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 Author's personal copy

J. of Acc. Ed. 27 (2009) 223–232

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

J. of Acc. Ed.
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jaccedu

Main article

Early Birds versus Just-in-Timers: The effect of

procrastination on academic performance of accounting
students
Aliza Rotenstein a,⇑, Harry Z. Davis b,1, Lawrence Tatum b,2
a
Sy Syms School of Business, Yeshiva University, 215 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States
b
Zicklin School of Business, Baruch College, 1 Bernard Baruch Way, New York, NY 10010, United States

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Keywords: This study investigates the effect of procrastination on academic

Procrastination performance. Prior research has often relied upon self-reported
Accounting students measures of procrastination, which are only weakly correlated
Academic performance
with actual procrastination. We use the start and submission of a
set of online homework problems as two objective, direct mea-
sures of student procrastination and the grade on the assignments
as a measure of performance. In our study, there were a number of
potential benefits to submitting online assignments ‘just-in-time’.
Thus, there was a direct benefit to procrastination, which students
had to weigh against potential drawbacks. With a sample size lar-
ger than those previously reported in the literature, we find that for
both procrastination measures, task procrastination is associated
with lower task performance. To ensure that our results are not
just an association between performance and student quality, we
test for the association between task procrastination and task per-
formance, while controlling for student quality. We find that even
after controlling for student quality, task procrastination is associ-
ated with lower task performance.
Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 917 326 4838.

E-mail addresses: arotenst@yu.edu (A. Rotenstein), Harry.Davis@baruch.cuny.edu (H.Z. Davis), Lawrence.Tatum@baruch.
cuny.edu (L. Tatum).
1
Tel.: +1 646 312 3194.
2
Tel.: +1 646 312 3381.

0748-5751/$ - see front matter Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jaccedu.2010.08.001
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224 A. Rotenstein et al. / J. of Acc. Ed. 27 (2009) 223–232

1. Introduction

Procrastination affects virtually everyone to some degree. It involves knowing that a task must be
performed, yet intentionally failing to motivate oneself to carry out the task within the desired time
frame (Ackerman & Gross, 2005). Academic procrastination is student delay in studying or completing
academic assignments (Rothblum, Solomon, & Murakami, 1986; Solomon & Rothblum, 1984).
Prior literature explores the link between academic procrastination and academic performance.
Many studies find that academic procrastination is negatively related to academic performance. How-
ever, other studies fail to find any association. Many of these studies use self-reported measures of
procrastination by constructing a scale based on student responses to a procrastination questionnaire.
These self-reported measures are often weak measures of actual procrastination.
This paper contributes to the literature by using a large and unique dataset to objectively assess aca-
demic procrastination without the use of indirect measures. The dataset provides objective measures of
both academic procrastination and academic performance. The study examines the association between
procrastination and performance on online homework assignments in a graduate-level accounting class.
Using two procrastination measures, when a student starts and when a student finishes an assignment,
we find a significant negative correlation between academic procrastination and academic performance.
A weakness of findings in the literature is that student quality may be an omitted variable. It is pos-
sible that better students do better academically and also do not procrastinate, while weaker students
do worse academically and also procrastinate. As a further contribution to the literature, our paper
controls for student quality to ensure that we capture the association between procrastination and
performance, not the association between student quality and performance. Our results hold even
after we control for student quality.
The following section presents a review of prior literature. Section 3 provides hypotheses, including
a theoretical discussion of the benefits and costs of procrastination. Section 4 outlines the research
methodology, Section 5 presents results and analysis, and Section 6 concludes.

2. Literature review

Previous literature reports mixed evidence on the effect of academic procrastination on academic
performance. Since much of the literature relies on procrastination scales, a brief discussion of the topic
is warranted. The Procrastination Assessment Scale – Students (PASS), first introduced by Solomon and
Rothblum (1984), is a questionnaire that students complete to measure their procrastination. However,
the relationship between PASS scores and observed procrastination is weak. Solomon and Rothblum
(1984) find that for their significant variables, correlations are between 0.19 and 0.28. As they them-
selves note (p. 506), ‘‘this correlation is relatively low.” In a similar analysis, Rothblum et al. (1986) re-
port a correlation of 0.15. Owens and Newbegin (1997) obtain correlations of 0.22 and 0.35, and
Beswick, Rothblum, and Mann (1988) find correlations of 0.36 and 0.23. Finally, using a similarly-con-
structed scale developed by Lay (1986), Tice and Baumeister (1997) document correlations between
self-reported measures of academic procrastination and actual procrastination of 0.37 and 0.45.
The weak correlations imply that using a procrastination scale will bias against finding a significant
relationship between actual procrastination and performance.
Table 1 summarizes prior studies on the effect of academic procrastination on academic perfor-
mance. For each study, the table briefly identifies the sample size, the procrastination measure, the
performance measure, and the findings.
In summary, some studies find a negative correlation between procrastination and performance;
some studies find no relation. Many of the studies use small sample sizes. Also, many of the studies
use indirect measures of procrastination.

