Procrastination, deadlines, and performance: Self-control by pre-commitment

• Questions posed by researchers: • Are people willing to create firm deadlines in order to overcome their

procrastination habits? • Are these deadlines effective at creating improvements in the daily endeavors

of the procrastinators? • When creating these deadlines, do people create them to acquire optimal

performance results?

How will we measure the results of the studies?- The deadlines were scored by measuring the distance (# days) starting from the last day of class. A score of 0 indicates a submission on the last day. This also measures a lack of self-control/total procrastination.

Study 1: The Free-Choice/No-Choice Study• 99 participants from MIT • Study took place during a semester-long course• Groups: 51 students were assigned to a free-choice section, meaning

that they would be able to set their own deadlines for the three assignments. 48 students were assigned to a no-choice section, which meant that they were responsible for handing in the three assignments at three evenly spaced, fixed dates.

Study 1 (Cont.)

• External constraints on Free-choice group:• Hand in assignments no later than the last day• Students had to announce when they plan their deadlines prior to second day• Dates were final (no changes permitted)• Each day assignment is late -1% off of final grade• No grade advantage for early submission (thus eliminating an important

incentive for the students to not procrastinate)

Study 1 (Cont.) What resulted from the study?• The means of the deadlines chosen by free-choice group:• 41.78 days before the last day (1st paper), 26.07 days before the last day (2nd

paper), 9.84 days before the last day (3rd paper). Only 12 students chose to submit all three assignments on the final day.

• These findings suggest that people are willing to create firm deadlines in order to overcome their procrastination behaviors.• How did the flexibility allowed for the free-choice group affect

grades?

3 possible predictions regarding grades• If students do not have self-control issues, greater flexibility should

result in higher grades• If students do have self-control issues but they apply the use of

deadlines optimally, the greater flexibility should result in higher grades• If students have self-control issues but they do not plan for optimal

deadlines, greater flexibility should result in lower grades• Our results show that free-choice group acquired lower grades due to

not optimally planning deadlines. Overall results for free choice (M= 85.67) and no-choice (M=88.76)• Final project results for free choice (M= 77), no choice (M=86)

Study 1 results (cont.)

• Evenly-spaced deadlines proved to be most synergic with better performance (in terms of grades)• We can conclude that more binding deadlines (constructed by the

professor) allow for a more evenly spaced procedure towards achieving each goal, and these binding deadlines also positively correlate with improvement in grades

Study 2: The Proofreading Study

• 60 total students participated in this study and were randomly assigned to three experimental conditions. • The participants were instructed to proofread papers written by other

students. The participants were compensated with $$$, and were told they would receive 10 cents per correct detection along with a $1 “penalty” for each day they would delay the submission(s)• Procedure: Three texts were created by the researchers, an estimated

10 pages per text, and a total of 100 grammatical errors were planted per text. Students were also assigned to three different conditions:• Evenly-spaced-deadlines condition (submit one text each week)• End-deadline condition (submit all texts at the end; 3 weeks)• Self-imposed-deadlines condition (choose own deadlines)

Study 2 (Cont.) Through what mediums were we able to draw conclusions from this study?• Three ways to asses performance on conditions:• Number of errors detected• Delays in submission• Earnings

Study 2 (cont.) The results of the study• Number of errors correctly detected was most prevalent in the

evenly-spaced-deadlines condition and the lowest performance was in the end-deadline condition.• Delays in submission were similar across all conditions.• Participants’ earnings showed similar patterns across all conditions

Answers to the questions prior to the study• Are people willing to create firm deadlines in order to overcome their

procrastination habits? Yes• Are these deadlines effective at creating improvements in the daily endeavors of

the procrastinators? Yes• When creating these deadlines, do people create them to acquire optimal

performance results? No

An Investigation of the Efficacy of Acceptance-Based Behavioral Therapy for Academic Procrastination

• Time management (TM) strategies such as setting deadlines and creating specific goals are the common approach to procrastination-intervention methods.• The Acceptance-Based Behavioral Therapy intervention was being

tested in this study and its efficacy was being compared to the traditional time management intervention

What does this study seek to answer?• These researchers predicted that the ABBT intervention would be

more effective in reducing procrastination behaviors when compared to the TM intervention.• Hypotheses:• Hypothesis 1: ABBT intervention participants would enter less self-reported

procrastination behaviors than their fellow TM participants.• Hypothesis 2: The more a participant valued academics prior to the ABBT

intervention, the less likely they will be to engage in behavioral procrastination following intervention.• Hypothesis 3: The ABBT intervention participants will show an increase in pro-

academic behavior, decrease in trait anxiety, and decrease in avoiding human experiences, due to the nature of the methods used in the intervention.

