Republic of the Philippines

Philippine Women’s College of Davao

Senior High School Unit
University Avenue, Matina, Davao City

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Students’ Perspective on Academic Procrastination
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In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements in
(Practical Research 1)

Ricky Awitin Julianne Balmaceda Jandel Dealino Wella Emano

Francesca Malubay Ryan Patlingrao Jasper Perez Raihana Ugalingan

Grade 11 Independence

Presented to:

ASLEYA B. SAROSUNG, LPT

Practical Research 1 Adviser

March 15, 2019

 Chapter I

INTRODUCTION

This chapter presents the background of the study, the statement of the problem,

the significance of the study, the scope and limitation of the study, and the definition of

terms. 

Background of the Study

Procrastination is a behavior in which you later set aside a task when you should

have done it before. This becomes a habit when you wait to do things in the last minute

(Gocotano, 2018). Procrastination in academic settings is a common, widespread

problem (Zacks and Hen, 2018). According to Kandemir (2014), academic

procrastination behavior among students is quite common. Nowadays, procrastination

has become a common practice in people's daily lives. (Belmonte & Aquino, 2019).

Meija (2017) claims that the, “Manana Habit”, synonymous with the Philippine

phrase “mamaya na”, is just another term for procrastination. People say things like, “I’ll

start on Monday” or “it can wait for a couple more days”, and wait until the right time

comes to start doing things what needs to be done. Cherry (2019) claims that we often

assume that some work will not take as long to complete as it really does, which may

lead to a false expectation when we believe that we still have plenty of time to complete

these tasks.

Some studies have shown that procrastination does not involve time

management problems alone, but it also involves emotional, cognitive and behavioral

components. Some researchers believe that procrastination is a cognitive issue;

therefore, procrastination is based primarily on irrational thoughts and false beliefs

about the conditions and outcomes of activities (Jahangir et al., 2017).

According to Mandap (2016) from Bulacan State University, fear of failure is

linked to low self - confidence where people delay tasks because of fear or belief that

they cannot do it. Despite the difficulty of working, students with high confidence can

somehow respond positively to academic challenges. Also, perfectionism has been

found to correlate positively with procrastination (Reynolds, J., 2015).

According to Gocotano (2018), procrastination is a behavior in which you later

set aside a task when you should have done it before. This becomes a habit when you

wait to do things in the last minute. This is evident in many ways. Students submit their

homework late although they have had plenty of time to do so or when their friends ask

them to do something on weekends, they usually do not respond immediately. Students

do this only when they are reminded. The most common thing is that people come to

meetings late, although they have prepared enough time to get ready.

Practically, procrastination does not always have a negative impact on task

performance effectiveness. There is a probability that not all procrastination leads tO

negative effects (Choi & Chu, 2005). Articles on academic procrastination state a lot of

negative correlations with life however, but it should always occur in our minds that

there might be some positive aspects about it.

Statement of the Problem

Specifically this study aims to answer the following questions:

 1) What are the perspectives of students towards academic

procrastination?

2) What causes the students to procrastinate?

3) How does academic procrastination affect their lives?

4) What are the advantages of academic procrastination?

Significance of the Study

This study focuses on the students’ perspective on procrastination. The result of

this present study is beneficial to the following:

Students. Since procrastination is rampant to students, the result of the study

will help them be aware of the advantages and disadvantages of procrastination. Also,

the result of the study would help students be more cautious of it.

Parents. Parents are the ones responsible in terms of disciplining their children,

it involves monitoring the works and deeds of their children in school, the results of the

study enable them to help their children manage time and also participate in the study of

their children.

Teachers. This study will help them know what procrastination is, as

procrastination is also present at work. Also, the results of the study will make them

improve the quality of task they will be giving to their students.

Future Researchers. If the future researchers want to conduct a study on

procrastination, this study will serve as one of their foundations. The results of the study

will also help them to gain more knowledge about procrastination, in which they can use

it more vaguely in society for future research purposes.

Scope and Limitation of the Study

This study focuses on the perspectives of students towards academic

procrastination. This study also focuses on the perspective, causes, advantages,

disadvantages and how it affects their lives. of academic procrastination. The target

respondents of this study are 7 Senior High School students of Philippine Women’s

College of Davao in STEM strand.

Definition of Terms

The following term/s are defined in accordance to its use in this study:

Procrastination. An action of delaying a task that needs to be accomplished.

Academic Procrastination. Refers to delaying any academic task or failure to

finish assigned tasks within allotted time.