3. Hypotheses

Our study employs a dataset formed using McGraw-Hill’s Homework Manager, a web-based
assessment program. In recent years, web-based assessment has become increasingly common in
Table 1
Studies on the effect of academic procrastination on academic performance.

Study Sample Procrastination measure Performance measure Findings

size
Lloyd and Knutzen 35 Amount of time before students handed in an Course grade Strong negative correlation
(1969) appreciable amount of work in class
Schwartz (1976) 24 Amount of time it took students to complete a Initial quiz grade Better students did not procrastinate
self-paced course
Henneberry (1976) 304 Speed at which students started a personalized Final grade; difference Significant positive correlation; below-average students were
instruction system between the actual and the more adversely affected by procrastination than above-
expected grade average students
Semb, Glick, and 159 Completion of early units of work in the course Performance in course Procrastinators are more likely to do poorly in the course and
Spencer (1977) and 80 more likely to drop the course (descriptive measure only)
Solomon and Rothblum 291 PASS Course grade No correlation
(1984)
Rothblum et al. (1986) 126 How early or late in the course students took GPAs during the semester 0.22 correlation (significant at 0.1%)
quizzes
Lay (1986) 67 Lay’s procrastination scale; the date when an Final exam grade; overall GPA No significant relationship
envelope was mailed
Beswick et al. (1988) 245 PASS; the time when an outline was Outline grade; assignment Correlations between 0.10 and 0.30 (some results
submitted; the time when the actual paper grade; paper grade; course significant at 0.1%)
was submitted grade
Wesley (1994) 244 PASS SAT scores; high school GPAs; No correlation with SAT score; Correlations with high school
college GPAs GPAs: 0.09 for women and 0.25 for men (but not
significant); Correlations with college GPAs: 0.31 for
women and 0.48 for men (significant at 1%)
Owens and Newbegin 418 (1) PASS Course grades in math and (1) Correlations of PASS with the English and math grades:
(1997) English 0.20 and 0.36, respectively
(2) A teacher rating of the procrastination level (2) Correlations of teacher ratings with the English and math
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for each student over the whole term grades: 0.54 and 0.74, respectively
A. Rotenstein et al. / J. of Acc. Ed. 27 (2009) 223–232

Tice and Baumeister (1) 44 Lay’s procrastination scale Grades on a term paper and (1) Correlations to term paper and exams: 0.29 and 0.64,
(1997) two exams respectively
(2) 55 (2) Correlations to term paper and exams: 0.26 and 0.66,
respectively
Orpen (1998) 102 Procrastination checklist Score on a standardized final 0.24 Correlation (at 5% significance level)
school exam
Tuckman (1998) 82 Tuckman’s procrastination scale Grade on the final No significant correlation
achievement test
Beck, Koons, and (1) 411 (1) PASS Exam grade (1) High procrastinators studied less; PASS correlated at 3%
Milgrim (2000)
(2) 169 (2) Self-report by students on how much time (2) No significant results (after controlling for SAT scores)
they spent studying in the final 24 hours
before an exam
225
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226 A. Rotenstein et al. / J. of Acc. Ed. 27 (2009) 223–232

