Academic Procrastination and the Effect on Students' Results for ICT Students

Abstract

Procrastination has been reported as a prevalent phenomenon in the general population, affecting a number of adults. Procrastination in academia may have particularly serious effects for students in tertiary education, whose academic lives are characterised by frequent deadlines. Indeed, it has been shown that university students who rated high on procrastination received low grades (Tice & Baumeister, 1997). In the present study, the relationship between procrastination and academic performance of tertiary education students enrolled on an ICT program was investigated. Participants were 186 students enrolled full-time on degree or diploma level qualifications within the ICT program at a New Zealand tertiary institution. There was evidence that the submission times of assessments were positively associated with the marks achieved. Also, ICT students who submitted their assessments early appeared to achieve higher marks than those who submitted their assessments closer to or after the deadlines.