Abstract:

Objectives:
University students seem especially adept at procrastination; their negative behaviour models may influence substantially their study performance. In our paper we want to describe and analyze some reasons why students put off their study tasks. We conducted a survey (2016) to shed more light on the background of time management and procrastination of postgraduate students in the engineering pedagogy study programme. Our results point to some personality traits and negative behaviour models besides the motivational aspects to promote chronic delay lifestyle.

Methodology:
We used a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods to improve an evaluation by ensuring that the limitations of one type of data are balanced by the strengths of another. In the first phase we used the Lay Procrastination Scale (1986). It is a 20 items, a self-reported five point Likert scale (extremely uncharacteristic = 1, moderately uncharacteristic = 2, neutral = 3, moderately characteristic = 4 and extremely characteristic = 5). Higher score revealed greater use of procrastination by the students. In the second phase interviews were conducted with the students who performed the highest procrastination scores. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were considered to be the most appropriate method for exploring attitudes of interviewees as this could provide opportunities for us to probe for more details.

Research Results:
From 102 respondents tested by this questionnaire 14 scored as medium procrastinators and 7 as heavy procrastinators. In the qualitative phase 21 interviewees were then asked to describe the situations in which they tended to procrastinate and why they did so. These are 5 most frequent situations which lead to the procrastination as stated by respondents: put off starting a task they find difficult and/or boring, trying to do too many tasks at once and cannot do any of them, starting a task but stop before completing it and existence of too many distractions taking their attention away from work tasks and breaking their concentration.

Conclusions:
Procrastination and unability to control the daily programme might affect student performance as has been evidenced from the survey. 20% of the students surveyed admit they procrastinate because they´ve done it so long it´s become second nature to them. A probable reason why postgraduate students perform procrastinational behaviour seems to be connected with their experience with previous study (they know the “tricks” how to succeed in accomplishing their study duties). During interviews with procrastinating students, motivational aspects and some personality traits mostly backed procrastinational behaviour. The students often indicated laziness as a direct cause of putting off impending tasks to a later time, but at the same time proclaimed they were capable to cope with a difficult intellectual activity. They emphasized the role of accurate planning of difficult tasks and elimination of as many distractions as possible to oppose chronic delay lifestyles.

Keywords:

Engineering pedagogy students, academic performance, procrastination, motivation.