Does Procrastination Increase Anxiety Before Taking an Exam?

Introduction

On a number of occasions and in recent years, there has been an appeal on the inherent relationship between stress and procrastination. Already, there has been the publishing of innumerable studies investigating how procrastination relates to anxiety and ultimately stress on various tasks. Procrastination refers to the postponement or avoidance of specified tasks while anxiety is the resultant physiological and psychological state that stems from a variety of unpleasant occurrences. Numerous researches have been done to show the correlation between anxiety and levels of arousal. According to Petri and Govern (2004), if the degree of arousal exceeds normal levels, then this leads to anxiety and in most cases stress. In a state of sleep, the levels of arousal are normally punitive; however, an individual tends to wake up the moment arousal levels reach a moderate status. When these arousal levels go beyond normal, the person enters a state of being anxious especially when faced with high effort tasks such as examinations. These occurrences and tendencies are psychologically genuine and reflect a greater degree of the possibility that procrastination alters the cognitive – behavioral correlation and perception of stress aspects, which in turn leads to changes in learning and ultimately performance.

Review of Literature

For one to present a reasonable case for this hypothesis, the consideration of past findings and results is highly crucial and leads to definitive unambiguous answers as to the overall effect of procrastination and ultimately its causes. A study conducted by Solomon and Rothblum (1984), on the reasons and frequency of procrastination on tasks based on the academics presented startling revelations. The study had 342 participants who were undergraduates in an introductory course on psychology. The measure of procrastination was done through examining the time taken for a student to participate in experimental sessions. Over the course of the year’s research, those students who registered last for participation were deemed to be high procrastinators while those who enrolled first were not considered to exhibit signs of procrastination. In addition, procrastination was also measured by studying the number of quizzes that were self-paced and were completed in the last four to five weeks of classes. In the research, there was the use of 23 quizzes in which the researchers presumed would have been completed over the duration that students were present in school. Therefore, students who chose to work on their quizzes in the last five weeks of their classes’ period had the consideration of being high procrastinators. As per the results, the primary factors leading to procrastination were the averseness of tasks and the fear of failure. Solomon and Ruthblum (1984) defined procrastination as a complex and often an interactional behavior that included the cognitive, affective and behavioral aspects; thus, the attribution of procrastination to time management or study habits is intrinsically incorrect.

Similarly, research conducted by Milgram and Toubiana (1999), examined the association between academic anxiety, procrastination, and the involvement of parents in various academic tasks. In the research, the participants were given measures that included self-reporting on their current levels of anxiety and procrastination habits. According to the results obtained, a hypothesis ensued on the fact that students were highly anxious about assignments that were academically oriented than those which were considered to be homework. In addition, those adolescents who were much older displayed a higher tendency in procrastinating their homework rather than assignments, as was the case in teens who were younger. Moreover, the results of this research showed that older adolescents displayed less anxiety in regards to their schoolwork. In conclusion, Milgram and Toubiana (1999) came up with the hypothesis that procrastination led to higher levels of stress and this confirmed the Appraisal – Anxiety Avoidance (AAA) model (Musolino, 2007).

Hypothesis

Analogous to the aforementioned research, this study also seeks to examine and understand the causative agents of procrastination. In addition, the study aims at investigating how a persistent habit of procrastination leads to anxiety especially when it comes to taking an examination. In accordance with the four goals of psychology, which are to describe, explain, predict and manipulate, this research question appropriately adheres to these aims. Here, the independent variable procrastination and its innate causative agents are looked at against the dependent anxiety levels. The hypothesis remains that through repeated procrastination, the levels of anxiety or stress significantly increases. Other research studies also indicate that anxiety levels lead to an increment in procrastination ultimately leaving the student procrastinator in a loop of two tendencies, procrastination and anxiety.

