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Isaiah Young

Professor Suzanne Thomas

UWRT 1103-020

16 April 2018

Thesis

How often do you hear your teachers or parents say, “Don’t wait till the last minute to do

all your work! Do not procrastinate!” We hear the word ‘procrastination’ all the time, but do we

truly know its meaning? Do we know why it happens? In higher education, procrastination can

be detrimental to one’s success. So, how do we combat procrastination? Is it possible to

completely eradicate procrastination’s negative effects? Does procrastination have any positive

effects on higher education? Today, thousands of students, ranging from elementary to graduate

school, experience procrastination in some way. Therefore, I have gathered research done by

medical professionals, investigated columnist’s ideas, conducted a survey of college students,

and read advice from professors in hopes of finding answers for these questions and possible

solutions.

Stop for a second and think, what is procrastination? Do you consider procrastination

something that you run into daily? Or is it something that you seldomly encounter?

Procrastination’s given definition is “the action of delaying or postponing initiating or doing

work that is needed in order to complete a task within a specific timeframe (Ferrari 4).” This

definition gives the possibility of procrastination to most tasks or assignments. From taking out

the trash to getting your wisdom teeth out, you can procrastinate almost anything. Ana Swanson,

a columnist for The Washington Post, emphasizes procrastination as, “It’s also a potentially

dangerous force, causing victims to fail out of school, perform poorly at work, put off medical
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treatment or delay saving for retirement (Swanson).” Procrastination affects almost every person

in a negative way.

The first source I investigated was Procrastination and Task Avoidance written by

primarily Joseph R. Ferrari and a few other authors. All the writers work within the Department

of Psychology at different universities and have come together to create a book for all different

types of readers who want to educate themselves about procrastination and how best to prevent

it. The book includes chapters for adults, college students, and anyone who wants to self-

discipline themselves. I specifically analyzed the chapter for students in higher education,

Chapter 9: Treatment of Academic Procrastination in College Students. I read bits and pieces of

this chapter to gather some information to solve my questions. Academic procrastination deals

with specific tasks, such as studying, completing homework, and finishing projects, that students

typically put off. Ferrari gives us five different cognitive distortions that frequently occur in

procrastinators:

1. Overestimation of the time left to perform a task.

2. Underestimation of time necessary to complete a task.

3. Overestimation of future motivational states. This is typified by statements such as

‘I’ll feel more like doing it later.’

4. Misreliance on the necessity of emotional congruence to succeed in a task. Typical

is a statement such as ‘People should only study when they feel good about it.’

5. Belief that working when not in the mood is unproductive or suboptimal. Such

beliefs are typically expressed by phrases such as ‘It doesn’t do any good to work when

you are not motivated.’ (197)

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I found these five points, Ferrari refers to them as the “Big Five,” to be relevant within higher

education. As a college student, I can see myself using every one of these points as an excuse to

put off my work. I constantly allow myself to postpone my work because I feel that I should do

my work only when I am motivated. But I need to be doing my work as soon as possible and

before it is due. Many times, we choose to think that we have more time to write an essay or it

will only take a few minutes to complete our math homework. When in reality, time is something

we do not have an ample amount of.

The next source I investigated was an online article written by Maryellen Weimer, PhD

entitled, “Why Students Procrastinate and What You Can Do About It.” Weimer is a professor of

teaching and learning at Penn State Berks and won the Milton S. Eisenhower Award for her

exceptional skills in teaching. Weimer suggests that college students procrastinate because of

lack of motivation, anxiety, fear of failure, and low self-confidence.

Ferrari gives different types of possible treatment options for those who want to stop

procrastination. One method is students realizing their procrastination issues and self-

disciplining themselves. The next method is students realizing their procrastination issues and

seeking professional help. This typically happens when a student continuously receives

unsatisfactory grades due to procrastination and may also have issues within their personal lives

that draw them to counseling. I personally can relate to the first method and I consider it

effective if you are truly serious about improving your study skills. I ran into procrastination

issues during my transition from high school to college. I lacked motivation; I postponed every

assignment to the last minute and could not focus for more than five minutes. Once I saw my

grades begin to decline, I decided that something needed to change. It wasn’t easy, but I forced

myself to work harder and focus longer to do better in my classes. Something that motivated me
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was looking at the big picture keeping my future in mind. I learned more about how important

my GPA for future employment, which drove me to work harder.

Weimer’s advice to reduce procrastination is not for students, but rather for teachers and

professors. She relates student’s procrastination issues not to the student but rather the

assignment itself. When an assignment is irrelevant, difficult, or not interesting in the student’s

eyes, it makes it difficult for them to find the motivation and complete the task. Therefore, she is

asking teachers to make the work they give to their students more relevant, interesting, break

down the assignment into smaller parts, and clearly explain the directions so that the student has

the best chances of succeeding and finishing on time. From personal experience, good teachers

can make any subject interesting. In high school, I had an ancient world history class, a subject

that I hardly have interest. But, my teacher made the material interesting and fun to learn about. I

believe what Weimer suggest would help students reduce the amount of time they procrastinate

and focus more on the assignments given.

After doing some professional research, I wanted to investigate more personal

information about procrastination. So, I read an online article written by Thomas Oppong

entitled “According to Research, Procrastinating Can Boost Your Creativity.” This title caught

my attention because very rarely do you hear procrastination as something that has positive

effects. Oppong is a well-known writer for multiple companies including HuffPost, Business

Insider, Quartz, CNBC, Entrepreneur, etc. Oppong’s purpose in his writing is to view

procrastination as something that can cause creativity and help improve memory as opposed to

something that only has negative effects. He suggests that procrastination works best for

innovators and creative professionals that require more time and thinking to complete their tasks.