introductory accounting courses in college classrooms. Typically, problems and exercises from the
course textbook and associated test bank are integrated into a software program designed by the text-
book publisher. Instructors select questions for each assignment and have the results graded and auto-
matically stored online.
In addition to scoring each of the course assignments, McGraw-Hill’s Homework Manager records
the day and time that each assignment is first downloaded and then submitted by each student.
We define students who start (submit) an assignment well before it is due as ‘Early Birds’ (EB, here-
after) and define students who start (submit) immediately before the assignment due date as ‘Just-in-
Timers’ (JIT, hereafter).
Despite the incentives to students that are generated through the use of technology-based assign-
ments with strict deadlines, the concept of academic procrastination is well known. In a widely quoted
figure, 95% of college students procrastinated (Ellis & Knaus, 1977). In a more recent publication,
Knaus (2002) claims that the habit is so serious that 60% of college students think that professional
help is necessary to overcome it.
Procrastination, though it generally carries a negative connotation, should not necessarily affect
performance. In theory, student performance should depend strictly on the student’s talents and capa-
bilities, not on the proximity to the deadline that the work is performed.
In the present study, there were even a number of possible benefits of procrastination. A JIT sub-
mission had two advantages over an EB submission. First, a JIT student could ask for personal help
and gain insights from an EB student, since an EB student had already been graded and provided with
feedback from the software program and, presumably, had learned from his/her mistakes. Although
the numbers in the algorithmic problems are different for each student, the structure of the problems
is the same for all students, making problems similar enough to enable an EB student to assist a JIT
student.
Second, Homework Manager is occasionally unclear on acceptable formats for answers. For
instance, numbers sometimes have to be rounded to an exact number of decimal points, and lists
sometimes must be submitted in alphabetical order. In this study, when Homework Manager penal-
ized a student for a technical error, the student was encouraged to post a warning on the course
website. For example, a student might post: ‘‘On the list of expenses, be sure to list the expenses
alphabetically.” While a JIT student could benefit from any postings on the course website, an EB
student could not.
Another more general benefit of procrastination is the environment created by an imminent dead-
line. The air of feverish excitement and pressure that results when a deadline looms can, arguably,
enhance performance (Ferrari, 1992; Tice & Baumeister, 1997). In creating this type of intense envi-
ronment, JIT submitters might similarly boost their performance.
Moreover, some view deadlines as the ultimate motivator, without which they cannot perform
effectively (Amabile, DeJong, & Lepper, 1976). Rather than working on a task inefficiently long before
the deadline, waiting until the deadline approaches potentially directs their focus and forces them to
be disciplined and efficient at the task at hand (Tice & Baumeister, 1997). In the present study, it is
possible that JIT students thrive under the pressure that deadlines produce.
On the other hand, potential benefits of procrastination can only accrue if the task eventually gets
completed before the deadline is reached. JIT students run the risk of underestimating the amount of
time they need to complete their assignments, as is often the case in planning (Buehler, Griffin, & Ross,
1994). Performance on an assignment may be adversely affected if procrastination results in inade-
quate effort due to insufficient time (Tice & Baumeister, 1997).
Similarly, unexpected delays may impact the ability of procrastinators to ultimately get the job
done (Tice & Baumeister, 1997). Especially in the case of a technology-based assignment, there is
the chance that a computer failure will impede a student’s ability to finish an assignment. Obviously,
this risk is greater for a JIT student than for an EB student.
Finally, though some students may find the pressure of a deadline invigorating, other students may
be unfavorably affected by the stress of a looming deadline. This is supported by findings in prior stud-
ies documenting negative effects of stress or pressure (Baumeister, 1984; Glass, Singer, & Friedman,
1969). JIT students might similarly experience the effects of stress, thus negatively impacting their
academic performance.
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A. Rotenstein et al. / J. of Acc. Ed. 27 (2009) 223–232 227

The impact of each of the above-described benefits and costs is uncertain. Individual factors may
provide varying degrees of influence on the relationship between procrastination and performance,
and some may even cancel each other out.
In light of the conflicting predictions implied by the various arguments, our null hypothesis is that
procrastination on homework assignments is not associated with academic performance.

H1. Procrastination on online homework assignments has no association with academic performance.

If the null hypothesis is rejected, and there is an association between procrastination and academic
performance, there are two possibilities. A negative association indicates that procrastination hurts
performance, while a positive association indicates that procrastination helps improve performance.
A further concern involves student quality, which plays an essential role in academic performance.
We expect that better students will have higher performance on homework assignments regardless of
their status as EB or JIT students. For instance, if we find that procrastination is negatively associated
with academic performance, it is feasible that the Early Birds in the analysis are simply better students
who did better on the assignments because they are better students, not because of their status as
Early Birds. Conversely, if we find that procrastination is positively associated with academic perfor-
mance, it is possible that the procrastinators did better simply because they are the better students.
We therefore need to control for the variation in student quality in our analysis. This leads to our sec-
ond null hypothesis.

