rothblum, 1984 ), one prominent dimension turns out to be aversiveness of task . Time sampling as well as daily logs also show that the more students dislike a task, the more they procrastinate ( Steel, 2007 ). Results of qualitative interview studies support these findings ( Grunschel et al., 2013 ; Klingsieck et al., 2013 ; Visser et al., 2018 ).

Why students perceive academic tasks as aversive may be traced to the fact that students entering the university often lack adequate study skills to successfully managing mastery tasks 1 . Considering academic writing, for example, The Stanford Study of Writing indicates that, for most writers, the transition from high school to college writing is enormously challenging ( Rogers, 2008 ). Moreover, university students report a variety of problems associated with academic writing (e.g., being aware of not being able to meet expected standards; Achieve Inc., 2005 ). In the last decades, universities have addressed the need for training academic writing by implementing writing centers. However, as discussed in another section (→Low focus on study skills training), instruction covering study skills is rarely provided. Thus, students often perceive academic tasks as aversive due to their lack of perceived competence. This effect may be amplified by low academic self-efficacy commonly seen in new students. Academic self-efficacy is negatively correlated to procrastination ( r = −0.44; van Eerde, 2003 ), indicating that procrastinators perceive academic tasks as even more difficult (and therefore more aversive) compared to others. Indeed, a recent study 2 found that students perceive academic tasks (e.g., present at a seminar) as more aversive compared to non-academic tasks (e.g., clean one’s apartment), but for both categories, aversiveness scores correlated positively with dispositional procrastination scores.

The Self-Determination Theory ( Deci and Ryan, 2002 ) suggests that tasks and conditions which meet a learner’s need for autonomy, competence, and relatedness support the internalization of extrinsic regulations and values, which in turn makes the task less aversive. Learners are more likely to internalize a learning goal if they embrace the meaningfulness or rationale of a task or activity if the underlying task or activity promotes their feeling of competence and if they are able to connect with other learners and experience a feeling of relatedness. Thus, formulating meaningful learning goals that lead to learning activities that fit the students’ competence level will make the task less aversive. Carefully crafted group tasks (→Inefficient group work) can also reduce procrastination. These kinds of tasks should foster the self-determination of learners. If one then embeds the learning activities in realistic learning settings, learners might even get interested in the learning activity. Game-based learning provides an innovative possibility for learning settings ( Breuer and Bente, 2010 ). Finally, as discussed elsewhere (→Low focus on study skills training), programs for students entering the university should not shy away from offering training even in the most basic study skills.

Temptations and Distractions

Individuals are tuned toward attainment of positive outcomes and escape from or avoidance of aversive events. In procrastinators, this picture is exaggerated, with current attractive and aversive events dominating over distant ones. Procrastinators tend to be impulsive and present-biased ( van Eerde, 2003 ; Steel, 2007 ), scoring high on scales measuring susceptibility to temptation, distractibility, and impulsivity ( Steel et al., 2018 ). In fact, the correlation between distractibility and procrastination is very high, r = 0.64–0.72. Thus, procrastinators are especially vulnerable to environments with an abundance of temptations and distractors, as such environments tend to capture attention and divert planned behavior into more pleasurable activities available here and now. When working with aversive tasks (→Task aversiveness), this tendency increases, as the student will be motivated to escape the aversive situation as well as divert to something attractive ( Tice et al., 2001 ).

Academic environments offer a large number of temptations and distraction, Internet access being a prime example (e.g., Reinecke and Hofmann, 2016 ). Mobile phones and laptops may have internet access everywhere on campus, presenting a continuous temptation and distractor, even during lectures. Universities tend to rely on web-based information and registration systems, and there is an increasing emphasis on digital utilities designed to assist learning, all necessitating continuous Internet access. The downside is that this situation presents a continuous challenge to students, especially those low in self-control ( Panek, 2014 ). Internet use has often been shown to conflict with other goals and obligations ( Quan-Haase and Young, 2010 ; Reinecke and Hofmann, 2016 ), and Lepp et al. (2015) demonstrated that total usage of mobile phones among undergraduates is negatively related to academic performance. Procrastination implies that the individual spends less time on focal tasks ( Lay, 1992 ), and time spent on distracting tasks add to the problems procrastinators already experience. Internet multitasking (accessing the Internet while doing something else) is positively correlated with procrastination ( Reinecke et al., 2018a , b ), indicating that procrastinators are especially prone to suffer when Internet access remains unrestricted.

Intervention studies ( Hinsch and Sheldon, 2013 ) have demonstrated that reduction in leisure-related Internet use results in decreased procrastination and increased life satisfaction. Hence, limiting the availability of Internet use is a simple way of reducing these problems. Several companies practice restriction on use of mobile phones/laptops during meetings, and universities may consider similar measures. Universities may arrange wifi-free zones for teaching and studying, and teachers may ask students to turn off their laptops/phones during classes. For many, such advice may seem counterintuitive, as the use of “modern technology” in education is generally welcomed. However, given the detrimental effects associated with unrestricted Internet use seen in the part of the student population struggling with procrastination (i.e., half or more of all students), our advice is clear.

Limited Information for Proper Self-Monitoring

In self-regulated activities, three factors are particularly important for students ( Baumeister and Heatherton, 1996 ): The student must have some standard to aim for (e.g., obtain a good grade in a course), monitor progress toward this standard, and correct as necessary if progress deviates from what is necessary to reach the standard. Although all three factors are important, Baumeister and Heatherton (1996 , p. 56) pointed out that monitoring is crucial: “Over and over, we found that managing attention was the most common and often the most effective form of self-regulation and that attentional problems presaged a great many varieties of self-regulation failure.” As procrastination is considered a prime example of a self-regulation failure ( Steel, 2007 ), it is likely that managing attention when working toward long-term goals is particularly vulnerable in procrastinators.

Due to the large degree of freedom in the study situation, the successful student needs information to keep an updated track of status, given long-term plans. Unfortunately, the study situation typically provides limited information. In many cases, exams (often held at the end of the semester) are the main source of feedback for students. Other kinds of information on progress (e.g., time spent at the university, participation in classes, observation of other students) may be unreliable as indicators of being on track. Furthermore, as consequences of procrastination are positive in the short term but not so in the longer term, learning is biased in favor of immediate positive consequences, and corrective action from long-term negative consequences is less likely.

Measures that reflect goal-striving according to plan should be implemented. From the institutional/teacher perspective, such measures should focus on reading plans, course progress, and submissions, and should not be mixed up with study performance (e.g., grades). For example, as procrastination is a reliable predictor of study effort, high procrastinators spending less time in self-directed work ( Lay, 1992 ; Svartdal et al., 2020 ), actual time spent on self-directed studying may be relevant information for many. Self-testing, recommended as an effective learning strategy (→Low focus on study skills training), also assists self-monitoring. Activity diaries, inspired by behavioral activation for depression interventions (e.g., Jacobson et al., 2001 ), may increase students’ awareness of how they spend their time as students. In recent years, several mobile apps have been developed to help students keep track of how they spend their time in the study situation (e.g., Dute et al., 2016 ), but little is known about the effect such apps may have in reducing procrastination.