Oppong gives the example of Leonardo Da Vinci, a famous artist and procrastinator, that begin
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working on the Mona Lisa in 1503 but did not finish his masterpiece until 1517. Oppong’s view

is very interesting one and stands out from the rest. I’ve always been taught that procrastination

and avoiding your work are things that you avoid and never want to fall into. But this new

perspective encourages its readers to see procrastination as an opportunity to create new ideas

and innovations.

I personally feel that having this mindset on procrastination is dangerous. From my

experiences throughout high school and college, procrastination has never helped me generate a

new idea or find an efficient method of doing something. Procrastination has always caused me

stress and made it more difficult to be productive. I do not feel more creative when I have less

time to do an assignment but I feel more crammed for time. I believe that I am only creative

when I sit down and force myself to be. This time just depends on when I am doing the

assignment. I can force myself to be creative three weeks before the assignment is due or three

hours before it is due, it just depends on when I am willing to work. I believe that if you begin to

convince readers that procrastination is a good thing, it will give them an excuse to continue to

put off their work.

This entire project is about procrastination and its effects on students of higher education.

So, to get answers from people of higher education, I conducted a survey for college students on

March 23rd, 2018. The purpose of the survey is to gather and analyze data and determine trends

and common facts as to how often do students procrastinate and why. The survey was taken

mostly by college freshman but also a few sophomores, juniors, and seniors ranging from many

types of majors such as, pre-nursing, engineering, education, undecided, English, accounting,

nutrition, business, and meteorology. Each question was designed to learn more about each

student’s academic life and how they choose to spend their time. Whether they spend their time
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doing their work or procrastinating their assignments, their responses justified their academic

decisions. One of the questions that was asked to the students was, “As a student, how often

would you say you procrastinate on a weekly basis?” Each response ranged from “Always” to

“Rarely.” Not a single student answered “Never.” This response concludes that procrastination is

very relevant into today’s college students and seems to affect every student in some way, some

more than others. Next, the students were asked, “What do you typically do when you

procrastinate?” The students were able to check multiple answers for this question. 78%

answered “Social Media”, 75% answered “Netflix”, 71% answered “Nap/Sleep”, 64% answered

“Eat”, 38% answered “Workout”, 31% answered “Other”, and 29% answered “Clean”. Some of

the responses from “Other” were, “video games”, “talk”, and “everything”. This shows that

students have dozens of distractions that can contribute to how much they procrastinate. After,

the students were asked more questions pertaining to their experiences with procrastination

within higher education.

I found this survey to be very interesting because it gave me personal responses to my

questions and different perspectives on my questions. I am now beginning to understand why

students are procrastinating and what is causing it. One of the major reasons why students have

chronic procrastination is because of the hard work that is needed to complete the assignments.

Students these days have been raised in the era where parents are doing everything for their

child. This causes the students to be less independent and cannot do anything on their own.

Therefore, students choose to watch Netflix or sleep instead of completing their assignments.

Just like procrastination, these types of activities give immediate satisfaction with little to no

effort. Because of these reasons, students procrastinate to solve their immediate task but not their

long-term assignments.
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So why did I do all this research in the first place? What was I trying to learn from

surveying college students? I did all of this work to learn about procrastination and its impact on

higher education. From my survey of fifty-five students, I learned that every college student

faces procrastination in one way or another. My predisposition on this issue was correct after

having done all this research. Procrastination has huge impacts on the way higher education

works and can be detrimental to one’s success. Using the information I have given, students can

resist the temptations of procrastination in hope of being more productive and increasing their

academic grades. But, I feel that procrastination can never be completely eradicated. No matter

how much you try to avoid procrastination, I think that it will always be there tempting you in

some way. But the important decision is whether you or not you give into the temptation or

overcome it and complete your work. I believe procrastination can be even more diminished if

teachers try their best in reducing its effects. When teachers make topic more exciting and

relevant it makes the information easier to understand much easier to complete my work.

In conclusion, if teachers and students work together to provide a positive working

environment then the school will progress as a whole. Teachers can help and encourage students

through their work and provide their best efforts in seeing them succeed. Students can focus on

their work and complete all their assignments as best as they can. Over time, students will

develop good study habits and life skills that can carry over into the real world. Then the school

altogether can grow into well-working, symbiotic system that produces smart, hard-working

individuals.
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Works Cited

Ferrari, Joseph, et al. Procrastination and Task Avoidance. Plenum Press, New York. 1995.

Print.

Swanson, Ana. “The real reason you procrastinate – and how to stop.” The Washington Post, 27

Apr. 2016,https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/04/27/why- you-cant-

help-read-this-article-about-procrastination-instead-of-doing-your-

job/?utm_term=.13583050f43d. Accessed March 2018.

Weimer, Maryellen. “Why Students Procrastinate and What You Can Do About It.” Faculty

Focus, 7 May. 2009, https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/course-design-ideas/why-

students- procrastinate-and-what-you-can-do-about-it/. Accessed March 2018.

Wolters C.A., Corkin D.M. (2012) Procrastination and Learning. In: Seel N.M. (eds)

Encyclopedia of the Sciences of Learning. Springer, Boston, MA. Accessed 11 February

2018. https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-1-4419-1428-6_825.

Oppong, Thomas. “According to Research, Procrastinating Can Boost Your Creativity.” The

Mission, 26 Jan. 2017, https://medium.com/the-mission/this-is-how-procrastinating-can-

boost-your-creativity-according-to-research-84380e512353. Accessed March 2018.