DOI:10.6129/CJP.202212_64(4).0001
Chinese Journal of Psychology 2022, Vol.64, No.4, 413-446

Back on Track: Why and How College Students Terminate Academic Procrastination

Kun-Lin Tsai(Department of Psychology, National Taiwan University), Li-Li Huang(Department of Psychology, National Taiwan University)

Abstract 

This paper investigated why and how college students terminate academic procrastination and materialize the idea of terminating procrastination. Three separate studies were conducted. The first research is a pilot study that adopted the questionnaire survey approach to collect data from 123 participants who have enrolled in college degree programs. Results show that almost all of the respondents have the experience of terminating academic procrastination. The reasons include “There is not much time left,” “I could not be in such a slump,” “Continued procrastination would have led to unfavorable results in the future,” “The expectations of significant others regarding my performance” and “Reflections on past procrastination experiences.” The second research took a qualitative approach. It used the possible reasons for terminating procrastination from the first research to conduct focus interviews with 16 individuals. After comparing the procrastination phase and the termination of procrastination phase, it is demonstrated that: at the termination of the procrastination phase, interviewees showed more self-awareness, including introspection of their motivations to take action and becoming concerned about significant others’ opinion of themselves. In terms of their perspective on time, the interviewees shifted away from present hedonism to future time perspective. With regard to their state of mind, they shifted away from fixed mindset to growth mindset. Also, interviewees indicated that they were able to inhibit distractions, and concepts such as hard work would lead to fruitful ends or to strive as much as one is able could help them transform notions of terminating procrastination into real action. In the third research, a quasi- -experiment was conducted, targeting 627 participants who have enrolled in college degree programs. They were assigned short essay readings. Results show that the sense of the public self-consciousness, present hedonism, and fixed mindset cannot terminate procrastination, but the sense of private self-consciousness, future time perspective, and growth mindset can terminate procrastination. When an individual’s sense of private self-consciousness, future time perspective, and growth mindset increases, the likelihood to inhibit distraction, and concepts such as hard work would lead to fruitful ends or maximum dedication tend to take shape, leading to the likelihood of the individual to take real action.

Keywords: future time perspective, growth mindset, private self-consciousness, public self-consciousness, terminate procrastination