H2. Procrastination on online homework assignments is not associated with academic performance after
controlling for student quality.

Using our classification scheme, a student who starts and submits an assignment as soon as it is
assigned is clearly an Early Bird and a student who starts and submits an assignment just before it
is due is clearly a Just-in-Timer. However, a student who downloads an assignment early, but then
submits it at the last minute, is harder to classify. It is possible that the student did most of the work
right away and then just waited to submit the assignment. On the other hand, it is possible that the
student downloaded the assignment right away, maybe in the hope of doing it soon, but then did not
start work on the assignment until the last minute. Since we have no way of distinguishing between
these two scenarios, we define two measures of procrastination: (a) Start, the number of hours from
when the student downloads the assignment to the assignment due date, and (b) Finish, the number
of hours from when the student submits the assignment to the assignment due date. We ran all our
tests for both procrastination measures.

4. Research methodology

Our subjects were graduate students from three classes of a financial accounting course for non-
accounting majors at a prominent business school. Each of the three classes had about 100 students,
for a combined total of 297 students.3
Seven4 unique assignments were created for each student. At the start of the semester, students were
told that their grades on these homework assignments would constitute 30% of their final course grade,
thus providing motivation to do well on the assignments. In addition, students in these classes had exter-
nal incentives to perform well in the course, since the typical MBA student in this course generally had a
job to maintain and could not afford to do poorly.
The homework assignments were designed to aid students in their understanding of the material
rather than to test student retention. Therefore, students were permitted to use study guides and text-
books for the assignments, and most importantly, they could get assistance from outsiders. Given this
design, students had the ability to do quite well on the assignments.

3
17 students did not complete all the assignments (some dropped out of the course) and were not included in the study.
4
Students were given nine assignments, but the first assignment was dropped, since it was used as a trial run for the program,
and the last assignment was dropped because the last two homeworks were assigned simultaneously.
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228 A. Rotenstein et al. / J. of Acc. Ed. 27 (2009) 223–232

Table 2
Correlations (2051 data points).

Start Finish HGrade CoGrade

Pearson correlation
Start 1.000
Finish 0.583 1.000
HGrade 0.142 0.128 1.000
CoGrade 0.197 0.195 0.271 1.000
Spearman correlation
Start 1.000
Finish 0.576 1.000
HGrade 0.144 0.117 1.000
CoGrade 0.187 0.179 0.281 1.000

HGrade: grade on the specific homework assignment; Start: number of hours between starting assignment and due date;
Finish: number of hours between submitting assignment and due date; CoGrade: course grade for student (excluding the
assignment component).

The assignments were created with a firm deadline. Students were permitted to download and sub-
mit the assignments early, but did not earn additional points for doing so. Immediately upon submis-
sion of a completed assignment, the assignment was graded automatically by the software program,
thus ensuring unbiased grading, and feedback (with regard to the grade and correct answers) was pro-
vided to the student. At the deadline, the software automatically closed and graded all open
assignments.

5. Results and analysis

5.1. The data

The results of the seven assignments were pooled to form one large data set containing 2051 data
points,5 about five times larger than the largest sample reported in the literature. We report four
variables:

HGrade: Grade on the specific homework assignment.

Start: Number of hours between starting assignment and due date.
Finish: Number of hours between submitting assignment and due date.
CoGrade: Course grade for student (excluding the assignment component).

The higher the value of the Start variable, the earlier the student began the assignment. The higher
the value of the Finish variable, the earlier the student submitted the assignment. Since our statistical
tests all use the Start and Finish variables as continuous variables, we did not have to define arbitrary
cut-off points for Early Birds and Just-in-Timers. Early Birds have relatively higher Start or Finish
times; they started or finished the assignment long before it was due. Just-in-Timers have relatively
lower Start or Finish times; they started or finished the assignment just before it was due. The HGrade
is the performance measure used for each assignment. Finally, the CoGrade variable makes it possible
to control for the variation in student quality.
The correlations between the variables are presented in Table 2. The table reports both the
parametric Pearson correlations and the non-parametric Spearman rank correlations. All the correla-
tions are significant at the 0.001 level. The correlation between our two procrastination measures,
Start and Finish, is over 0.57. The high correlation is reassuring, since both variables measure
procrastination.