Low Focus on Study Skills Training

In a qualitative study, Grunschel et al. (2013) found that students reported a lack of study skills as a notable reason for academic procrastination. One likely explanation is that low skills make tasks more effort demanding, and individuals are more likely to procrastinate on effort-demanding tasks ( Milgram et al., 1988 ). Low academic skills also make academic tasks more frustrating, boring, and difficult, which are also factors reliably associated with task aversiveness ( Blunt and Pychyl, 2000 ). As discussed in another section, task aversiveness is a reliable predictor for procrastination (→Task aversiveness).

A large part of academic work is spent on self-directed learning, and the skills needed to properly maneuver in such an environment is essential for student success ( Kreber et al., 2005 ). Unfortunately, most students have not received instruction on effective and timely study skills (e.g., Dunlosky et al., 2013 ; Dunlosky and Rawson, 2015 ), and universities are slow in implementing effective skills instruction ( Goffe and Kauper, 2014 ; Wieman and Gilbert, 2015 ). Teachers’ knowledge of effective study strategies is also lacking ( Morehead et al., 2016 ; Blasiman et al., 2017 ).

Study skill training programs produce beneficial effects in terms of academic performance and retention ( Hattie et al., 1996 ; Gettinger and Seibert, 2002 ; Robbins et al., 2004 ; Wibrowski et al., 2017 ). Moreover, studies point out that learning how to study effectively cannot be separated from course contents and the process of learning ( Weinstein et al., 2000 ; Durkin and Main, 2002 ; Wingate, 2007 ). That is, study skills training should be tailored for study programs or courses. They should suit the instructional context and teaching practices, expected achievement outcomes, and promote a high degree of learner activity. However, the impact of such skill learning interventions diminishes over time ( Wibrowski et al., 2017 ), suggesting that repetition may be crucial. Thus, dedicating a portion of instruction time or having a study skill seminar at the beginning of each semester or course may be a good strategy. Different interventions may be considered depending on the course tasks ( Schraw et al., 2007 ), students’ abilities and performance level ( Hattie et al., 1996 ). Furthermore, as knowledge of study skills are not automatically translated into good study habits, academic self-efficacy (see next section) is important for circumventing procrastination ( Klassen et al., 2008 ).

Lack of Self-Efficacy-Building Opportunities

Self-efficacy, our belief in our ability to manage a task, influences how willing we are to take on domain-specific challenges. The higher self-efficacy, the more likely we will take on a task ( Bandura and Schunk, 1981 ). Even when ability to perform a task is high, but self-efficacy for that ability is low, the likelihood of prioritizing the task goes down, and procrastination is likely ( Haycock et al., 1998 ; Klassen et al., 2008 ). Importantly, the relation between self-efficacy and procrastination is relatively strong and negative, r = −0.44 ( van Eerde, 2003 ).

Self-efficacy is one of the strongest predictors of academic performance ( Klomegah, 2007 ), yet is often neglected in course instruction. We have long known that students develop their self-efficacy for any academic task by gradually increasing proficiency with it ( Bandura, 1997 ). Furthermore, as self-efficacy tends to be context-specific and will not automatically transfer over different tasks or activities ( Zimmerman and Cleary, 2006 ), a relatively broad set of on efficacy-building experiences, course by course, is necessary (→Lack of study skill training), though not necessarily enough on its own ( Kurtovic et al., 2019 ). Other research has recently indicated that self-efficacy may be indirectly rather than directly related to academic procrastination ( Li et al., 2020 ), and that self-efficacy for self-regulation, for example, may be a strong predictor ( Zhang et al., 2018 ).

To improve self-efficacy, instructors can create more opportunities for mastery experiences by breaking down course assignments into manageable bits that are not too easy but still are possible for students to succeed at ( Bandura, 1997 ), and by helping students self-reflect on their performance such that they feel more self-efficacious in the forethought phase of subsequent work ( Zimmerman, 2000 ). As self-efficacy increases, and the likelihood of engaging in a task goes up ( Ames, 1992 ), anxiety goes down ( Haycock et al., 1998 ), establishing a virtuous circle of self-efficacy instead of a vicious circle of procrastination ( Wäschle et al., 2014 ). This can be done through in-class activities or short assignments where the goal is to scaffold student learning with positive feedback and concrete information for how to improve on increasingly challenging versions of the task ( Tuckman and Schouwenburg, 2004 ).

Inefficient Group Work

Students often work in groups (e.g., discussion groups, seminars), but often lack the basic skills for making group work effective. Group work also increases the probability of social loafing, the tendency for individuals to demonstrate less effort when working collectively than when working individually ( Karau and Williams, 1993 ). Students may therefore often prefer to work alone as an alternative. However, working alone is associated with increased procrastination ( Klingsieck et al., 2013 ). Qualitative evidence suggests that group work with interdependence between group members may reduce academic procrastination ( Klingsieck et al., 2013 ). In support, results from educational psychology have shown positive effects of interdependent group work on individual effort in settings of cooperative learning. These studies also demonstrate beneficial effects of interdependence on social support, self-esteem, and health outcomes of group members ( Johnson and Johnson, 2002 , 2009 ). Taken together, these findings indicate the potential benefit of group work with interdependence, which may be harnessed in educational settings to reduce academic procrastination.

Although the beneficial effects of student group work in higher education seem evident ( Springer et al., 1999 ; Johnson and Johnson, 2002 ), group work is neglected in curricula of many study programs, leading students to work individually on tasks and assignments and thus possibly promoting procrastination. Students in such programs may not always feel inclined to form study groups on their own and create more favorable group work conditions instead. This is especially unfortunate as methods and tools for group learning and studying abound.

Group work with interdependence may be well suited to reduce procrastination among group members. Implementing group work with interdependence should be quite straightforward, for example by having groups work on projects or by adapting individual assignments to become interdependent tasks. The latter can be achieved by designing subtasks that need to be completed sequentially by assembling groups in such a way that each member contributes unique skills, or by formulating group-level goals and rewards ( Weber and Hertel, 2007 ).

Influence of Peers

Prior research has indicated quite complex findings regarding the role of peers in facilitating or inhibiting procrastination (e.g., Nordby et al., 2017 ). Of the different ways in which peers may influence procrastination, three factors seem to be particularly important: social norms, observational learning, and distraction. Harris and Sutton (1983) suggested that an organization’s norms can either encourage or discourage procrastination, depending on whether norms suggest a prompt or delayed processing of tasks. Observational learning can support acquisition, inhibition, and triggering of many types of human behavior ( Bandura, 1985 ), including procrastination. Thus, learning from others may also influence procrastination as well as strategies against it.

