Psychological Trait of Unintentional Procrastination Relating to Experience of Academic Motivation

Psychological Trait of Unintentional Procrastination Relating to Experience of Academic Motivation in Undergraduate Psychology Students

Abstract

The correlation between Unintentional Procrastination and Experience related to Academic Resilience was studied using a questionnaire on Self-efficacy for Academic Achievement, Academic Resilience, Unintentional Procrastination and Academic Motivation. Using the two variables of Unintentional Procrastination and Academic Resilience, the correlation between the two variables were studied in 100 Undergraduate Psychology students. The results indicated that there is a weak, negative correlation between unintentional procrastination and academic resilience among undergraduate students. The students scored highly in academic resilience and poorly in unintentional procrastination.

Introduction

The study uses the variable Academic Resilience and Unintentional Procrastination and seeks to understand the relationship between these two variables.

Martin and Marsh (2006) examined the educational and psychological correlates of academic resilience, using a sample of 402 high school students in Australia. The study used network validity correlation, path analysis and cluster analysis to highlight the factors that predict academic resilience - this includes self-efficacy, control, planning, low anxiety and persistence. A 5C model has been proposed for academic resilience - confidence, coordination, control, composure and commitment.

Academic resilience comes with commitment or persistence, with coordination of one's plans, composure and confidence in one's academic abilities. Academic resilience also leads to three psychological outcomes - enjoyment of school, class participation and general self-esteem. Zimmerman, Martinez-Pons and Bandura (1992) discussed the causal role of self-efficacy beliefs among students that could help with personal goal setting and academic achievements. A path model of self-motivation variables predicted students' final grades and influenced the academic goals that students set for themselves, as well as their academic achievements. Prior grades are often predictive of goal setting and could provide the essential pretext for self-motivation. Fernie et al. (2017) argued that procrastination is the postponement or delay of a task that is often a direct result from a failure of self-regulation.

Procrastination can be intentional or unintentional (Seo, 2013) and the authors (Fernie et al, 2017) tried to develop a scale to measure unintentional procrastination, to test whether unintentional procrastination is a stronger marker for psychopathology than intentional and general procrastination. They used a sample of 139 participants who completed a questionnaire on unintentional procrastination and responses were subject to components analysis and assessment of internal consistency. A further sample of 155 community participants completed the measures of general and intentional procrastination, metacognitiond about procrastination and negative affect. The unintentional procrastination was validated using correlation and regression analysis. A six item unintentional procrastination questionnaire was shown to possess construct and divergent validity and internal consistency. The authors concluded that unintentional procrastination is a stronger marker of psychopathology than preexisting measures of procrastination (Fernie et al, 2017). Results from the regression analysis show that there is a significant difference between general, intentional and unintentional procrastination. Unintentional procrastination has strong association with negative affect suggesting it is a valuable psychological measure and research tool.

Method

This is a correlational study using the two measured variables of unintentional procrastination and academic resilience among undergraduate students. The data provided insights on the correlation between the two variables studied in this analysis - unintentional procrastination and academic resilience. The survey or questionnaire method was used in this case and the data was scored using SPSS to determine the correlation between the two variables - unintentional procrastination and academic resilience among 100 undergraduate students.

Design

The study is a survey design and the questionnaire was sent to over 120 undergraduate psychology students. The students were between 18-45 years of age and identified themselves as male, female, non-binary and pangender. They completed the survey online and the responses from 100 questionnaires were scored on a table for each of the four variables. There were several questions for each variable and the answers for each question were scored on a scale 1-7, with 1 representing strongly disagree and 7 representing strongly agree. The two variables considered here are Unintentional Procrastination and Academic Resilience.

There are six statements to which the participants agreed or disagreed for Unintentional Procrastination using a scale of 1-4, in which 1 is "do not agree" and 4 is "agree very much".
The second variable is Academic Resilience and the statements for measuring this variable are on mental toughness, study stress, schoolwork pressures, confidence levels and setbacks at school. For all the above six statements, a score of 1 is strongly disagree and a score of 7 is strongly agree.

Participants

The participants directly involved in this study are undergraduate students of psychology, mostly 18-21 years of age , although a few students are above 40 years. Both male and female students participated in the study, although a few claimed to be nonbinary or pangender. Although the participants completed the entire questionnaire with four variables, only two of these variables were considered for analysis. The participants completed the questionnaire online and submitted them online. In some cases, questionnaires were sent by email and returned to the sender after completion.