Procrastinators. Someone who knows what he or she should do but chooses

not do it yet.

Mañana Habit. Known as “tomorrow” in English, the habit encourages

procrastination, an ability Filipinos have.

 Chapter 2

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDIES

This chapter presents the reviews of the literature and studies related to the present

study.

Procrastination

According to Babauta (2014) we all procrastinate, and by little or large, within

ourselves we all know the answer to our procrastination. He put off writing this article by

giving examples such as doing small tasks. The tasks were less important and he knew

it, but it was easy to do. He honestly know the solutions, he states that we should clarify

what task is the most important, set aside everything but this more important task, give

motivations for this task, break it down into something smaller and easier if difficulty is

felt.

Pychyl (2017) states that procrastination is a puzzle, he theorizes as stated on

his book Solving the Procrastination Puzzle:  A Concise Guide to Strategies for Change.

Knowing that answer to its problem means know how it functioned in the first place.

Pychyl gives importance to four typical beliefs about procrastination which includes

ourselves, the task, the way we think and our lack of willpower. He also argues that

procrastination is something we know.

One of his works shows a typical successories-type poster that states that hard

work often pays off after time, but laziness always pays off now. While Pychyl does not

use unnecessary language like “laziness,” but he does give attention that

procrastination results from ideas about short- versus long-term matter. We want to feel

good, right now, which is a drive common to everyone. The next selection reads that if
the job’s worth doing, it will still be worth doing tomorrow and the notion of the “future

self” plays a role that ‘you’ of tomorrow who still has to face the work your present self

puts off Pychyl also talks about you. What are we doing to ‘future self?’. If we can just

bring future self into a positive spot, often times the procrastination may go away.

Cichowski (2017) asserts that we may remember those all-nighters, cramming to

get a paper done that is due the very next day. There is month to do it, but there were

other things to do, like cleaning your room, combing your dog's hair, organizing your

files collection according. Everything will seem to be more important than that school

task. She also stated that if this sounds like something we have done, then we might

just be a world-class procrastinator. But don't be too quick to judge our procrastination

tendencies as a flaw. There are some studies that says that procrastinating is

beneficial. According to Cichowski, if you have done procrastination, you may just be

doing something right. The ways of procrastinating that can help you be a better person,

according to Cichowski are; you are not letting anything or anyone control over you, you

actually get something done such as small tasks, you end up being satisfied when you

learn how to manage difficulties, you will learn new things, you may receive less stress,

you may learn that procrastinating may lead to effective ways.

Grant (2016) explores the correlation between performance and procrastination

habits, Jihae Shin, one of his former students, now a professor at the University of

Wisconsin, conducted an experiment. Shin asked participants to generate new business

ideas. Some started right away, others were given five minutes to first play

Minesweeper or Solitaire. Everyone passed their ideas, and evaluators rated how

original they were. The result were, procrastinators’ ideas were rated as 28 percent
more creative. Grant wrote that when people played games before being told about the

task, there was no increase in creativity. It was only when they first learned about the

task and then put it off that they considered more novel ideas. It turned out that

procrastination encouraged different thoughts towards the participants. So how might

you leverage procrastination to surface your best ideas? The approach depends on

whether you're an avid procrastinator or the opposite: a precrastinator.

In ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics explain that years ago 1400 B.C., human

struggled with basic time management. Leprohon, an Egyptologist at the University of

Toronto, states that a hieroglyphic that reads stop putting off work and allow us to go

home in 2 good time as cited in Konnikova back in 2014. Six hundred years later, in 800

B.C., a Greek poet named Hesiod state that, do not put your work off till tomorrow and

the day after, for a tardy worker does not earn, nor one who puts off his work.

According to Clear (2018) For centuries, human beings have procrastinated. In

fact, the problem is so timeless that ancient Greek philosophers such as Socrates and

Aristotle have developed a word to describe this kind of behavior: Akrasia. Akrasia is

the state in which you act against your better judgment. While you know you should do

something else, it's when you do other things. Loosely translated, Akrasia can be said to

be procrastination or a lack of self - control. According to Clear, procrastination is the

delay or postponement of a task or task set. So, whether you're referring to it as

procrastination or akrasia or anything else, it's the force that prevents you from doing

what you're going to do.

 According to Serendip (2018), it is universally common to students at college that

it is a bad habit to procrastinate. Serendip said that he, himself, became victim of this

"habit," and that provoked him to go on a mission to search for the causes of

procrastination. The results of his findings have been discussions about whether

procrastination is biological or psychological in fact. There is a convincing evidence for

both perspectives with the same question - why are college students and people of all

ages procrastinating?

