The Importance Of Procrastination In Education

There are numerous students in Pakistan who from a very early childhood are determined to either become doctors or engineers. They are self-motivated. This factor plays a vital role in ultimately achieving their goals. Socio-economic factors attached to the professions are also the determining factors for the selection of medical and engineering fields. There are all sorts of students in a society. Some are hard-working and do their job at an appropriate time, plan and organize everything nicely and never create any emergency for themselves. While others are hardly working and keep delaying their job unnecessarily till urgency engulfs them and the adrenalin rushes in their blood. This phenomenon creates emergency which gives them the kick to

Procrastinators have a less control over time, and are dissatisfied with their courses (McCown & Johnson, 1991). They are ready to do work but end up panicking or leaving that activity (Yaakub, 2000). One of the factors for academic dishonesty and plagiarized homework is procrastination (Roig, 1995). In a research study done at Ohio State University, it was found that “high procrastinators suffer more stress than do other students” (Grabmeier, 2002). Students reported procrastination influencing over one-third of their daily activities (Pychyl, Lee, Thibodeau, & Blunt, 2000). About 95% of the students procrastinate at some point (Ellis and Knaus, 1977) and some 15%–20% of adults remain chronic procrastinators (Harriott & Ferrari, 1996; “Haven’t Filed Yet,” 2003). Procrastinators delay tasks till the last moment which leads to increased anxiety, worry and stress (Ferrari, 1991). They tend to do the task immediately without any planning, in an impulsive manner. The consequences of which are urgency, risk-taking, sensation-seeking, lack of premeditation, lack of perseverance, and recklessness. Steel (2007) refers procrastination as the flip side of impulsivity, one of the main features of sensation