Deferment of Academic Obligations and University Students Self-Handicapping: Procrastination in an Academic Context

Abstract

Although there is no uniquely accepted definition, procrastination is usually defined as willing, irrational delay of planned activities, despite the knowledge that it will have negative consequences for an individual. Self-handicapping, as a strategy for coping with potential failure, occurs when there is a threat of self-esteem, that is, when a failure in an activity most commonly associated with ability is expected. The individual then actively seeks or creates factors that impede the performance of that activity, which can serve as justification for a potential failure. The aim of the research was to determine the connection between academic procrastination and student self-handicapping. In addition, a sample of one hundred ninety-eight students of the Faculty of Education (N = 158) was used to examine the factor structure of the instruments used (Procrastination Scale (Tuckman 1991), Self-handicapping Scale (Jones, Rhodewalt 1982), concurrent and discriminative validity of the scales, as well as predictive and classification values of the model in standard and hierarhical regression analysis (gender, study level, procrastination, self-handicapping, self-esteem, resilience, imposterism, burnout, self-directed learning). The results show that 54% of students procrastinate; that procrastination is explained by one dimension and self-handicapping by two (behavioral and proclaimed self-handicap); that the correlation of procrastination with behavioral self-handicapping is statistically significant (r = 0.64), and that the association of procrastination with claiming self-handicapping is not statistically significant (r = 0.10); that female respondents procrastinate more than male subjects; that weaker procrastinators self-handicap themselves differently (behavioral-claimed) while stronger procrastinators self-handicap themselves similarly; that based on standardized (β) beta coefficients in the regression analysis, it can be concluded that the strongest predictors of procrastination are gender and claimed self-handicapping. These data point to a relatively large number of those who are delaying their academic responsibilities, hence academic procrastination is a problem of epidemiological proportions among college students.