5
297 students times seven assignments equals 2079 possible data points. However, some students skipped some of the
assignments.
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A. Rotenstein et al. / J. of Acc. Ed. 27 (2009) 223–232 229

The Start and Finish procrastination distributions are long-tailed, as evident in the Exhibit A histo-
grams. For both variables, and especially for the Finish variable, there were many more Just-in-Timers
than Early Birds.6 This confirms Ellis and Knaus (1977) and Knaus (2002) that procrastination is preva-
lent among students.
Exhibit A: Distributions of Start and Finish variables

5.2. Correlation tests

To test our first hypothesis, that procrastination has no association with academic performance, we
examined the correlation of our two procrastination measures, Start and Finish, with our performance
measure, HGrade. If our first null hypothesis is correct, and there is no association between procras-
tination and performance, we expect to find no correlation. If we find a correlation, then there is a rela-
tionship between procrastination and performance and we reject the null hypothesis. A positive
correlation means that Early Birds (larger Start or Finish variables) scored higher on the homework
assignments and Just-in-Timers (smaller Start or Finish variables) scored lower. Procrastination thus
has a negative effect on performance. A negative correlation means that Early Birds scored lower and
Just-in-Timers scored higher. Procrastination thus has a positive effect on performance.
The first test is for a correlation between Start and HGrade to measure the relationship between
how early an assignment was started and the grade on that specific assignment. As seen in Table 2,
the Pearson correlation is 0.142 (p-value < 0.001). The Spearman (non-parametric) rank correlation
gives a similar value of 0.144 (p-value < 0.001). These results provide robust, statistically significant

6
Transformations toward normality produced little change in the results of the analysis. There was moderate variation between
the assignments. However, transformations to provide stability and a roughly bell-curved appearance produced no meaningful
change in the results of the analysis. Consequently, we report only results for the original data.
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230 A. Rotenstein et al. / J. of Acc. Ed. 27 (2009) 223–232

Table 3
Partial correlation of procrastination measures with performance measure (HGrade), controlling for student quality (CoGrade)
(2051 data points).

Procrastination measure
Start (number of hours between Finish (number of hours between
starting assignment and due date) submitting assignment and due date)
Pearson partial correlation 0.073 0.071
P < 0.002 p < 0.002
Spearman partial rank correlation 0.084 0.060
P < 0.002 p < 0.007

evidence of a rejection of H1 in favor of a positive correlation between Start and HGrade, meaning that
Early Birds tended to get higher scores.
We then tested for a correlation between Finish, our second measure of procrastination, and
HGrade to measure the relationship between how early an assignment was submitted and the grade
on that specific assignment. As seen in Table 2, the Pearson correlation is 0.128 (p-value < 0.001) and
the Spearman rank correlation is 0.117 (p-value < 0.001). This again provides statistically significant
evidence for the alternative hypothesis that Early Birds tended to get higher scores.
In summary, the statistically significant association between Start (Finish) and HGrade implies that
the sooner students started (submitted) their online homework assignments, the better they per-
formed. Conversely, the longer students delayed starting (submitting) their online homework assign-
ments, the worse they performed.
CoGrade is the course grade, excluding the homework assignment component. It is a measure of
student quality independent of homework performance. The correlations (from Table 2) between Co-
Grade and Start (0.197 Pearson, 0.187 Spearman) and between CoGrade and Finish (0.195 Pearson,
0.179 Spearman) are all significant at better than the 0.001 level. This means that better students
started and submitted their homework assignments before weaker students. It is thus possible that
student quality is a hidden causal factor in the above correlation analysis. In other words, maybe bet-
ter students are Early Birds. They do better on an assignment because they are better students, not
because of their status as Early Birds.
To control for this possibility, we tested our second hypothesis, that procrastination has no associ-
ation with academic performance, when controlling for student quality. We examined the partial cor-
relations of procrastination (Start and Finish) with performance (HGrade), controlling for student
quality (CoGrade). Table 3 presents the results.
The Pearson partial correlation between Start and HGrade, adjusted for CoGrade, is 0.073 (p-va-
lue < 0.002), and for the Spearman partial rank correlation, it is 0.084 (p-value < 0.002). Thus, the cor-
relation between procrastination and assignment grade remains after controlling for the variation in
student quality.
With respect to Finish, the second measure of procrastination, the Pearson partial correlation be-
tween Finish and HGrade is 0.071 (p-value < 0.002), when controlling for course grade, and the Spear-
man partial rank correlation is 0.060 (p-value < 0.007). Hence, the correlation between the second
measure of procrastination and assignment grade also remains after controlling for differences in stu-
dent quality.
Taken together, these results allow a rejection of the second null hypothesis, which predicts that
there is no association between procrastination and academic performance, when controlling for stu-
dent quality. Rather, they provide evidence that procrastination has a negative association with aca-
demic performance, even when controlling for student quality.