Materials

The materials used for this study are the survey or online questionnaire which was constructed before conducting the study. Materials also included computers, mobile phone or such similar devices, email messaging system, internet for students' access to the survey and computational tools and software such as MS excel, SPSS and Microsoft Word Document software.

Procedure

Data was collected from a sample of 100 undergraduate students who answered questions on unintentional procrastination and issues with academic motivation. The questionnaires presented to the students are on unintentional procrastination scale, self-efficacy for academic achievement, academic resilience and academic motivation scale (Cavusoglu. & Karatas, 2015). The unintentional procrastination scale has six questions, the self efficacy for academic achievement scale had nine questions, Academic resilience scale had 6 questions and academic motivation scale had 14 questions. The questionnaire was sent to over 120 participants by emails and finally 100 completed questionnaires were scored and tabulated.

Ethics

The participants were advised to sign the legal document of informed consent and were aware that they were being studied for procrastination, motivation and other psychological factors. The participants' explicit consent or agreement was obtained before beginning the study.

Results

The results showed that considering the two variables of unintentional procrastination and academic resilience, there was a negative correlation between these two factors. This means when there is an increased level of unintentional procrastination or delay of academic work, there is an expected decrease in academic resilience and when there is increased academic resilience, the expected level of unintentional procrastination is low among students.

Discussion

Academic resilience or the ability to perform well and the ability to deal with stress tend to decrease when there is an increased level of unintentional procrastination and increases when procrastination is low. In this study, when the values of the X and Y variables are considered (Creswell, 2003)- unintentional procrastination or X variable has a mean value of 2 with â^'(X - Mx)2 = SSx = 20. This means most students disagreed that they procrastinated and did not get tasks completed on time. Y Values have a Mean = 5.05, which means most students agreed that they have high academic resilience.

â^'(Y - My)2 = SSy = 30.95. X and Y

Combined value is â^'(X - Mx)(Y - My) = -5.

Correlation or R Calculation is as follows:

r = â^'((X - My)(Y - Mx)) / â^š((SSx)(SSy))

r = -5 / â^š((20)(30.95)) = -0.201.

Meta Numerics (cross-check) r = -0.201. The R or correlation coefficient is -0.201. Although technically a negative correlation, the relationship between the variables is weak.

It is possible to conclude that academic resilience when high in students would also predict blow unintentional procrastination as these two variables are negatively correlated, despite the fact that this correlation is weak. The P-Value is .044937. This means that the result is significant at p < .05, and the correlation between the variables unintentional procrastination and academic resilience is negative.

References

Cavusoglu, C. & Karatas, H. (2015) Academic Procrastination of Undergraduates: Self-determination Theory and Academic Motivation, The Anthropologist, 20:3, 735-743,

Creswell, J. W. (2003). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed method approaches. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Fernie, B. A. Bharucha, Z., Nikcˇevic, A.V. and Spada, M. M. The Unintentional Procrastination Scale. Journal of Rat-Emotional Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (2017) 35:136-149.

Martin, A.J. and Marsh, H.V. (2006). Academic Resilience and it's Psychological and Educational Correlates: A Construct Validity Approach. Psychology in the Schools. 43(3), 267-281. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Seo, E.H. (2013). A Comparison of Active and Passive Procrastination in Relation to Academic Motivation. Social Behavior and Personality: an international journal, 41, 5, pp. 777-786(10).

Weathington BL, Cunningham CJ, Pittenger DP (2010). Research Methods for the Behavioral and Social Sciences. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Zimmerman, B.J. Bandura, A. and Martinez-Pons, M. (1992). Self-Motivation for Academic Attainment: The Role of Self-Efficacy Beliefs and Personal Goal Setting. American Educational Research Journal, 29, 3, pp. 663-676.

APPENDICES

Appendix A:

X - Mx
Y - My
(X - Mx)2
(Y - My)2
(X - Mx)(Y - My)

Result Details & Calculation

X Values
Mean = 2
â^'(X - Mx)2 = SSx = 20

Y Values
Mean = 5.05
â^'(Y - My)2 = SSy = 30.95

X and Y Combined
â^'(X - Mx)(Y - My) = -5

R Calculation
r = â^'((X - My)(Y - Mx)) / â^š((SSx)(SSy))

r = -5 / â^š((20)(30.95)) = -0.201

Meta Numerics (cross-check)
r = -0.201

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