With regard to social norms, Ackerman and Gross (2005) found less procrastination among students when perceived norms suggested to start promptly. Social learning of procrastination or strategies against it have not been demonstrated empirically. However, on a more general level, observational learning has been shown to influence students’ self-regulatory skills (e.g., Zimmerman and Schunk, 2004 ). Indirect support for this notion also comes from Klingsieck et al. (2013) and Nordby et al. (2017) , who report that peer behavior is taken into account by procrastinating students. With regard to social distraction, an early study reported peer influence to be a possible, yet not very frequent reason for procrastination ( Solomon and Rothblum, 1984 ). Both qualitative ( Klingsieck et al., 2013 ) and quantitative ( Chen et al., 2016 ) evidence support the idea that distraction by peers can be a source of academic procrastination. A lack of social integration has also been reported an antecedent of academic procrastination ( Patrzek et al., 2012 ), suggesting a balanced judgment on the role of peers and social contacts.

Communication of social norms to start tasks promptly can occur through regular class instruction, thus supporting timely beginning of students with a disposition to procrastinate. Social cognitive theory predicts that social learning is facilitated, among others, by the salience of both model behavior and vicarious reinforcements ( Bandura, 1985 ). Letting students reflect on and share their experiences with procrastination and strategies against it may support more productive observational learning.

This paper discusses nine factors characteristic of student study environments that, singly and in combination, increase the probability of procrastination. Clearly, given the high prevalence of academic procrastination, it is important to have an increased awareness of such risk factors and how they can be handled in order to prevent and reduce procrastination. Although we cannot control what students do, we can control how institutions encourage more productive behaviors for student success. We now briefly discuss how policymakers, universities, teachers, and students should approach these issues.

Do the Factors Point to Common Problem Areas?

Yes. We argue that the nine factors discussed can be loosely grouped into three themes (see Figure 1 ). First, four or five of the factors discussed (i.e., long deadlines, large degree of freedom in the study situation, temptations and distractions, poor self-monitoring information, and low focus on skills training), while being contextual and situational in nature, all relate directly to students’ ability to effectively self-regulate in the study situation. In effect, our overview indicates that the core problem of procrastination, poor self-regulation ( Tice et al., 2001 ; Steel, 2007 ; Hagger et al., 2010 ), is amplified by common aspects of the student environment. An important implication of this insight is that training in self-regulation techniques among students (which we recommend) should not only be tailored to the specific needs of the students (cf. Valenzuela et al., 2020 ) but should also be supplemented with specific contextual and organizational measures that can support productive self-regulation. Since it is well known that self-regulation in the academic setting is important for performance (e.g., Duckworth and Seligman, 2005 ), it is paradoxical that academic institutions organize academic student life in ways counter to this insight.

Figure 1. How procrastination-friendly factors relate to important themes in education.

Note that the problems in self-regulation seen in procrastination episodes may relate to skills factors (e.g., planning, monitoring), speaking for relevant skills training to strengthen self-regulation. However, often factors that undermine effective self-regulation are of primary importance in procrastination (e.g., Tice et al., 2001 ). For example, low energy and tiredness may render the individual more vulnerable to task-irrelevant temptations and distractions and increase task aversiveness, which in turn increases the probability of procrastination ( Tice et al., 2001 ; Baumeister and Tierney, 2011 ). Insufficient sleep, common in the student population (e.g., Lund et al., 2010 ), is an important source of low energy and tiredness. Importantly, Knapstad et al. (2018) found that the most frequently reported health problem (as measured by the Somatic Symptoms Scale, SSS-8; Gierk et al., 2014 ) among a large sample of Norwegian students was a “Feeling of tiredness and low energy,” 45% of the students indicating that they were “fairly much or “very much” affected. This suggests that factors that undermine self-regulation among students should receive increased attention.

Second, the academic context can be designed to redress the skills and motivational issues that are often associated with procrastination. Low focus on study skills training and relative lack of efficacy-building opportunities represent a problematic combination that may themselves contribute to students perceiving academic tasks as aversive, thereby increasing the probability of procrastination. All these combined represent a disadvantageous motivational regime for academic work. The present overview identified specific organizational measures that institutions can take to change this situation. As discussed, increased focus on study skills training in concert with regular teaching may be a solution, as repeated mastery experiences will build self-efficacy as well as reduce task aversion.

Third, we should address the social factors that distract students from their academic work. By acknowledging that procrastination is a trap for students working alone, more opportunities can be made to encourage more collaborative work with others. It is important to carefully design group work in that it resembles interdependent group work. Furthermore, group work with student peers can be deliberately designed to increase student accountability, facilitating more need for self-regulation and offering students the opportunity to observe others with more productive self-regulation skills.

Given the Large Number of Factors Discussed, Are Some Particularly Important?

We have not attempted to identify effect sizes to each of the variables discussed, and for many such estimates do not exist. Comparing the factors is, therefore, extremely difficult. Further, as several of the factors discussed have been linked to procrastination in correlational research, causality must be inferred with caution. Nevertheless, all the factors discussed have potentially large causal power to instigate and sustain procrastination. Overall, the factors examined focus on larger problem areas (i.e., self-regulation, skills and motivation, social factors), but each factor identifies concrete measures to be considered to implement changes.

In approaching such factors, all should ask: What can be changed on my part? Several of the factors (e.g., large degree of freedom in the study situation, long deadlines, temptations and distractions) address organizational and educational issues that should be addressed by organizations and teachers. Others (e.g., task aversiveness) imply more complex instructor-student interactions. For example, negative emotions in task aversiveness should be approached by teachers and students in cooperation by reducing task-associated risks and imbuing the tasks with personal relevance ( van Grinsven and Tillema, 2006 ; Rowe et al., 2015 ), by enabling and encouraging student ownership of learning tasks ( Rowe et al., 2015 ), and by facilitating frequent successful learning experiences that increase self-efficacy.

Does It Make Sense to Implement Changes in One or Few Factors, Leaving Out Others?

Given an abundance of factors discussed, each capable of instigating procrastination, the high occurrence of procrastination in the student population is not at all surprising. Would it help, then, to change one or perhaps a few factors? One possible answer is that focusing on one factor is better than doing nothing. However, the downside of such an approach is that this single factor may not generate noticeable changes alone. Our recommendation would rather be to evaluate several or all factors and then implement changes as suitable within a single course, across courses, or in study programs. Note here that several of the factors discussed are relatively closely interwoven. For example, a large degree of freedom in the study situation often also implies long deadlines, suggesting that two factors may be addressed at once.

