Teaching Procrastination - A Way of Helping Students to Improve their Study Habits

2012-08-30

• Björn Hedin• KTH Royal Institute of Technology• Media Technology• Stockholm, Sweden• bjornh@kth.se

What is Procrastination

• “Defer action, especially without good reason” (Oxford English Reference Dictionary, 1996).

• “When one delays beginning or completing an intended course of action” (Beswick & Mann, 1994; Ferrari, 1993a; Lay & Silverman, 1996; Milgram, 1991; Silver & Sabini, 1981)

• “To voluntarily delay an intended course of action despite expecting to be worse off for the delay” (Steel 2007)

• Extremely common among students

Why we initiated a project to “teach (about) procrastination”

• Reflection course- Consistently and over several years seen student

reflections on their on studies where they say ”I started to study too late this period, but next period I will start earlier”.

- This leads to cramming strategies rather than spacing learning more evenly over time -> reduced learning

• Own experience of similar behaviour

Procrastination and College Students

• 80%–95% of college students engage in procrastination

• 75% consider themselves procrastinators• 50% procrastinate consistently and problematically• over 95% of procrastinators wish to reduce it• students reporting that it typically occupies over one

third of their daily activities• The figures above appear to be on the rise.

Various studies referenced by Steel (2007)

Causes and Correlates of Procrastination(Steel 2007)

• Task aversiveness • Task delay – temporal discounting• Timing of rewards and punishments• Self-efficacy• Impulsiveness • Self-control• Distractibility • Organization• Achievement motivation

Temporal Motivation Theory

What we have done

• In the same reflection course- Study how widespread the use of new media is when

procrastinating.• E-procrastination• M-procrastination

- Make students • Aware of the problem• Know about its causes and effects• Discuss anti-procrastination strategies

- Do a follow-up of the outcome

Structure of the Procrastination Module

• October 2011: - Introduction to procrastination and cramming using

relatively non-academic texts- Write reflection documents on their own procrastination

and discuss with peers and teachers in small groups- Questionnaires about procrastination habits related to

new media and mobile phones- Standardized procrastination procrastination

questionnaire- Optionally make a ”promise” about changing behaviour

March 2012

• First follow-up• Read and discuss research on procrastination (Steel)• TED video by Matt Cutts on ”Try something new for 30

days” - And find one habit they would like to add to their lives

and one they would like to remove• “Is Google Making us Stupid - What the Internet is

doing to our brains” by Nicholas Carr

• May 2012 – Final follow-up

Results from the questionnaires

• 218 of (about) 227 students answered the questionnaires- 40% women- Evenly spread out over year 1, 2 and 3.

• One standardised procrastination questionnaire• One questionnaire about procrastination and ”new

media”

Irrational Postponing of Actions

There are aspects of my life I postpone even though I know I shouldn't

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

Very Seldom or NeverSeldomSometimesOftenVery Often or Always

Regretting not starting activities earlier

I often regret that I don't start tasks earlier

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

45%

50%

Very Seldom or NeverSeldomSometimesOftenVery Often or Always

Facebook on computers

When I really ought to study I in-stead use Facebook on a computer

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

Very OftenOftenNow and ThenSeldomVery Seldom or NeverDon't use Facebook on computer

Facebook on mobile phones

When I really ought to study I instead use Facebook on a mo-

bile phones

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

Very OftenOftenNow and ThenSeldomVery Seldom or NeverDon't use Facebook on mobile phones

”Other” surfing on computers

When I really ought to study I instead surf on "other" on computers

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

45%

Very OftenOftenNow and ThenSeldomVery Seldom or NeverDon't surf

Email on computers

When I really ought to study I instead use email on a com-

puter

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

Very OftenOftenNow and ThenSeldomVery Seldom or NeverDon't use Email on computers

Email on mobile phones

When I really ought to study I in-stead use email on mobile phones

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

Very OftenOftenNow and ThenSeldomVery Seldom or NeverDon't use email on mobile phones

SMS on mobile phones

When I really ought to study I instead use SMS on mobile phones

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

Very OftenOftenNow and ThenSeldomVery Seldom or NeverDon't use SMS on mobile phones

Summary of e-procrastination and m-procrastination

• The three top e-procrastination activities, where students often or very often, against better judgement, engage in other activities on computers- 54.6% Other surfing on computers- 54.1% Film/TV/DVD etc on computer- 52.3% Facebook on computers

• Top m-procrastination activities- 50.4% SMS on mobile phones- 28.9% Email on mobile phones- 24.8% Facebook on mobile phones

• 88% engage in at least one e-procrastination category often or very often, with an average of 4.7 categories.

Some thoughs about this

• Most activities listed was hardly a problem 10 years ago- Facebook, Youtube didn’t exist- Few had computers constantly connected to Internet- Smartphones didn’t exist

• Notification ”features” on smartphones allows students to be distracted and start procrastinating anywhere, anytime

• Computers are used extensively for learning, and Facebook is but one click away

Follow-up at the end of the course module

• 38% saw procrastination as a big or very big problem.• The effect of the course module was followed up more

closely for this groups.- About 1/3 had not changed their habits as a result of the

course module- About 1/3 had changed their habits in some positive way,

but not to the extent they had wanted- About 1/3 had changed their habits much in a positive

way.

Some comments from students

• Increased awareness of procrastination.- They now identify when they procrastinate which makes

it easier to stop procrastinating- But also increased stress if they don’t stop

• ”I am not alone!”- Knowing it is a common problem made them feel better.

• Some of the anti-procrastination strategies discussed worked well, but they soon forgot about them and fell into old habits

Some anti-procrastination strategies used/developed by students

• Organisational- Eat the frog: Do your most unpleasant task first- Time-boxing- Don’t break the chain

• Technical- Turn of notifications on their iPhones- Start using non-distraction software such as Anti-Social,

Freedom, Self-Restraint, StayFocusd- Make special ”parent-mode” accounts for themselves on

their computers with features turned off- Study in places with no wi-fi- One student sold his smart-phone and bought a dumb-

phone instead!

Conclusions and advice

• Many student improved their study habits! • Skills useful not only for learning but for life gained.

As a teacher• Frequent deadlines in courses• Think about policies about allowing laptop/mobiles on

lectures?

Student responsibility and reminders