Methods

Participants

This research will involve 100 participants who are above 18 years of age. The recruitment of participants will take place at Governors State University. It is important to note that Governors State University offers a variety of student population making it an environment that is conducive to research, especially this study that solely relies on a significant variation of results to come up with a solid hypothesis. There will be no incentives for participation and no eligibility specifications. Moreover, there will be no placing of restrictions on neither the background of participants nor their gender. To ensure the quality of research, the treatment of participants will run in accordance with the standards of ethics exhibited in the American Psychological Association.

Procedure

The student participants will each receive a consent form that will show them the outline and the nature of the study. The participants will be requested to sign the consent form before the actual information collection begins. The reason for a consent form is to ensure that the study participants will agree to provide non-ambiguous answers to the research questions asked. The students involved in the research will fill a survey in different school areas such as the cafeteria, outside and between classes with the special approval of the instructor. As mentioned above, the consent is of utmost importance, and the consent forms for students who signed will be submitted separately from the rest of the survey form. In the study, a task will be issued to participants to complete which will involve an essay with an allocated time and will vary according to the condition experimented. The method utilized will comprise the measurement of the time that is required for the completion of the essay to the actual time that has taken the participant to complete the task. When the value exceeds 1.0, then the evidence of procrastination is evident. On the other hand, when the participant fails to complete the essay, there will be the placement of an automatic value that exhibits a best-case scenario which will be on the basis that if the participant has taken the essay test, he or she will complete the task in three given weeks, and then the assigned value, which translates to 504 hours, will be divided over the time initially allocated to complete the entire essay. A good example being if the student is given 72 hours to complete a particular essay but uses 504 hours, then 72 will divide 504 to give a procrastination score of 7.0. After obtaining the procrastination scores, questionnaires will be employed to determine the levels of anxiety prior to the taking of the essays to those who submitted theirs on the last minute basis.

Expected results and discussion

In the hypothesis, this research aimed to relate the levels of anxiety with the tendency of procrastination in students. The resultant scores will be analyzed to determine the degree of procrastination for the students as it relates to particular procrastination tendencies among them. The scores will range from .01 to 7.0 on the procrastination scale. This relates to anxiety thereby indicating a stark correlation between procrastination and anxiety. In support of the hypothesis, the results show that the participants who worked on high-effort and high-stress work had greater procrastination tendency, which ultimately led to a higher level of anxiety in them. The research done by Solomon and Rothblum (1984) indicate that the occurrence of procrastination is largely non-dependent of ineffective time management and bad habits. According to the researchers, they found out that task evasiveness and the fear of failure were highly intrinsic and were major factors that ultimately led to procrastination tendencies. From such a study, the assumption that conditions which essentially required high effort and great concentration for completion such as working on an examination were significantly marred with anxiety owing to procrastination tendencies. Ultimately, in such high effort occurrences, the overall stress levels drastically increased with the increase in procrastination tendencies. The variance also increased when the participant had to complete the given task within a minute margin to the completion deadline.

The study eventually shows that procrastination will in due course lead to a rise in the anxiety levels of students. This is largely exacerbated when the students have to face a highly demanding task such as taking an examination. Solomon and Rothblum (1984) were the first researchers to tackle the problem of academic procrastination, and they subsequently created the Procrastination Assessment Scale Student (PASS) showing the frequency of student procrastination tendencies and the causes leading to procrastination. Aside from this research, such factors as the problem of irrational cognition, depression, and anxiety need careful deliberation to comprehend procrastination effects on anxiety fully.

References

Milgram, N., Toubiana, Y. (1999). Academic Anxiety, Academic Procrastination, and Parental Involvement in Students and their Parents. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 69 ,345-361

Musolino, E. (2007). The Effect of Procrastination and Stress on Low Effort and High Effort Tasks. The Huron University College Journal of Learning and Motivation, 45 (1), 224-243

Petri, H.L. Govem, J.M. (2004) Motivation: Theory, Research, and Applications (5th ed.) Thomson-Wadsworth Learning. Belmont, CA

Solomon, L.J., Rothblum, E.D. (1984). Academic Procrastination: Frequency and Cognitive-Behavioral Correlate .  Journal of Counseling Psychology ,  31 , 503-509.