In such evaluations, it should be noted that each of the factors discussed is presented at a rather abstract level, so that relevance and concrete implementations in various settings must be carefully considered. For example, study topics vary by their very nature in how much freedom they represent for the student. Some study programs are already strictly structured and typically involve a common study group from start to finish, indicating that such programs do not need an increased focus on structure. Other programs are less structured and may also, by the nature of their study contents, be more “procrastination friendly” (e.g., Nordby et al., 2017 ). In other cases, such as study skills training and efficacy-building opportunities, “the more, the better” seems appropriate when closely linked to actual course learning tasks.

In evaluating the need for implementation of changes, the relevant factor should be assessed not only at the institutional level but—probably more importantly—at the program and course level. This applies not only to a need-based evaluation (“What do students need in order to reduce their procrastination?”), but also to a competence evaluation (“Can we provide the necessary work required for this implementation?”). Note also that some measures may be quite easy to plan on paper, but difficult to implement in a more complex system of rules and bureaucracy. For example, although long deadlines should be warned against (they induce procrastination), finding alternative solutions that can handle shorter deadline in a proper way may require changes (e.g., legal or practical) that are not easily possible to implement.

Where to Start?

In developing prevention or interventions programs concerning procrastination, one has to keep the interplay between personal factors (i.e., student characteristics) and contextual factors (i.e., institutions, courses, and teachers) in mind. As can be seen from Table 2 , the recommendations on the institutional, course, and teacher side will only fully unfold their effectiveness if students are simultaneously prepared to work on their self-regulatory skills. Thus, the recommendations we present in this paper should be accompanied by a culture of goal-focused self-regulation training programs. And, as discussed, self-regulation training programs, whether preventive or interventional, should not be administered without paying attention to contextual procrastination-friendly factors.

Table 2. Recommended measures to reduce procrastination.

Given the high prevalence estimates of procrastination among students, a closer look at procrastination-friendly factors in the academic environment is clearly warranted. The present paper identifies nine such factors and provides suggestions on how they may be changed in order to understand, prevent, and reduce academic procrastination. Clearly, more research is needed in this area, both with regard to the factors themselves (how many are they?) as well as to their interplay and relative importance. Given the potential beneficial effects for students, institutions, and society, we conclude that researchers should pay increased attention to social, cultural, organizational, and contextual factors in their endeavors to understand academic procrastination.

Author Contributions

FS initiated the project, wrote the introduction and discussion parts. All authors contributed at least one section each to the review and edited the complete draft.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

We thank Piers Steel and Efim Nemtcan for valuable comments on an earlier draft of this manuscript. Publication charges were covered by the publication fund of UiT The Arctic University of Norway.

• ^ We use «study skills» in a broad sense, referring to skills needed on the part of the student to successfully master various aspects of study tasks (cf. Tressel et al., 2019 ).
• ^ Svartdal et al. (2020) . Unpublished data.

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Keywords : academic procrastination, study environments, social factors, self-regulation, impulsivity, task aversiveness

Citation: Svartdal F, Dahl TI, Gamst-Klaussen T, Koppenborg M and Klingsieck KB (2020) How Study Environments Foster Academic Procrastination: Overview and Recommendations. Front. Psychol. 11:540910. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.540910

Received: 06 March 2020; Accepted: 12 October 2020; Published: 02 November 2020.

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Copyright © 2020 Svartdal, Dahl, Gamst-Klaussen, Koppenborg and Klingsieck. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Frode Svartdal, [email protected]

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Understanding procrastination: A case of a study skills course

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• Published: 22 March 2021
• Volume 24 , pages 589–606, ( 2021 )

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• T. Hailikari   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-1355-2985 1 ,
• N. Katajavuori   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-5093-2402 1 &
• H. Asikainen   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-3858-211X 1  

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Procrastination is consistently viewed as problematic to academic success and students’ general well-being. There are prevailing questions regarding the underlying and maintaining mechanisms of procrastination which are yet to be learnt. The aim of the present study was to combine different ways to explain procrastination and explore how students’ time and effort management skills, psychological flexibility and academic self-efficacy are connected to procrastination as they have been commonly addressed separately in previous studies. The data were collected from 135 students who participated in a voluntary time management and well-being course in autumn 2019. The results showed that students’ ability to organize their time and effort has the strongest association with procrastination out of the variables included in the study. Psychological flexibility also has a strong individual role in explaining procrastination along with time and effort management skills. Surprisingly, academic self-efficacy did not have a direct association with procrastination. Interestingly, our findings further suggest that time and effort management and psychological flexibility are closely related and appear to go hand in hand and, thus, both need to be considered when the aim is to reduce procrastination. The implications of the findings are further discussed.

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1 Introduction

Academic procrastination is very common among university students: almost all occasionally procrastinate in one or another domain of their studies, and approximately every second student regularly procrastinates (Rothblum et al., 1986 ; Steel, 2007 ). Considerable attention has been given to procrastination in university setting (Klassen et al., 2008 ). The student population is especially prone to procrastination, with an estimated prevalence of 50–95% (Steel, 2007 ). Procrastination may be defined as ‘the voluntary delay of an intended and necessary and/or [personally] important activity, despite expecting potential negative consequences that outweigh the positive consequences of the delay’ (Klingsieck, 2013 , 26). Typical for procrastination is that it is irrational and not imposed by external matters and it is often accompanied by subjective discomfort and negative consequences (Klingsieck, 2013 ). Procrastination is often associated with several negative factors, such as lower academic performance (Steel et al., 2001 ), increased stress (Sirois et al., 2003 ) and poorer mental health (Stead et al., 2010 ). Therefore, it is necessary to understand the causes and the factors that maintain procrastination in order to be able to reduce it. The challenge is that research in the area of procrastination often lacks a coherent, theoretical explanation of the behaviour (Glick et al., 2014 ) which has made it difficult to understand the phenomenon and to follow the research (e.g., Klingsieck, 2013 ; Schraw et al., 2007 ; Steel, 2007 ). Therefore, there are prevailing questions regarding the underlying and maintaining mechanisms of procrastination which are yet to be learnt (Katz et al., 2014 ; Visser et al., 2018 ).

The core characteristic of procrastination is the intention-action gap suggesting that the procrastinators often have good intentions, but the challenge lies in the implementation of these intentions (Dewitte and Lens, 2000 ). Thus, procrastination has traditionally been understood as a self-regulation or time management problem (Wolters et al., 2017 ). There is a strong body of evidence suggesting that lower levels of self-regulating behaviours are related to higher levels of procrastination, and thus self-regulation is one of the keys to understanding procrastination (Ferrari, 2001 ). However, Visser et al. ( 2018 ) suggest that procrastination is complex behaviour that involves both cognitive and emotional elements as well as evaluations of one’s own competence. Recent research suggests that instead of being purely a self-regulation or time management problem, procrastination is also strongly influenced by psychological factors, such as the low confidence in one’s own abilities to perform (Steel, 2007 ) and inability to cope with negative emotions that arise in challenging situations referring to the centrality of psychological flexibility in understanding procrastination (Dionne, 2016 ; Gagnon et al., 2016 ). In this article, we aim to bring together these central constructs that have usually been addressed separately in previous studies in order to understand the phenomenon of procrastination and its underlying mechanisms better.

