Academic Procrastination: The Perspective of University Counsellors
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Academic Procrastination: The Perspective of University Counsellors Justine Patrzek & Carola Grunschel & Stefan Fries
Published online: 9 May 2012 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012
Abstract The purpose of this study was to investigate the antecedents and consequences of academic procrastination in students who frequent university counselling in regard to this issue. To undertake this, semi-structured interviews with 12 experienced university counsellors in German universities were conducted. A qualitative content analysis resulted in two category systems—antecedents and consequences. Whereas the antecedents were differentiated into nine categories and 30 themes, the consequences were differentiated into 10 categories and 20 themes. The findings indicated that the antecedents and consequences were largely a reflection of the students’ characteristics, their personal and learning situations, and the university environment. A layer model is discussed as a heuristic model for future research and for university counselling services. Keywords Academic procrastination . University counsellors . University counselling services
Introduction Academic procrastination is defined as intentionally postponing academic tasks “despite expecting to be worse off” (Steel 2007, p. 66). For example, students procrastinate when they intend to work on a university assignment, such as writing an essay, but do not follow through with this intention and pursue other activities instead, such as watching television. A vast number of university students procrastinate (Schouwenburg 1995), and many of these students experience negative consequences to their well-being and their academic success (Tice and Baumeister 1997). It is not surprising that academic procrastination is the most pressing personal concern for which students indicate they need help (Gallagher et al. 1992). Many university counselling services react to this trend by offering intervention programmes to help students overcome academic procrastination (Schouwenburg et al. 2004). J. Patrzek (*) : C. Grunschel : S. Fries Department of Psychology, University of Bielefeld, P.O. Box 10 01 31, Bielefeld 33501, Germany e-mail: [email protected]
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Int J Adv Counselling (2012) 34:185–201
To offer effective intervention programmes, a thorough understanding of the patterns behind academic procrastination is necessary (Ferrari 1995). Investigating the antecedents and consequences of this phenomenon is essential as these antecedents and consequences serve to either trigger or maintain the behaviour. Although research has been conducted on the antecedents and consequences of academic procrastination (e.g., Steel 2007; van Eerde 2003), most studies have used convenience sampling without considering whether the investigated students were coping with their procrastinatory behaviour (non-client sample) or whether they were concerned about it and had sought help to overcome it (client sample). There is evidence, however, that the patterns behind academic procrastinati
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