Self-regulation coaching to alleviate student procrastination: Addressing the likeability of studying behaviours

Abstract

Students who habitually procrastinate may be at risk of underachieving academically as well as putting their health and well-being in jeopardy. The current review of research on procrastination leads to the identification of four broad task likeability factors as encapsulating a range of procrastination patterns. These are: (1) perceived low level of task enjoyment; (2) anticipation of aversive outcomes; (3) estimated inability to do the task; and (4) competing attractiveness of alternative tasks. Each of these low task likeability factors can lead to procrastination when accompanied by particular self-regulation shortcomings, identified respectively as intrinsic/extrinsic motivation, anxieties of performance evaluation, low self-efficacy of performance and weak attentional control of distracters.A self-regulation coaching framework is proposed as a comprehensive way to address academic procrastination. After identifying the low task likeability areas that are involved when faced with an assignment, student coachees can be facilitated to raise self-awareness and develop necessary self-regulation strategies to alleviate their procrastination patterns. The practical implications of this coaching approach are potentially vast. Therefore, further research to evaluate its efficacy is recommended as the next step towards this endeavour.

Understanding academic procrastination: A Longitudinal analysis of procrastination and emotions in undergraduate and graduate students

“…More specifically, enjoyment was expected to negatively correlate with academic procrastination, following from previous research showing a positive correlation between task aversiveness (defined in terms of how pleasant/unpleasant a task is perceived as) and academic procrastination (Lay, 1990;Solomon & Rothblum, 1984). This assertion was further based upon findings showing a negative relationship between intrinsic motivation and academic procrastination (Rakes & Dunn, 2010;Sims, 2014), as well as a positive relationship between enjoyment and self-regulation success (i.e., negatively with self-regulation failure; Pekrun, 2014;Pekrun et al, 2002). Hope was also anticipated to negatively correlate with academic procrastination based on research with undergraduate students (Zhou & Kam, 2016) and graduate students (Alexander & Onwuegbuzie, 2007) where negative relations were observed.…”

“…With respect to the potential causes of academic procrastination, students typically report multiple reasons for this behaviour including both personal and contextual factors. Recently, a literature review by Sims (2014) proposed four broad factors which lead to academic procrastination including low task enjoyment ("do I like doing it? "), expected negative outcomes ("what will be the result?…”

“…With respect to positive emotions, although academic procrastination is often hypothesized to correspond with feelings of enjoyment (e.g., in research with graduate students, Rakes & Dunn, 2010; for more on the theoretical rationale, see Sims, 2014), few studies have found an association between academic procrastination and enjoyment levels (i.e., non-significant correlation in Reinecke, Hartmann, & Eden, 2014;cf. negative correlation between trait procrastination and goal enjoyment in Sirois & Giguère, 2018). However, existing studies have nevertheless consistently found procrastination to negatively correspond with the directly related constructs of intrinsic motivation (e.g., Cerino, 2014) as well as positively correspond with an inversely valenced measure of task aversiveness in undergraduate students (unpleasantness; Lay, 1990;Solomon & Rothblum, 1984).…”

“…In accordance with the underregulation hypothesis, intervention studies for students that focus on reducing procrastination have also targeted not only students' emotions but also their self-regulation behaviours. Sims (2014) further proposed four broad themes underlying academic procrastination behaviours that could be targeted by intervention techniques (i.e., low task enjoyment, expectation of negative outcomes, perceived inability to perform a task, and distractions from more attractive tasks). Although these themes align mostly with the underregulation hypothesis, fear of failure (preoccupation with negative outcomes as a reason for procrastination) is best understood as reflecting the misregulation hypothesis.…”

Second wave positive psychology coaching with difficult emotions: Introducing the mnemonic of ‘TEARS HOPE’

“…from fear to hope, anxiety to excitement) or they can modify their thoughts to reduce their levels of 'negative' valence (for example, from anxiety to concern, from depression to sadness). For a coachee wanting to overcome procrastination, different emotions (anxiety, boredom or frustration) signal different reasons for their behaviour patterns and involve different CBC methods and coaching dialogues (Sims, 2014).…”