1.1 Factors explaining academic procrastination

There are several theoretical perspectives that have been used when exploring procrastination: the differential psychology perspective; the motivational and volitional psychology perspective; the clinical psychology perspective; and the situational perspective (Klingsieck, 2013 ). In the context of higher education, the motivational-volitional psychology and situational perspectives may be regarded as the most relevant because they provide tangible tools and theories for educational developers to try to influence students’ procrastination tendencies whereas the other perspectives focus more on aspects that are not so easily influenced, such as personality traits, depression or personality disorders. The motivational-volitional perspective is focused on the relationship between different motivational and volitional variables such as motivation, self-regulation, time management and learning strategies which are central in successful studying in higher education (Lindblom-Ylänne et al., 2015 ; Klingsieck, 2013 ). The situational perspective, on the other hand, focuses on procrastination evoked by situational features, such as the perceived difficulty of the task (Klingsieck, 2013 ). This situational perspective can be further extended to include the person’s reactions to the challenges posed by the situation.

From the motivational-volitional perspective, academic procrastination has been found to be related to lower levels of self-regulation and academic self-efficacy and is associated with higher levels of stress and anxiety (e.g., Ferrari et al., 2005 ; Howell et al., 2006 ; Schraw et al., 2007 ; Wolters, 2003 ). Klassen et al. ( 2008 ) state that among all the variables that have been investigated in relation to academic procrastination, self-regulation, self-efficacy, and self-esteem have received the most attention (see e.g., Cassady and Johnson, 2002 ; Chun Chu and Choi, 2005 ; Ferrari, 2001 ; Howell et al., 2006 ; Steel, 2007 ; Wolters, 2003 ). Procrastination has traditionally been considered to be a form of self-regulation failure, as a weakness of will and low ability to organise own studying (e.g., Ferrari, 2001 ; Senecal et al., 1995 ; Steel, 2007 ) and, thus, one common theory is that procrastination results from a person’s inability to manage time (Burka and Yuen, 1982 ; Glick and Orsillo, 2015 ).

1.2 Time and effort management skills behind procrastination

Research focusing on exploring university students’ study progress has consistently shown that time and effort management skills are among the most crucial factors (e.g., Ariely and Wertenbroch, 2002 ; Entwistle, 2009 ; Haarala-Muhonen et al., 2011 ; Häfner et al., 2015 ; Pintrich, 2004 ). In the higher education context, time and effort management skills refer to students’ ability to set goals for themselves and to study according to their goals, to manage their time usage and to prioritise the tasks to be conducted (Entwistle et al., 2001 ). It has further been suggested that time and effort management skills provide a foundation for cognitive engagement and student achievement as they refer to how much the students are willing to invest in their learning (Appleton et al., 2008; Fredricks et al., 2004). Previous studies indicate that many higher education students struggle with time and effort management skills (Parpala et al., 2010 ) and that these skills remain constant throughout the studies and are hard to change (Parpala et al., 2017a ). Many students study without study schedules and thus fail to pass the courses because they run out of preparation time, such as for exams (Asikainen et al., 2013 ). Thus, many interventions to reduce procrastination have focused on improving time management skills (e.g., Ariely and Wertenbroch, 2002 ; Häfner et al., 2015 ; Levrini and Prevatt, 2012 ).

There are also critical voices claiming that time and effort management skills, or lack thereof, are not enough to explain the phenomena and that research focusing on the role of time and effort management skills in procrastination does not take the persons’ internal experiences enough into account (Glick and Orsillo, 2015 ). It has been suggested that when exploring factors that maintain and cause procrastination, we have to widen the perspective to include a broader theory of regulation of inner experiences, namely, psychological flexibility (Hayes, 2004 ; Hayes et al., 2012 ). Recent studies concerning procrastination have brought up the importance of psychological flexibility in decreasing procrastination and suggest that procrastination may also result from person’s psychological inflexibility (Eisenbeck et al., 2019 ; Gagnon et al., 2016 ; Glick et al., 2014 ; Scent and Boes, 2014 ).

1.3 Psychological flexibility and academic self-efficacy beliefs

Psychological flexibility refers to one’s ability to be consciously present, confronting and accepting the negative experiences, emotions and thoughts one might have, and being able to take action about achieving one’s own goals despite unpleasant feelings and thoughts, and further, being able to react to negative feelings and thoughts from a new perspective (Chawla and Ostafin, 2007 ; Hayes et al., 2006 ). Thus, it is a central factor influencing the way students react in a stressful and challenging situation. Procrastinators often fail to regulate their actions in situations that are challenging and involve high levels of stress and cognitive workload and avoiding the unpleasant feelings generated by the situation (Ferrari, 2001 ). This experiential avoidance, or an unwillingness to encounter unpleasant experiences, such as anxiety, is a key component of psychological inflexibility (Sutcliff et al., 2019 ). Tasks that are considered to be difficult and challenging and do not provide instant rewards tend to be delayed and avoided (Blunt and Pychyl, 2000 ; Sirois and Pychyl, 2013 ; Steel, 2007 ). Escaping from stressful and aversive situations might relieve stress and are thus rewarding. As an example, students are always faced with a trade-off when choosing between procrastinating or studying (Kirby et al., 2005 ; Olsen et al., 2018 ) . One alternative is to complete the challenging academic tasks on time which leads to delayed rewards in the form of achieving academic and career goals (see e.g., Sutcliff et al., 2019 ). These goals often strongly align with students' values. However, students always have an alternative to choose an immediate, positive reinforcers in the form of avoidance or escape from negative internal experiences elicited by challenging tasks, such as engaging in social or leisure activities that are not related to the task at hand. Consequently, a number of recent studies have suggested that procrastination is strongly characterised by avoidant tendencies and aversive experiences and is thus mainly involved with the person’s ability to deal with negative emotions, in addition to their time and effort management skills (Sirois, 2014 ; Ticeand Bratslavsky, 2000 ; Hailikari et al., submitted).

