Popular Boards
Luís Araya-Castillo, Mildred Burgos, Patricia González | Behavioral Sciences | (2023)
Key Takeaways
Plain English Takeaway
This paper explains why many university students put off their work and suggests a new way to understand all the reasons behind this habit, so schools can help students do better.
Study Aim
The main goal of this research is to create a new theoretical model that explains why university students procrastinate (delay or avoid tasks). The authors want to identify and organize the different factors that lead students to postpone their academic work. They aim to help universities and policymakers understand these reasons so they can support students more effectively.
Simply put: The study wants to figure out all the main reasons why students put off doing their schoolwork.
Study Design
The researchers first reviewed academic studies from Latin America published between 2008 and 2022 to find out what factors are linked to procrastination in university students. They grouped these factors into six main categories. Then, they created a semi-structured online questionnaire and asked 320 university students in Chile to share what they think causes procrastination. The sample included students from different backgrounds, ages, and study programs. The researchers used the students' answers to check and expand their model, making sure it covers all important areas.
Simply put: The study looked at past research and asked students in Chile why they procrastinate, to build a complete list of reasons.
Findings
The research shows that procrastination in university students is influenced by nine main areas: psychological (like motivation), social (such as family), academic (school-related factors), physiological (body needs), time management (handling schedules), leisure (fun activities), resources (money and materials), labor (work commitments), and environmental (surroundings). The psychological, social, and academic areas are the most important. The authors suggest that universities should consider all these factors when trying to help students avoid procrastination. They also recommend future research to further test and improve this model, and to develop a tool for measuring these factors in students.
Simply put: The study found that many things, especially feelings, family, and school issues, make students procrastinate, and schools should look at all these areas to help.
Abstract
Procrastination is a phenomenon that affects university students and consists of not finishing a task or finishing it late, which has a direct impact on their academic performance. This is relevant because, in a context of high competition, higher education institutions and their decision-makers need to be aware of the factors that influence university students' procrastination in order to implement actions that favor student attraction and retention. Based on the above, this research aims to propose a theoretical model of procrastination in university students, based on the literature review and content validation assessment through a semi-structured questionnaire. The proposed model is made up of nine dimensions: Psychological, Physiological, Social, Academic, Leisure, Time Management, Resources, Labor, and Environmental. Dimensions were obtained based on adequate levels of content validity provided by the literature and the questionnaire. In the future, the research proposes to study the way in which these dimensions are present in procrastination and design a scale that allows for their measurement.
Referenced In
Anatoly Bright
16 days ago
Created: Jun 2, 2026