Students who felt less satisfied with their studies than usual tended to procrastinate more and think more about quitting later in the same semester. A study in the European Journal of Psychology of Education reports this pattern. Procrastination means putting off tasks you intended to do, even when you expect the delay to cause problems.
What the researchers did
Researchers followed 1,409 undergraduates at three German universities, 837 of them women. The students studied law, economics, humanities or science and engineering subjects. They answered online questionnaires three times during the 2018/2019 autumn semester: at the start, in December and in February. Each time they reported on their procrastination, their satisfaction with their studies and their intention to drop out.
The team used statistical models that separate two questions. One compares students with each other. The other compares each student with their own usual level, which shows how changes within the same person unfold over time.
What they found
When students compared with others reported lower satisfaction, their intention to drop out rose afterwards. Within the same person, a lower-than-usual satisfaction was followed by both more dropout intentions and more procrastination.
The reverse direction did not appear. In this sample, procrastination did not come before changes in satisfaction or dropout intentions. Dropout intentions did not come before procrastination either.
What this can and cannot tell us
The design shows which changes tended to come first. It still cannot prove that low satisfaction causes procrastination, because other events in a student's life could affect both. The authors suggest that programmes aimed at study satisfaction might help, but the study did not test any such programme.
The findings concern university students and academic work. They do not show the same sequence in offices or other jobs. The study also did not focus on people with ADHD.
Main uncertainties
Students who procrastinated more or thought more about quitting were more likely to skip some questionnaires. That loss of participants may have weakened or distorted the patterns. The data cover one semester at three German universities, collected before the COVID-19 pandemic. Other countries, types of institution or periods could give different results.