Shatz (2019) said that people often mistakenly assume that procrastination is

simply caused lack of dedication, but in reality there are a lot of reasons why people

procrastination. Shatz said that there are a lot of reasons why people intend to

procrastinate, it may be because they are too focused on their goals, goals that seem to

be too distant, they overestimate the abilities that they have, or it when someone does

not just care about their future. He stated some possible reasons of procrastination like

indecisiveness, overwhelming feelings, anxiety, task aversion, perfectionism, fear of

negative evaluation, or fear of failure, people also procrastinate. People procrastinate

due to events that make them out of control, or they do not feel the necessity to do such

thing, when they do not have the motivation to do it, or due to depression. There are

many reasons why people procrastinate, and a person might procrastinate for any

number of them.
References:

Belmonte, R. & Aquino, L. (2019)

Aftermath of Procrastination on the Academic Performances of Senior High

School Students in Universidad de Manila

https://www.academia.edu/37627910/Aftermath_of_Procrastination_on_the_Aca

demic_Performances_of_Senior_High_School_Students_in_Universidad_de_Ma

nila

Cherry, K. (2019)

The Psychology behind Why We Wait until the Last Minute to Do Things -

https://www.verywellmind.com/the-psychology-of-procrastination-2795944

Cichowski, H. (2017)

Studies Suggest People Who Procrastinate May Be Onto Something -

https://aplus.com/a/procrastination-benefits?

no_monetization=true&fbclid=IwAR1FE16zFCoBsxagUaJT7zZSC31Q4a5Kzvg-

nzMHQ76SfXrqjr29z3UKWNY

Choi, J. & Chu, A. (2005)

Rethinking Procrastination: Positive Effects of “Active” Procrastination

Behavior on Attitudes and Performance. The Journal of Social Psychology. -

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/c1b1/f754fd7b9e285529943d8657341413c1c7cf

.pdf

Clear, J. (2018)
 Procrastination: A Scientific Guide on How to Stop Procrastinating

-https://jamesclear.com/procrastination#What%20is%20Procrastination?

Jahangir M., Saeedeh Z., Mohsen D., Omid S., Abbas H.,Gelavizh M., (2017)

Prevalence of Academic Procrastination and Its Association with Metacognitive.

Journal of Medical Education Development -

https://www.academia.edu/36326727/Prevalence_of_Academic_Procrastination_

and_Its_Association_with_Metacognitive

Kandemir, M. (2014)

Reasons of academic procrastination: self- regulation, academic self-efficacy, life

satisfaction and demographics variables. Procedia - Social and Behavioral

Sciences - https://ac.els-cdn.com/S187704281405246X/1-s2.0-

S187704281405246X-main.pdf?_tid=9d90724e-826d-41f6-8979-

5f23098f27f5&acdnat=1552557158_fc51349b559f1a4b7b8f19e4831c4588

Mandap, C. (2016)

Examining gender differences in statistics anxiety among college students.

International Journal of Education and Research. -

http://www.ijern.com/journal/2016/June-2016/31.pdf

Meija, A. (2017)

How to stop 'Mañana habit' from taking over your life

https://www.rappler.com/brandrap/health-and-self/164909-stop-manana-habit-

health-fitness

President and Fellows of Harvard College (2017–2018)

 The Perks of Procrastination - https://www.extension.harvard.edu/professional-

development/blog/perksprocrastination?

fbclid=IwAR2i7z60hpViY74SYxwzNP3w9Gh99M_AWyCalxIjNY59hihPV9NY15k

AQY

Savithri, J. (2014)

Interactive Effect of Academic Procrastination and Academic Performance on

Life Satisfaction - https://www.ijsr.net/archive/v3i3/MDIwMTMxMTUz.pdf

Shatz (2018)

Why People Procrastinate: The Psychology and Causes of Procrastination -

https://solvingprocrastination.com/why-people-procrastinate/

Serendip (2018)

Procrastination: Habit or Disorder?

-https://serendipstudio.org/bb/neuro/neuro02/web1/jmaryasis.html

SunStar Publishing Inc. (2018)

Y-Speak: Procrastination at its peak - sunstar.com.ph/article/1503175?

fbclid=IwAR0YFRrTr47QDsLjqLVQYW2q4VZ98r-

sTfKxL02RohfARjihg7_f5kpNDNA

Zacks, S. & Hen, M. (2018)

Academic interventions for academic procrastination: A review of the literature. -

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10852352.2016.1198154?

src=recsys