Psychological flexibility is thought to be constructed of six core psychological processes, which are cognitive defusion, self-as-context, being present, acceptance, values and committed actions (Hayes et al., 2012 ). These processes include the ability to observe and recognise ones’ own thoughts and seeing them just as thoughts rather than truths; keeping a flexible perspective-taking attitude on one’s thinking and feeling; the ability to remain in the present moment and be mindful of thoughts, feelings, and sensations without judging them; confronting negative thoughts and emotions without attempting to change them; clarifying one’s hopes, values and goals in life and finally, doing and taking actions which are consistent with one’s hopes, values and goals (Flaxman et al., 2013 ; Hayes et al., 2012 ). Each of these processes is a psychological skill that can be enhanced in different life domains.

Previous research has clearly shown a link between high levels of procrastination and psychological inflexibility. Eisenbeck et al. ( 2019 ) found that procrastination and psychological distress were associated with psychological inflexibility and further, psychological inflexibility mediated the relationship between general psychological distress and procrastination. The role of psychological flexibility’s sub-processes in procrastination among university students has also been studied, and it was found that committed actions were moderately negatively correlated with procrastination suggesting that committed action could be a promising variable in the study of procrastination (Gagnon et al. 2016 ). Another study showed that procrastination was negatively and moderately related to lower levels of acceptance, adding support to the negative link between psychological flexibility and procrastination (Glick et al., 2014 ). The significance of psychological flexibility in the university context has been studied less, but recent research in this context showed that psychological flexibility has a strong relationship with student engagement and study progression (Asikainen, 2018 ; Asikainen et al., 2018 ).

A recent study by Jeffords et al. ( 2018 ), showed that psychological flexibility is closely related to self-efficacy. Self-efficacy has often been studied previously, focusing on procrastination with results showing an inverse relationship with procrastination (Howell and Watson, 2007; Steel, 2007 ; Wolters, 2003 ). Academic Self-efficacy beliefs describe students’ beliefs in their own capabilities to learn new things and to complete given tasks successfully (Bandura, 1997 ). According to the study by Jeffords et al. ( 2018 ) students who reported greater psychological flexibility felt more efficacious in their ability to complete their studies, whereas students who reported greater inflexibility also reported feeling less efficacious. Similar findings have been reported in relation to students’ time and effort management skills. Bembenutty ( 2009 ) showed that college students who have greater academic self-efficacy also tend to show increased management of their time and study environment (see also Burlison et al., 2009 ; Park and Sperling, 2012 ). Academic Self-efficacy beliefs have been proposed as a possible explanation for procrastination in the academic context, indicating that low academic self-efficacy beliefs are associated with an increased tendency to procrastinate (Judge and Bono, 2001 ). If one’s academic self-efficacy beliefs are low, the motivation to initiate work or to commit to required action should also be low, resulting in avoidance behaviour and consequently procrastination (Grunschel et al. 2013 ). On the other hand, students who believe that they can and will do well are more likely to be motivated to self-regulate, persist and engage in studying (Pintrich and Schunk, 2002 ; Zimmerman, 2000 ). Academic Self-efficacy beliefs have been found to be among the strongest predictive factors of performance in various domains (e.g., Lane and Lane, 2001 ; Pajares, 1996 ). Thus, when exploring the maintaining factors of procrastination, it is important to include academic self-efficacy.

1.4 Aim of the study

Taken together, previous research suggests that time and effort management skills, psychological flexibility and self-efficacy are all closely related to procrastination. Although the studies in this area support a tentative connection between these factors, it is far from conclusive. To our knowledge, no previous study has brought together these central constructs in explaining procrastination. They have been explored separately as they represent different research traditions. The aim of the present study is to include all these variables and explore their interrelations and how they together predict procrastination among students that experiences challenges with their study skills. There is a need to understand the underlying mechanisms of procrastination and which constructs are especially important if the aim is to reduce procrastination among higher education students. This research focuses on answering the following research question: How are university students’ time and effort management skills, psychological flexibility and self-efficacy associated with (a) each other and (b) to their reported level of procrastination.

2 Methodology

2.1 participants.

The data were collected from students studying arts and humanities at a Finnish university. Prolonged study times are a great challenge at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities (Kurri, 2006 ). Recent research also suggests that students procrastinate more in the field of arts and humanities compared to other academic fields (Nordby et al., 2017 ). The data came from the students who participated in a voluntary time management and well-being course, and who were willing/eager to improve their study skills. This course was advertised for students who have challenges with their time-management and well-being. A total of 149 students voluntarily participated in the study and answered the questionnaire in autumn 2019. Students responded to the questionnaires at the beginning of the course as a part of their pre-assignment. Of these students, 14 were excluded because their answers had many missing values concerning the measured dimensions (> 50%). Thus, a total of 135 students provided the data. In the questionnaire, the students were asked to evaluate their own time and effort management skills, academic self-efficacy, tendency to procrastinate and psychological flexibility. Of these students, 22 were male students and 110 female students. Two students identified as ‘other gender’, and one did not answer this question. Approximately a quarter of the students in the Faculty of Arts are male and, thus, the sample distribution is similar to the population. The average age of the participants was 28.1 years (SD = 7.62).

2.2 Instruments

We used two scales, focusing on time and effort management skills and academic self-efficacy, from the HowULearn questionnaire (Parpala and Lindblom-Ylänen, 2012 ). HowULearn -questionnaire and its scales are widely used and validated in Finnish and international contexts (e.g., Cheung et al., 2020; Parpala et al., 2010 ; Postareff et al., 2018; Ruohoniemi et al., 2017 ; Rytkönen et al., 2012). The HowULearn questionnaire has also been translated in the context of Danish higher education (Herrmann et al., 2017 ). Time and effort management skills are measured with four items on a Likert-scale from 1 to 5 (e.g. 'I am generally systematic and organised in my studies’). Concerning students’ academic self-efficacy, we used a scale from HowULearn questionnaire which has been constructed based on (Pintrich and Garcia ( 1991 ) Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ). Five items, using a Likert scale from 1 to 5, were modified to suit the academic self-efficacy. As it is applied here, academic self-efficacy refers to students’ appraisal of their ability to master academic tasks including their judgements about their ability to accomplish a task as well as their confidence in their skill to perform that task. Based on these items, an academic self-efficacy scale for constructed (5 items, e.g., ‘I believe I will do well in my studies as long as I make an effort’). Psychological flexibility was measured according to the work-related acceptance and action questionnaire (WAAQ) (Bond et al., 2013) which was recently developed to fit the higher education context in Finland (7 items, e.g., ‘My worries do not prevent me from succeeding in my studies’ (Asikainen, 2018 ). The items used a 7-point Likert scale (1 = totally disagree, 7 = totally agree). Procrastination was measured with a short version of the Pure procrastination scale (PPS) (Svartdahl and Steel, 2017 ) using a 5-point Likert scale (5 items, e.g.,’ In preparation for some deadlines, I often waste time by doing other things’). This short version of the original pure procrastination scale has been proven to be a robust instrument to measure academic procrastination (Svartdahl et al., 2017; see also Klein et al., 2019 ).

