Abstract:

In the presented paper, the authors deal with the issues of academic procrastination in working adults, which, in certain contexts, can be considered an ineffective coping strategy.

Lifelong learning is a tool for individuals’ personal and professional growth – it leads to improving their knowledge, skills and competences at any stage of their lives. In the case of working adults, it is also an effective way of finding or keeping their place in the labour market. So, nowadays, it can be considered a necessity.

Working adults involved in any form of lifelong learning must cope with a range of specific problems and overcome various barriers during their studies. Many of them are related to the fact that, for working persons, it is difficult to split their time between family, work, and study. As a consequence, they opt for a form of escape – academic procrastination. While general procrastination is a needless delay of performing activities which can lead to difficulties in accomplishing tasks within the desired time in any sphere of life, academic procrastination occurs specifically in the context of learning and may have a significant impact on the efficiency of the educational process and the academic achievement of the adult learners.

The authors carried out a research on general and academic procrastination on a sample including working adults taking part in tertiary education. Their key findings relevant to the topic are presented in the paper.

Keywords:

Lifelong learning, academic procrastination, coping.