THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ACADEMIC PROGRESS AND ROCRASTINATION

HERAMIS, MIA LORAINE D.

GRADE 11- STEM

A RESEARCH PROPOSAL SUBMITTED TO MRS. OFELIA A. LUAREZ AS A

REQUIREMENT IN PRACTICAL RESEARCH 1

AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE HIGH SCHOOL

MAY 2023
 CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

The worldwide student population engages in procrastination often, whether it takes the

form of postponing the completion of an assignment or delaying preparation for a test which is

connected to academic progress. It is a bad habit that needs to be unleashed, it is prevalent as to

everyone do this bad practice. This irrational delay relates to increased stress levels, frustration,

anxiety, and it lowers the level of creativity and productivity of a student.

People tend to delay things even though there are many forthcoming negative

consequences. This bad behavior becomes a habit of everyone. As people neglect things that

need to be done soon, they have this practice of cramming, and the root cause of it is

procrastination. This kind of irrational behavior can have a huge impact on one's life. Being

engaged in this kind of habit can lead to serious mental health problems. Procrastination relates

to stress, anxiety, or worse, depression.

According to e.g. Aremu et al., (2011), Balkis (2013), there is a considerable body of

empirical study on the connection between procrastination and performance, particularly

academic achievement. However, the outcomes have varied. Procrastination has been shown to

have detrimental impacts on learning and success, including lower marks and course dropouts.

A study by Van Eerde (2003), procrastination might impair accuracy and punctuality

due to the time pressure it causes. For this reason, it can be argued that procrastination would

have a detrimental effect on performance.

The study aims to help students in analyzing the relationship between procrastination

and their academic work, and determine its adverse impacts, therefore they could comprehend

how to prevent it.

Statement of the Problem

Students should be encouraged to work hard in order to overcome. This should be done

in order to reduce procrastination and urge students to concentrate more on their academics. As

the number of students who delay grows, also rises the likelihood of them falling behind in

topics, decreasing grades, and failing courses.

Therefore, the study motives to seek on the following questions:

1. What is the relation between academic progress and procrastination?

2. What were the influence of procrastination in students’ academic performance?

3. What are the reasons of procrastination among students?

Objectives of the Study

The research aimed to accomplish the following specific objectives:

1. To determine the relationship between academic progress and procrastination.

2. To identify the influence of procrastination in the academic progress of students.

3. To determine the reasons of procrastination among students.

1.7 Scope and Delimitations of the Study

This study focuses only on the relationship between procrastination and academic

progress and its effects on Grade 11 STEM students. The data collection will be conducted to

10% of the total population in Grade 11 of Western Philippines University. The researcher was

unable to include every member of the population, however the sample used for the study

consisted of randomly selected students. This was used as the representative sample from which

the findings were drawn and generalized.

 CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

Related Literature

Procrastination is an act that everyone, regardless of their position, engages in on a daily

basis. Procrastination is practiced by everyone, from young junior high students to seniors who

have been out of school for a while. Some might argue that it is a sort of deviance because

deviation is defined as "any violation of norms" and avoiding what should be done is a violation

of norms. People postpone all the time in today's era of technology and the Internet.

Procrastination appears to be more of a societal norm than a deviation.

According to research, 95% of American students purposefully postpone starting or

completing work, and 70% engage in academic procrastination. It's hardly improbable that

Filipinos are masters of procrastination. In other words, procrastination accounts for a

considerable portion of the link between conscientiousness and performance, and it is highly

connected with distractibility, poor organization, low accomplishment motivation, and an

intention-action gap. If one is not conscientious in his performance, he will most likely

procrastinate. Furthermore, the qualities agreeableness and sensation seeking have modest

relationships with procrastination. One method for reducing task procrastination is to raise

anticipation of success, or self-efficacy, through verbal persuasion, emotional arousal, and

modeling.

According to Laeus (2015), procrastination is the avoidance of completing a task that

must be completed. He goes on to say that procrastination is the act of doing more enjoyable

things instead of less pleasurable ones, or completing less important chores instead of more

urgent ones, thereby deferring imminent tasks to a later time.

 Langton (2016) defines procrastination as the avoidance of the realization of an aim,

which frustrates an individual's stated goals by simply putting it off until it's too late or nearly

too late. Because of the high level of confidence required before acting on a decision, the work

takes longer to complete and more information about alternatives is sought.