5.3. Regression

This section presents a further test of our second hypothesis. It uses multiple regression to examine
the relationship between the dependent variable, HGrade, and the independent variables for
procrastination (Start and Finish) and student quality (CoGrade, the control variable). Since the two
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A. Rotenstein et al. / J. of Acc. Ed. 27 (2009) 223–232 231

Table 4
Regression (2051 data points).

Variable Coef St. Error t-Statistic p-Value

Panel A: HGrade on Start and CoGrade
Intercept 0.59583 0.02452 24.30 <0.001
Start 0.00008 0.00002 3.29 0.001
CoGrade 0.00350 0.00029 11.90 <0.001
Panel B: HGrade on Finish and CoGrade
Intercept 0.59967 0.02461 24.37 <0.001
Finish 0.00010 0.00003 3.23 0.001
CoGrade 0.00351 0.00029 11.92 <0.001

HGrade: grade on the specific homework assignment; Start: number of hours between starting assignment and due date;
Finish: number of hours between submitting assignment and due date; CoGrade: course grade for student (excluding the
assignment component).

procrastination measures, Start and Finish, are highly correlated (0.583 Pearson, 0.576 Spearman; both
p-value < 0.001, as seen in Table 2), they are treated separately.
When HGrade is regressed on Start and CoGrade, both independent variables are statistically sig-
nificant at the 0.001 level.7 Results are presented in Table 4.
In Table 4, we see that the t-statistics for both the Start and Finish variables are significant at the
0.001 level. Since this regression controls for student quality by using CoGrade as a control variable, it
calls for a rejection of our second null hypothesis, that there is no association between procrastination
and academic performance, when controlling for student quality. The regressions provide additional
evidence that procrastination has a negative association with academic performance, even when con-
trolling for student quality.

6. Conclusions

Academic procrastination has plagued students for generations. Given the significance of grades on
the ability of students to secure future employment, the association of academic procrastination with
academic performance is important. In examining this issue, prior research has, for the most part, re-
lied upon self-reported measures of procrastination by students, which are often weak measures of
actual procrastination. This paper contributes to the literature by objectively evaluating academic pro-
crastination without the use of indirect measures. In addition, the study contributes to the literature
by controlling for student quality to ensure that the association between procrastination and perfor-
mance is independent of student quality. Contrary to the predictions of the two null hypotheses, that
procrastination on online homework assignments has no association with academic performance
(when controlling for student quality), we find a significant negative correlation between academic
procrastination and academic performance. Even after controlling for student quality, both measures
of procrastination yield significant results.
Given a number of potential benefits that Just-in-Timers have over Early Birds in this study, the
strong support for the alternative hypothesis is interesting and informative, especially for accounting
students and educators. The importance of regular homework assignments in accounting classes can-
not be overstated. Without systematic practice of the material covered in class, it is often difficult for
students to master and retain the fundamental accounting concepts and techniques they have learned.
A possible implication for accounting educators might be to provide interim feedback to students as
they do their homework and to set more frequent deadlines for smaller quantities of work. This would
aid in the learning process by providing students with timely feedback. Moreover, it would encourage
students to start their assignments earlier, and as in the familiar adage, it appears that the early bird
really catches the worm.

7
Transformations to stabilize the data across the different assignments and to produce histograms with a generally bell-curved
appearance produce no meaningful change in the above results.
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232 A. Rotenstein et al. / J. of Acc. Ed. 27 (2009) 223–232

Acknowledgment

Our sincere thanks to Professor Rebele for some very insightful suggestions.

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