Participants

• Of the 274 participants who provided consent, 166 completed the ABBT intervention. (Some students stopped at the pre-intervention measures).• 142 of the 166 who completed the ABBT intervention went on to

completing at the very least, part of the post-intervention measure.• One-way ANOVA displayed no difference in terms of procrastination

(on Procrastination Assessment Scale of Students) between the participants who completed various portions of the ABBT.

Materials used

• Demographic questionnaire• Procrastination Assessment Scale- Students: self-report measure

which questions students in several areas of procrastination (writing papers, studying, etc.) • Action and Acceptance Questionnaire II: self-report measure that

assesses “psychological flexibility, i.e., lower scores correlate with more experiential avoidance and higher scores correlate with action.• Academic Values questionnaire• State-Trait Anxiety Inventory- Trait: self-report measure that measures

the extent of the symptoms of anxiety in an individual• Intervention manipulation checks: used to assess how familiar the

participants are with their assigned intervention• Intervention questionnaire

Interventions

• TM and ABBT interventions were each 20 minutes long and the substance of the interventions was similar for both • Participants in the ABBT condition had a chance to reflect upon their

academic drive and were encourage to continue being driven despite future setbacks

Procedure

• Students were randomly assigned to either the TM intervention condition or the ABBT intervention condition.• They were given a date on which they were told they should read a

certain percentage of the readings on which their procrastination would be observed.• To assess behavioral procrastination in the reading, the Ideal (should)

percentage was divided by the Actual percentage (the expected percentage).• This assessment would objectively show the differences between the

Ideal and Actual, which in turn can highlight the magnitude of one’s behavioral procrastination.

Procedure (cont.)

• 2 weeks after: participants viewed their intervention again and were instructed to complete the manipulation check questionnaire.• 2 weeks after questionnaire: reflection upon the strategies used to

complete the reading.• Day after due date for reading: participants reported the percentage

of Actual reading.• In addition, the AAQ, STAI-T, AVQ and intervention questionnaire.

Results of the study

• Baseline analyses: no group differences• Manipulation check analyses: 22 of 166 did not pass manipulation

check. • Intervention Questionnaire Analyses: on average, participants

reported that they were somewhat familiar with the methods used in the interventions. Participants also reported that they sometimes used these strategies and 75% of the participants found the interventions to be helpful, while 81% found the interventions enjoyable, showing promise for ABBT.

Results of the study (cont.)

• Hypothesis 1: independent samples t tests were done in order to test the hypothesis that the ABBT intervention participants would involve themselves in less self-reported procrastination behaviors than the TM participants. The results of the tests suggest that TM participants were trending towards completing more readings but when the researchers looked at the Ideal/Actual percentages, the differences were no longer prevalent.• Hypothesis 2: Stepwise linear regression was used in order to

determine whether the results of the intervention would somehow be dependent on academic values. Results showed that individuals who possessed greater academic values did in fact engage in less procrastination behaviors, as measured by the Ideal/Actual measure.

Results of the study (cont.)

• Hypothesis 3: participants in ABBT group would show a greater increase in psychological flexibility than TM group. The results do not point to statistically significant differences between the intervention groups.

Further discussion

• Due to the many negative consequences that arise from behavioral procrastination, this behavior is of concern to the community of researchers.• Due to the fact that procrastination is a rather recent phenomenon

(especially because of the information age), more studies have to be conducted.• For students with high academic values, an ABBT intervention can

help reduce the behavior.• An ideal intervention approach has not yet been concluded.

Pomodoro Technique

• Time management (TM) technique used to combat procrastination • Process:• Choose a task • Set timer to 25 minutes (can choose different time setting)• Work on task until time is up• Take a 5 minute break• Repeat• After four intervals, or “pomodori”, take a longer break• Repeat as needed