2.3 Statistical analysis

Missing value analysis was conducted on the items measuring the scales. There were only four separate missing values concerning different items and, thus, these were replaced with means. The relationships between the scales were analysed with Pearson’s correlation analysis. In addition, linear regression analysis was conducted on the scales measuring academic self-efficacy, time and effort management (= organised studying) and psychological flexibility explaining procrastination. In addition, the students were then divided into three score groups (low/medium/high) based on their scores measuring time and effort management and psychological flexibility where the middle group was formed using the mean + − a half standard deviation. The groups were combined and thus, six score groups were conducted. The differences in these groups in procrastination was analysed with One-way ANOVA and Tukey’s test.

According to the Cronbach alpha analysis, the scales measuring psychological flexibility, procrastination and academic self-efficacy had very good reliability (α = 0.83–0.90). The reliability for the scale measuring time and effort management can be regarded as acceptable (see Table 1 ). Adding more items to measure the same dimension, would most probably have increased the alpha on Organised studying (Taber 2018). However, as the scale has been used in many previous studies with good reliability (Herrmann et al., 2017 ; Parpala et al., 2010 ; Ruohoniemi et al., 2017 ) its use can be considered to be acceptable.

The correlational analysis showed that there was a clear relationship between procrastination, psychological flexibility, academic self-efficacy and time and effort management skills. Procrastination was statistically significantly and negatively correlated with time and effort management skills (r =  − 0.584, p  < 0.001), academic self-efficacy ( p  =  − 0.358, p  < 0.001) and psychological flexibility (r =  − 0.461, p  < 0.001). In addition, academic self-efficacy was positively related to psychological flexibility ( p  = 0.322, p  < 0,001) and time and effort management skills ( p  = 0.357, p  < 0.001). In addition, time and effort management skills and psychological flexibility correlated positively with each other (r = 0.332, p  < 0.001). The correlations can be seen in Table 2 .

3.1 Regression analysis

A linear regression model was conducted with psychological flexibility, time and effort management and academic self-efficacy as predictors of procrastination. As presented in Table 3 , time and effort management skills, psychological flexibility and academic self-efficacy explained a significant level of variance in procrastination (Adjusted R Square = 0.382). Both time and effort management (t =  − 5.63, p  < 0.001) and psychological flexibility (t =  − 3.06, p  = 0.003) explained the variance in procrastination statistically significantly meaning that students who reported greater use of time and effort management strategies and higher psychological flexibility reported less tendency to procrastinate. Academic self-efficacy failed to emerge as an individual predictor of procrastination t =  − 1.04, p  = 0.301). The results of the regression analysis can be seen in Table 3 .

3.2 Differences in score groups

The One-way ANOVA of the score groups showed that there were differences in experiences of procrastination according to the score groups. According to the Tukey’s test, the group with a high score on time and effort management as well as psychological flexibility scored statistically significantly lower on procrastination than the other score groups (see Table 4 ). In addition, the group with a low score in time and effort management as well as on psychological flexibility scored higher in procrastination than the group scoring average on time and effort management and high on psychological flexibility as well as the group scoring high on time and effort management and average on psychological flexibility. The group scoring average on time and effort management and low on psychological flexibility also scored statistically significantly higher on procrastination than the group scoring high on time and effort management and average on psychological flexibility.

4 Discussion

Procrastination is consistently viewed as problematic to academic success and students’ general well-being (Steel, 2007 ). Students’ time management skills as well as ability to manage their own actions despite the negative feelings have been identified as central factors associated with procrastination along with students’ academic self-efficacy beliefs. To this point, however, only a few studies have included all these measures and compared their impact on procrastination. Thus, an aim with the present study was to explore how students’ time and effort management skills, psychological flexibility and academic self-efficacy are interrelated and associated with procrastination as they have been commonly addressed separately in previous studies.

Designed to address this limitation, our findings support three noteworthy findings regarding academic procrastination among students who experience problems in their time management skills. Firstly, our findings show that students’ ability to organise their time and effort had the strongest association with procrastination out of the variables included in the study. Secondly, our findings indicate that psychological flexibility has a strong individual role in explaining procrastination along with time and effort management skills, although to a slightly smaller degree. And thirdly, our findings suggest that these two constructs appear to be closely related and clearly go hand in hand and, thus, both need to be considered. In the remainder of this section, we review the findings that support these points, identify implications for research and practice, and discuss some limitations to these conclusions.

Time management has been repeatedly identified in previous studies as a major factor contributing to procrastination (Ferrari, 2001 ; Senécal et al., 1995 ; Steel, 2007 ; Wolters, 2003 ). Our findings add to this work by showing that in our study time and effort management skills were strongly related to self-reported level of procrastination and explained the largest variance of procrastination in the regression. This finding implies that students’ time and effort management skills can be used to understand their self-reported levels of academic procrastination. However, it appears that time and effort management skills alone are not enough to explain the phenomenon of procrastination as we assumed. In our study, psychological flexibility also had a strong individual role in explaining large variation of procrastination. This is in line with the recent research suggesting that psychological flexibility is also a central construct explaining procrastination (Dionne, 2016 ; Gagnon et al. 2016 ). These two factors were also strongly correlated with each other as well as with academic self-efficacy beliefs which suggests that they share common variance. Their central role was further explained by regression analysis which showed that together they explained almost 40% of the variance in procrastination. Interestingly, in the present study academic self-efficacy beliefs did not have a direct association with procrastination. This finding is in contrast with previous studies showing that lower self-efficacy beliefs are associated with an increased tendency to procrastinate (Judge and Bono, 2001 ; Wolters, 2003 ). However, some studies have similarly reported a non-significant association between self-efficacy and procrastination. For example, Klassen et al. ( 2010 ) showed with Canadian and Singaporean students that although procrastination negatively and significantly correlated with academic self-efficacy, in the regression model there was no association between academic self-efficacy and procrastination. Only self-efficacy for self-regulation and self-esteem had a significant relationship with procrastination (Klassen et al., 2010 ). This finding is very similar to our result. The most likely explanation for the result is that time and effort management skills and psychological flexibility have a more direct and stronger relationship with procrastination than academic self-efficacy even though it is closely related to all these constructs. It might be that if one is committed to value-based actions which are at the core of psychological flexibility, the negative thoughts one might have about oneself may not be hindering one’s goal-based actions (Hayes et al., 2006 ). This is an interesting finding, and it would be useful to study it in more detail in subsequent studies.

