Document Type : Original Articles
Authors
1 Department of Physical Therapy, School of Rehabilitation Sciences, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran.
2 Rehabilitation Sciences Research Center, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran.
3 Rehabilitation Sciences Research Center, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz , Iran.
4 Physical therapy Department, School of Rehabilitation Sciences, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran.
5 Rehabilitation Sciences of Research Center, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran.
Abstract
Background:Academic procrastination is as an irrational tendency to defer at the beginning or completing an academic task and is reportedly associated with negative emotions, psychological distress, sense of failure, guilt, lower levels of self-regulated learning and self-efficacy and unsatisfactory academic performance. Academic procrastination is a common phenomenon among university students. Therefore, this study was designed to investigate the prevalence of academic procrastination among students of School of Rehabilitation Sciences in Shiraz University of Medical Sciences.
Methods: All of university students (a total of 368), 230 (62.5%) female and 138 (37.5%) males participated voluntarily in the present cross-sectional descriptive study. The participants were undergraduate and postgraduate students from different grade levels enrolled in 5 departments. The mean age of students was 21.66 ± 2.27. To ascertain the prevalence of procrastination, we followed Solomon and Rothblum academic procrastination questionnaire. This questionnaire consists of 27 items which designate to measure three areas: Preparing for exams, preparing assignments and preparation of final paper. We used descriptive, Pearson correlation coefficient, one way ANOVA and independent t-test. P value less than 0.05 was regarded statistically significant.
Results: Two hundred and ninety-seven students answered all questions about procrastination. Of the participants, 44.2% of students claimed to be moderate procrastinators and 54.5% stated they were severing procrastinators. It was shown that 40.9% of males had moderate and 57.3% of them had severe problems with academic procrastination. Moreover, 46% of females had moderate and 52.9% of them exhibited sever procrastinator behaviors. Furthermore, 42.5% of undergraduate students reported a tendency to moderate procrastination and 56% tendency to sever procrastinator behaviors. Moreover, %58.1 of postgraduate had moderate level and 41.9% faced with sever procrastination behaviors. In addition, the results revealed that academic procrastination prevail at all of components among students and was more prevalent in undergraduate students in preparing assignments (P<0.05).
Conclusion: Academic procrastination behaviors was equally prevalent among all educational levels, disciplines and sexes. Students experienced procrastination tendency in all components of academic procrastination. These data may aid institutions in order to developing better intervention techniques to decrease the impact of academic procrastination and increase academic attainments.
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