Self-efficacy, procrastination, and burnout in post-secondary faculty: An international longitudinal analysis

Abstract

To address the present research gap on relations between motivational beliefs, self-regulation failure, and psychological health in post-secondary faculty, the present study used associative latent growth modeling to longitudinally examine relationships between self-efficacy, procrastination, and burnout (emotional exhaustion) in faculty internationally. Findings from 3,071 faculty participants (70% female, 69 countries) over three time points (5–6 month lags) showed greater self-efficacy at baseline to correspond with lower procrastination and burnout, and procrastination to be positively related to burnout (intercepts). Growth analyses additionally revealed stronger relations between increases in self-efficacy, procrastination, and burnout over time (slopes). Supplemental cross-lagged analyses provided causal evidence of burnout as an antecedent of self-efficacy and procrastination, underscoring intervention and policy efforts to address overwork and exhaustion in post-secondary faculty.

Procrastination and Work Productivity of Academic Staff: Implications to the Institution

“…A research article associated self-efficacy with passive and active procrastination (Hicks & Storey, 2015). Another article showed the relationship between procrastination and burnout (Hall et al, 2019). Procrastination relates also to personal aspects of life like the study of Ferrari and Landreth (Ferrari & Landreth, 2014), wherein the exposed rural procrastinators narrate life challenges in their home, family lives, and in their work settings.…”

Perceptions of Outreach, Theory, and Practice at Centers for Teaching and Learning

“…Of the research, Austin and Gamson (1983) argue that faculty are both intrinsically motivated (e.g., personally meaningful and rewarding work) and extrinsically motivated (e.g., through tenure and promotion standards). Additionally, motivation within the learning context has been studied in many forms including the role of self-efficacy in procrastination and burnout (Hall, Lee, & Rahimi, 2019), the role of structure and agency in the intrinsic motivation to be good teachers (Leibowitz, Schalkwyk, Ruiters, Farmer, & Adendorff, 2012), and the ways in which faculty are motivated to prioritize research over teaching (Pesce, 2015). Motivation can play a key role in sustainable academic programming and development; however, the perceptions of faculty and administration may vary in effective motivational strategies (Blašková, Majchrzak-Lepczyk, Hriníková, & Blaško, 2019).…”

“…For example, recent research found teaching self-efficacy was a greater predictor of job satisfaction in faculty than research self-efficacy (Ismayilova & Klassen, 2019). Through exploring faculty expectations beyond self-efficacy, connections to faculty development may lead to longer job satisfaction as a teacher-scholar-reducing burn-out (Hall et al 2019).…”

“…College and university faculty are a highly motivated population, and therefore, possibly under-researched regarding what simulates their behaviors (Daumiller et al, 2020). As they are both intrinsically and extrinsically motivated, through desires for personal growth and tenurepromotion lines, self-efficacy and a supportive culture can increase involvement in programming (Feldman & Paulsen, 1999;Hall et al, 2019). A recognition of the importance of motivation can been seen in both CTL employee and instructor comments.…”

“…As a piece of the puzzle towards motivation, expectations have not been explicitly studied in faculty development. While they play a role in self-efficacy in relation to job satisfaction and reducing burn out, (Hall et al, 2019;Ismayilova & Klassen, 2019) an actual exploration of faculty expectations has not been studied. Yet, expectations were important to, and separate from, the motivations of faculty.…”