As a third noteworthy finding, our findings provide insight into the relations between time and effort management and psychological flexibility as factors contributing to procrastination. Psychological flexibility and time and effort management skills appear to go hand in hand. When the students were divided to three groups based on their scores on psychological flexibility and time and effort management, the largest groups were the ones in which both time and effort managements skills and psychological flexibility were either low or high. The groups where one of these measures would be high and the other would be low were the smallest in implicating their close relationship. Therefore, it seems that if a person rates his/her time and effort management skills highly, he/she rates his/her psychological flexibility high as well. Also, significant correlations between these measures support this notion. A significant positive correlation between time and effort management and psychological flexibility has also been found in previous study (Asikainen et al., 2019 ). Interestingly, the group that rated both time and effort management and psychological flexibility highly rated their tendency to procrastinate as markedly low compared to other groups. The opposite phenomenon was true for the group that rated their time and effort management skills and psychological flexibility low. This group rated their tendency to procrastinate very highly. Interestingly, if the rating on one of these measures, especially on time and effort management studying was lower, the tendency to procrastinate increased drastically. Although this conclusion fits with common-sense expectations regarding these constructs and their relationship, our findings are the first to establish this relationship empirically.

One implication of this finding is that future efforts to remediate students’ procrastination should account for both these factors. Only when accounting for both time and effort management and psychological flexibility can students’ procrastination be understood. Instead of taking procrastination merely as a self-regulation problem, it is also strongly influenced by a person’s inability to cope with negative emotions that arise in challenging situations (Eisenbeck et al., 2019 ; Gagnon et al., 2016 ; Glick et al., 2014 ). It may be suggested that time and effort management support psychological flexibility. Some studies on time allocation suggest that psychological flexibility process includes allocating one’s time to important and value-based actions in everyday life (Kashdan and Rottenberg, 2010 ). Thus, when time is allocated to support value-based action well-being also increases (Sheldon et al., 2010 ). Thinking about your own values and setting goals can also be considered to be a central part of both time and effort management (Entwistle and McCune, 2004 ) and psychological flexibility (Hayes et al., 2006 ). Thus, we could suggest that when practising psychological flexibility, time management is a part of the process in which one needs to plan how to allocate time to support one’s own personal values. Fostering students’ psychological flexibility as well as time and effort managements skills, could be a promising tool to decrease procrastination. As procrastinators often fail to regulate their actions in challenging or stressful situations (Ferrari, 2001 ), it might be that psychological flexibility could be a central construct. More attention should be paid to encouraging students to pursue value-based committed actions, despite the negative thoughts and feelings one might have. Thus, students’ capacity to cope with their negative thoughts and emotions should be enhanced during their studying (Asikainen, 2018 ).

4.1 Limitations

There are also some limitations that should be addressed. The participants consisted of a selected sample of students which most probably influenced the results. The students took part in a time management and well-being course which was directed especially at those students who had experienced problems with their studies. Thus, the sample of the students in this study was selected and most probably consisted mostly of students who were eager and motivated to improve their time management skills and studying. That might also explain why the time and effort management skills were the strongest explanatory variable of procrastination in the present study. Thus, these results of the study are not generalisable to general student population and the selected sample most probably influenced the results. More research is still needed with a bigger and more representative population. Studies should also explore the role of time and effort management skills in procrastination with a more representative student population. The number of participants was rather low which gave limited opportunities for analysis. For example, the number of students in different score groups was rather low, and in some cases too low for the analysis. Therefore, the results should be interpreted with care. Still, we wanted to include the One Way Anova analysis in our study as it clearly showed that psychological flexibility and time and effort management skills are aligned with each other and students with high scores in both of these dimensions report much less procrastination than other students. Furthermore, one major limitation of the study is that the data are based solely on self-reports. This means that we have measured students’ experiences of these variables. However, we used validated questionnaires which have been shown to be reliable in measuring these constructs and thus, we argue that these results also bring valuable insights to research in procrastination which should be further explored. Future research should also include other measures such as accumulation of credits to see how these measures relate to students’ study progression. In addition, our data are also cross-sectional in nature and thus represents only one particular timeframe. Thus, it is not possible to draw any conclusions regarding the predictive value of the variables. In future research we should also include longitudinal data to explore more closely the relationship between these measures. Despite of the numerous limitations in our study, we argue that this paper provides a novel exploration of these predictors of procrastination together which has not been provided in previous studies.

4.2 Practical implications and conclusions

One promising way to support students’ psychological flexibility and learning processes could be to combine study skills courses, such as time and effort management intervention courses with acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT)-based intervention courses, in which students could practise tolerating stress and negative thoughts as well as developing their time and effort management. Recent studies (Asikainen et al., 2019 ) have shown that this kind of ACT-interventions including reflection of one’s own study processes and practising new ways to study, in this way practising new ways to study, can enhance students’ psychological flexibility and time and effort management and in this way, foster students’ well-being and study skills. ACT-based intervention has shown to have multiple positive effects on students’ well-being and studying (Asikainen et al., 2019 ; Levin et al. 2017 ; Räsänen et al. 2016 ). In addition, ACT-based training can help students to manage psychological inflexibility and encourage persistence behaviour, which in turn is likely to have a positive impact on students’ self-efficacy and further, to their academic performance (Jeffords et al. 2018 ). Earlier studies have found that ACT-based interventions targeted at students who suffer from procrastination can decrease experiences of procrastination (Scent and Boes, 2014 ; Wang et al., 2015 ). One study has suggested that different core processes of psychological flexibility have different effects on procrastination. That is, although all the components correlate with procrastination, acceptance and committed actions significantly predict experiences of procrastination (Gagnon et al., 2016 ). Thus, it seems that being more open and accepting of one’s emotional experiences or thoughts and being willing to engage in difficult activities to persist in the direction of important values is important in reducing procrastination.

As time and effort management in our study was the predominant factor associated with procrastination, we suggest that time management should be promoted for higher education students. It has been shown that many students have trouble with time management (Parpala et al., 2010 ). Many studies have shown that different time management strategies are beneficial for different students. These include things like setting goals and planning how to achieve these (Häfner et al., 2015 ), setting deadlines (Ariely and Wertenbroch, 2002 ) and monitoring time use (Asikainen et al., 2019 ). These skills should be enhanced during university study because it has been shown that time and effort management skills remain rather constant without a conscious effort to influence them (Lindblom-Ylänne et al., 2017 ).

To conclude, our study brings novel insights into the underlying mechanisms of procrastination. Our study showed that both psychological flexibility and time management are important factors influencing procrastination, and furthermore, they appear to be closely related factors and together influence procrastination behavior. Thus, both these factors should be considered when the focus is on reducing procrastination. Students who tend to procrastinate might benefit from trainings that focus on training both time management skills and psychological flexibility and not focusing on only either one. This might produce the best results.

Data availability

The data is available on demand.

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Hailikari, T., Katajavuori, N. & Asikainen, H. Understanding procrastination: A case of a study skills course. Soc Psychol Educ 24 , 589–606 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11218-021-09621-2

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