According to Allien and Milgram (2017), procrastination is primarily: (1) a behavior

sequence of postponement; (2) resulting in a substandard behavioral product; (3) involving a

task that the procrastinator perceives as important to perform; and (4) resulting in an emotional

upset.

Bailey (2017) argued that continuing what you've started would be simple. It is

preferable if you complete the assignments as soon as possible. If we just did everything on time,

there would be no need for cramming. As long as we practice procrastination, we will lose our

originality, the beauty of our work, our excitement to complete our tasks, and so on.

Cherry (2019) added that neglecting a project or work, not doing tasks in school, or not

doing household chores, and the reason was because of an uncontrollable habit of

procrastination, can absolutely have a huge impact on your work, academic grades, and in your

life, it is either getting low grades or being fired to work.

According to Leiberman (2019), the reason why procrastination makes us feel so bad is

due to consciousness within ourselves, because when people procrastinate, they are not only

aware that they are avoiding a task, but they are also aware that doing it intentionally is not a

good idea and yet they do it anyway.

Furthermore, Laureta (2017) claimed that procrastination makes us dislike ourselves and regret

not being productive earlier, especially when we are swamped with work and need to fulfill

deadlines. Furthermore, she stated that there are techniques to combat procrastination, such as
dividing your task into sections, setting personal deadlines, facing the huge waves first, and

starting something or anything.

Kims (2015) differentiates between the optimistic and pessimistic procrastinator.

Optimistic procrastinators put off their ambitions but do not worry about it. They are convinced

that they will triumph in the end, regardless of their participation in the desired Act now or

later. Furthermore, they overestimate their progress and chances of success while

underestimating the time required to accomplish their goal. Pessimistic procrastinators, on the

other hand, are concerned about their sluggishness. They are conscious of the fact that they fall

behind schedule. Nonetheless, they postpone since they are unsure how to cope with the issue.

They feel inept and are frightened that their participation in the task will demonstrate their

inadequacy. As a result, individuals put off tasks in order to avoid unpleasant experiences.

Reasons why Students Procrastinate

Forgetting about it: For whatever reason missing class, being distracted when the

teacher announced the homework, not writing it down, or forgetting to look at the class website

sometimes students leave their work until the last minute because they genuinely have no idea

that there’s any work to be done. (That is, until a friend mentions it the day beforehand or until

they walk into class the next morning.) Technically speaking, this wouldn’t be classified as

“procrastination” because the student is not resisting their work they simply don’t realize they

have any work! But this is definitely a common cause of leaving things until the last minute.

Lack of clarity about the desired outcome: When students are confused by an

assignment, or don’t know exactly what is expected of them, they often put off the assignment in

hopes that they will understand it better later. This is especially problematic for students who

are uncomfortable with uncertainty or unknown situations. Unfortunately, when they look at it

the night before the deadline, they usually have no more information than they did before and

no time left to ask their teacher for clarification. Optimistic time estimates. Optimism is a
wonderful quality in most situations. But when it comes to estimating how much time it will

take to complete an assignment, optimistic time estimates can create big problems. Students

commonly overestimate the amount of time they have left to complete assignments, and

underestimate the amount of time it will take to complete them. Consequently, they fail to leave

themselves enough time to complete the work.

Distractions: Sometimes students set aside time with the intention of completing their

work, but end up distracted with other things. These distractions can be external (Face book,

text messages, etc.) or internal (their own thoughts & impulses). Either way, this results in them

spending time that had been budgeted for their work in other ways. Overwhelm. When an

assignment seems very complex or time-consuming, even thinking about it can seem scary and

stressful. So, students often fall into the trap of putting it off. Unfortunately, this ultimately

backfires when they eventually do start the project because now the inherent difficulty of the

project is compounded by the fact that they have insufficient time to complete it. So, they end up

with far more stress than they would have had if they had started earlier.

