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Academic Procrastination: Associations with Personal, School, and Family Variables

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2013

Pedro Rosário ,
Marta Costa ,
José Carlos Núñez ,
Julio González-Pienda ,
Paula Solano  and
Antonio Valle
Pedro Rosário*
Affiliation:
Universidade do Minho (Portugal)
Marta Costa
Affiliation:
Universidade do Minho (Portugal)
José Carlos Núñez
Affiliation:
Universidad de Oviedo (Spain)
Julio González-Pienda
Affiliation:
Universidad de Oviedo (Spain)
Paula Solano
Affiliation:
Universidad de Oviedo (Spain)
Antonio Valle
Affiliation:
Universidad de A Coruña (Spain)
*
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to: Pedro Rosario. Universidade do Minho, Departamento de Psicología, Campus de Gualtar, P-4710 Braga (Portugal). E-mail: prosario@iep.uminho.p
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Abstract

Procrastination is a common behavior, mainly in school settings. Only a few studies have analyzed the associations of academic procrastination with students' personal and family variables. In the present work, we analyzed the impact of socio-personal variables (e.g., parents' education, number of siblings, school grade level, and underachievement) on students' academic procrastination profiles. Two independent samples of 580 and 809 seventh to ninth graders, students attending the last three years of Portuguese Compulsory Education, have been taken. The findings, similar in both studies, reveal that procrastination decreases when the parents' education is higher, but it increases along with the number of siblings, the grade level, and the underachievement. The results are discussed in view of the findings of previous research. The implications for educational practice are also analyzed.

La procrastinación es un comportamiento muy frecuente, sobre todo entre la población escolar. Pocos estudios han analizado las relaciones entre la procrastinación académica y variables personales y familiares. En este trabajo analizamos el impacto de variables socio-personales tales como la escolaridad de la madre y del padre, el número de hermanos, el curso y el fracaso escolar evaluado a través del número de cursos suspensos utilizando ANOVAS en dos muestras independientes de 580 y 809 sujetos de los 3 primeros cursos de Enseñanza Secundaria Obligatoria (ESO). Los datos, similares en los dos estudios, revelan que la procrastinación decrece con el aumento de escolaridad de la madre y del padre, pero incrementa con el número de hermanos, el curso en ESO y el fracaso escolar. Los resultados son discutidos en función de los hallazgos de las investigaciones previas. Se analizan las implicaciones para la práctica educativa.

Keywords

academic procrastinationsocio-family variablesadolescentsprocrastinación académicavariables socio-familiaresadolescentes
Type
Research Article
Information
The Spanish Journal of Psychology , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , May 2009 , pp. 118 - 127
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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