Acculturating stress, language anxiety and procrastination of international students in the academic settings

Abstract

Objectives. The aim of the study is to examine the procrastination among international students in academic settings in Ukraine. Materials & Methods. The 41 participants were recruited from two national universities in Volyn oblast who came from African countries to obtain higher education in Ukraine. Procrastination Scale, Acculturative Stress Scale, Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale were applied in the research. Results. Evidence consistently suggests that there are no gender differences in procrastination, acculturating stress, and language anxiety. However, a weak negative correlation between procrastination and age of the participants was found (r=-0.26 p<0.05). It is possible to hypothesise that academic procrastination is less likely to occur in mature age, being replaced by the procrastination in other life domains. The findings of multiple regression suggest that acculturative stress and language anxiety taken together predict procrastination of the international students (R2 = 0.469, F (4, 37) = 2.741, p=0.015). However, amongst other predictors only fear of negative evaluation as a separate scale of language anxiety is an independent robust predictor of procrastination. One unanticipated finding was that accultuarion is not a significant moderator of the interaction between fear of negative evaluation and procrastination. Therefore, international students’ procrastination is predicted by rather social anxiety of being evaluated than cultural settings and language anxiety per se. This inference is in line with the evidence that test anxiety and communication apprehension are not independent significant predictors of procrastination. Conclusion. The current study showed that the main predictor of procrastination is linked to social anxiety which might be triggered by new cultural and academic settings and, therefore, transformed into procrastination. However, with a small sample size which represents only African students, caution must be applied, as the findings might not be extrapolated for the international students from other countries. Further studies, which take these limitations into account, will need to be undertaken.