Perfectionism /Fear of failure: Students preoccupied with making their projects

“perfect”, nervous about making mistakes or “messing them up”, or afraid of criticism, are often

so concerned about doing assignments incorrectly that they will put them off to avoid the

anxiety they feel when they are trying to work on the project. This can lead to the seemingly

irrational behavior of avoiding the project even more as the deadline approaches (because they

become less and less likely to be able to do a good job on it) until, at last, they are so close to the

deadline that producing an ideal assignment is no longer possible, and their only options are to

do an imperfect job or turn in nothing at all. Difficulty regulating emotions. Recent studies have

suggested that procrastination is less of problem with time management than we had once

believed, and more of a difficulty with emotional regulation. Students who feel bored, tired,

frustrated or nervous when they work on assignments will often pursue a strategy of trying to

make themselves feel better in the short-term by downplaying the assignment (“it’s no big deal;
it won’t affect my grade much anyway”) and distracting themselves with fun, rewarding

activities in order to improve their mood.

Too many commitments: If a student has so many scheduled activities and so little

free time that their life feels like an endless string of obligations and chores, with little or no

time off, they may use procrastination as a method to artificially create “free time” for

themselves. Unfortunately, this type of “free time” is usually not very satisfying because it’s also

accompanied with a sense of guilt for avoiding the things they “should” be working on.

Resistance: Students will sometimes procrastinate as a form of rebellion when they

view work as something that is being “forced” on them by an unreasonable teacher or

authoritarian parents. Procrastination becomes their way of resisting this authority. When

students think of assignments as something they “have to” do, schoolwork becomes a chore

rather than a choice and they are more tempted to procrastinate on it. Procrastination can then

become their way of resisting the message that they are “supposed to” complete their work by

showing teachers and parents “you can’t make me do it”.

According to Plaxton (2017), many students regard procrastination as the greatest

impediment to time management since it causes them to prioritize what they like over their job.

Some kids have extremely busy schedules that include school, schoolwork, housework, social

life, and/or other extracurricular activities. As a result, homework and academics are usually

disregarded, and they will substitute something more pleasurable in order to have more

flexibility in the rest of their schedule.

Swanson (2016), on the other hand, observed that virtually all studies have seen

procrastination as a failure of self-regulation, similar to bad behaviors associated with a lack of

self-control, such as overeating, a gambling issue, or overspending. Even though it is no longer

considered laziness or bad time management, many intelligent individuals who procrastinate

are successful.
 As Kent (2016) said, students begin to have interaction in routine avoidance behaviors,

to the disapproval of their teachers. As a result, some students have trouble budgeting their

study time, attending after-school greater help or workplace hours, and spending a long way less

time than they at the start supposed to spend on their studying. This behavior is often sure up in

a cram of emotions and confusion, leaving students thinking about what to tackle first. Although

procrastination is regularly seen as a terrible phenomenon, some students record that it helps

their educational performance.

The Mañana habit, which is also known in Filipino as "Mamaya na" practice, is a Filipino

term for procrastination. (Mejia, 2017) This kind of practice has already been an existing

problem since before. And it was the reason why this kind of phenomenon is rapidly scattered

through generations.

The students who procrastinate frequently have worse performance in activities due to

postponing task that leads to submit incomplete work and missed of important deadline

therefore, procrastinators often lead to lower marks than non-procrastinators which is much

problematic since some side effects can increase the students’ tendency to procrastinate more.

According to Katz, Eilot and Nevo, (2014), many students procrastinate with regards to

lecture things to do (as cited from Steel, 2007). Procrastination involves delaying the

performance and tasks until a person experiences distress due to having no time left to do

works.

Furthermore, Gunn (2019) stated that students who procrastinate might be because they

have a lack of motivation, low self-esteem, atychiphobia, trouble understanding, low energy

levels, and poor organization skills. Students often procrastinate because they don't see how a

project is relevant or important to them, don't understand the material, or just don't know how

to get started.

Hence, Shangkuan (2019) suggested that many students need insights but. Lag in official

work, which controls a person's goal-directed behavior. The official work is the capacity to
expect issues, set objectives, arrange, organize, prioritize, delay satisfaction, screen advance and

move in the event that essential, all of which are the cure to procrastination.

Cramming

Karafiloski (2018) has stated three (3) strategies to overcome procrastination in line with

what has just been stated. Primarily, it is important to do morning routines. Secondly, do it right

now and pass it on to the actual deadline. Lastly, discipline oneself. An individual should always

know what they need to do. An individual needs to be focused and to work smarter and not

harder.

