524 Journal of Dental Education Volume 77, Number 4

Relationship Between Procrastination and Academic Performance Among a Group of Undergraduate Dental Students in IndiaNagesh Lakshminarayan, M.D.S.; Shrudha Potdar, B.D.S.; Siddana Goud Reddy, M.D.S.Abstract: Procrastination, generally defined as a voluntary, irrational delay of behavior, is a prevalent phenomenon among college students throughout the world and occurs at alarmingly high rates. For this study, a survey was conducted of 209 second-, third-, and fourth-year undergraduate dental students of Bapuji Dental College and Hospital, Davangere, India, to identify the relation-ship between their level of procrastination and academic performance. A sixteen-item questionnaire was used to assess the level of procrastination among these students. Data related to their academic performance were also collected. Spearmans correlation coefficient test was used to assess the relationship between procrastination and academic performance. It showed a negative cor-relation of -0.63 with a significance level of p

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Group 1 included those students in the 33.3 percen-tile or lower range, who were considered to have low procrastination scores. Group 2 consisted of students in the 33.4 percentile to 66.6 percentile, and they were considered moderate procrastinators. Students in Group 3 were those in the 66.7 percentile, and they were considered to have a high procrastination score. This same methodology was employed for dividing academic performance on the previous university examination into below average (Group 1), average (Group 2), and above average (Group 3). Using these classification criteria, the assigned scores for procrastination were interpreted as follows: 16-36 for low procrastination (Group 1), 37-41 for moderate procrastination (Group 2), and 42-64 for high procrastination (Group 3). When classifying academic performance, scores of 60% were inter-preted as below average, scores of 61-68% equaled average, and scores of 69% were considered to be above average.

The students were instructed not to disclose their names in the questionnaires. Untraceable code names were assigned to the subjects throughout the study, and anonymity was maintained. All the participants were administered the questionnaire in a classroom under a normal examination situation. Interaction among the participants was minimized to prevent any distortion of the results. If difficulties in understanding any questions were encountered, the investigators explained the questions in simple terms. The completed questionnaires were collected from all the participants, and the raw data obtained were classified, tabulated, and subjected to statistical analysis using SPSS version 11.5. The chi-square test and Spearmans rank order correlation coefficient test were used to assess the relationship between procrastination and academic performance. The Mann-Whitney U test was applied to test whether the difference in procrastination scores between the two genders was statistically significant. Multinomial lo-gistic regression was applied to check the interaction effect of other variables on the relationship between procrastination and academic performance.

Results Students who were considered high procrasti-

nators performed below average in their academics, whereas low procrastinators scored average or above average in their academic performance (p

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were found to have higher procrastination scores than the female participants (27.7 percent).

A summary of the regression analysis predict-ing academic performance using metrics such as age, gender, procrastination, and year of study appears in Table 3. When above average academic performance was kept as a reference category, procrastination was significantly associated with both below average and average academic performance (p

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trast, eleventh-hour intense study under pressure and at late hours may trigger insomnia, inducing higher levels of stress that may reduce ones ability to focus on the subject matter and result in below average academic performance.

The second null hypothesis was that there would be no difference in procrastination scores be-tween male and female participants in the study. This null hypothesis also was rejected because a higher percentage of males had high procrastination scores than females. Several studies have emphasized that procrastination behavior does not vary according to gender, which is not consistent with the results of our study.17-19 However, our study population was not equally distributed between male and female participants, so the gender difference found may be due to the unequal sample sizes, which could be a limitation of this study. Consequently, additional studies with an equal distribution of men and women are needed to determine if procrastination differs between males and females.

By measuring, classifying, and evaluating the prevalence of academic procrastination, the reasons undergraduate dental students in India procrastinate may be determined, and strategies could be devel-oped to counter such negative behavior. Students could be educated in organized team efforts about efficient time management and how to improve their organizational skills in order to reduce their tendency to procrastinate. Additional studies are needed to assess the influence of personnel and environmental factors on procrastination, which is known to be multifaceted in nature. As our study was conducted among students of a single dental college, extrapolation of outcomes to a wider population demands studies encompassing a far greater number

academic performance of students as below average (60 percent), average (61-68 percent), and above average (69 percent) is applicable and relevant only in India, so it would need to be revised for the other countries depending on the local standards.

The first null hypothesis was that there was no relationship between the level of procrastination and academic performance among second-, third-, and fourth-year undergraduate dental students of Bapuji Dental College and Hospital. This hypoth-esis was rejected: a significant negative correlation was found between procrastination and academic performance among these students. These findings of a negative correlation between procrastination and academic performance are in agreement with a study conducted among university mathematics undergraduate students.11 The results of our study also are consistent with other studies that found procrastination was associated with below average academic achievement.12-14 The reason for below average academic performance among students who procrastinate might be attributed to their low level of self-esteem and self-efficacy.15 However, others have reported that procrastinators performance is as sound as non-procrastinators on course exams and grades.1,7,13 Although procrastination affects virtually everyone to some degree, academic procrastination among college students is omnipresent, at levels perhaps as high as 95 percent.6 One study found that the correlation between procrastination behavior and low academic achievement was higher where lessons involve a great number of assignments.16 Academic success could be attributed to skills such as organi-zation of time with execution of duties on schedule, determination of aims, prioritization of tasks, and creating a pattern of studying systematically. In con-

Table 3. Summary of regression analysis predicting academic performance from age, gender, procrastination, and year of study

Academic Performance Independent Variable p-value Odds Ratio (CI)

Below average Age 0.7 1.1 (0.7-1.6) Gender 0.3 1.7 (0.6-4.8) Procrastination 0.001* 14.3 (7.0-29.3) Year of study 0.4 1.3 (0.6-2.6)

Average Age 0.002* 0.5 (0.3-0.7) Gender 0.6 1.2 (0.5-2.9) Procrastination 0.001* 4.3 (2.3-8.1) Year of study 0.31 0.7 (0.4-1.4)

Note: The reference category (Academic Performance) is above average.

*p

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7. Solomon LJ, Rothblum EB. Academic procrastination: frequency and cognitive behavioral correlates. J Couns Psychol 1984;31:503-9.

8. Sirois FM, Pychyl TA. Academic procrastination: cost to health and well-being. Presentation at American Psy-chological Association Convention, August 22, 2002, Chicago, IL.

9. Sujit SS, Bhosle M, Sail K. Factors that affect academic performance among pharmacy students. Am J Pharm Educ 2006;70(5):104.

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14. Tuckman BW, Abry DA, Smith DR. Learning and motiva-tion strategies: your guide to success. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 2002.

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16. Fritzsche BA, Young BR, Hickson KC. Individual differ-ences in academic procrastination tendency and writing success. Pers Indiv Differ 2003;35:1549-57.

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of dental students from several institutions across India. Furthermore, administering questionnaires on procrastination to dental students at the onset of their dental school training would facilitate identification of potential procrastinators. Given that a high level of procrastination has been found to correlate with below average academic performance, motivational programs could be introduced to assist and guide these students. Ultimately, such measures may help to improve the quality of dental education.

AcknowledgmentsThe authors wish to thank Dr. C.S. Bhagya-

jyothi for her expert assistance in our statistical analysis and all the dental students who participated in this study.

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