However, when you feel like you don't want to do things, take some tiny steps to achieve

your goal (Guagliardo, 2018). It is impossible to do all the loads at the same time. Just take it

easy, small steps can still go farther, and we must put in our minds that whatever we do, we will

just keep on moving forward and never stop. Having plenty of time to do works does not mean

that we will just make it when the deadline is near or practice procrastination. We must work for

it, littleby-little, in order to finish it smoothly, in the absence of cramming.

Also, focus on the reward that you would get after you finish the tasks. Be optimistic in

everything you do and surround yourself with positive vibes (Hueber, 2018). It is very important

that we must have motivation in doing things, for that will serve as the biggest factor to finish

the work with effort and passion.

Another technique to overcome procrastination is to make a hard-scheduled deadline for

yourself as if your boss gave it to you and then honor it the same way as your boss would wait for

you to finish the task, as proposed by (Boitnott, 2018). Simple things bring big changes.

Mannerism

Mannerism is a distinctive behavioral trait. It is, so to say, an exaggerated, affected,

situationally controlled style or habit in International Journal of Research and Innovation in

Social Science (IJRISS) |Volume V, Issue VI, June 2021|ISSN 2454-6186

www.rsisinternational.org Page 305 body language as well as in verbal behavior. The

mannerisms of different contexts and social set-ups are designed and practiced according to

socio-cultural, situational, and personal patterns and dispositions. Suitable mannerisms

sometimes help professionals to be adorable among the people than others who cannot fine-

tune this in themselves. Like other professionals, for teachers in this context, it is presumed that

regulated and well-practiced formal classroom mannerisms and verbal behavior can lead to a

major part of success in teaching. Especially, in Dorneyi (2018) words, the teacher's own

behavior' is 'the single most important motivational tool' in the language classroom.

Time Management

Time management is one of the keys to overcome procrastination. Controlling time and

using it wisely can be learned. Using a list as a guide on which activity is important and which

must be done first can be a great help. Know ones’ priority, decide what needs to be done first

and what to be done next, and so on. Be persistent on your task. Just keep doing what you are

doing. Also, always check your progress; it keeps you on track to get everything complete. Be

optimistic about everything you do. Always think the bright side. It is better that you have tried

than never. (Rios, 2016)

According to Rakes and Dunn (2013), students enrolled in an online class lack the

general ability and skills to complete the requirements, as well as a lack of motivation for the

topic.

According to Sumalinog (2022), students lack the necessary devices for online classes,

are not as mentally active as they were physically active during the pandemic, and have poor

time management skills. According to Barrot, Llenares, and del Rosario (2021), students face

home distractions and responsibilities such as work, family, etc. As believed by Melgaard et al.

(2022), due to preventive measures such as quarantine and social distancing, students have

been in isolation, which could lead to problems in students' performance, wellbeing, and

academic anxiety.
 Shaz (2018) states procrastination could be linked to some psychological aspects.

Students may experience driving elements such as worry and fear of failure, as well as

demotivating factors such as fatigue. According to Pychyl and Flett (2012), there has been a

rising corpus of literature in the last 20 years that describes procrastination as a failure of self-

control. Students struggle with self-regulation as this requires a thorough understanding of how

to successfully govern and instruct oneself (Zimmerman, 2002). According to Pychyl and Flett

(2012), there has been a rising corpus of literature in the last 20 years that describes

procrastination as a failure of self-control.

Students struggle with self-regulation as this requires a thorough understanding of how

to successfully govern and instruct oneself (Zimmerman, 2002). Fear of failure was found to be

positively connected to and predict academic procrastination Rahmani et al., (2017). The

delaying of tasks, also known as procrastination, is always intentional, according to Nordy et al.

(2017).

This will likely happen within the timeframe of doing a task, possibly before starting or

ending it. In some educational institutions, this problem has had a substantial impact on

educational quality. In fact, as mentioned by Hong et al. (2021), the sudden transition of

learning and the large influx of students who come unprepared during the height of the COVID-

19 pandemic pose challenges to students, especially the procrastinators, and may impact them

negatively, as supported by Melgaard, et. al. (2022) Santelli, et al. (2020) added that the online

learning environment can affect students' disposition in finishing their tasks on time.

Relatively, this educational shift generates extra opportunities for procrastination, as it

combines the responsibilities both at home and at school, making it more challenging to manage

time.