Evaluating academic procrastination in a personalized system of instruction based curriculum

Abstract

The impact of procrastination on student learning is a common researched topic and correlated with a lack of external/self-regulation, motivation and performance anxiety. Lecture-centric courses provide limited data to measure student procrastination. Projects, homework and midterm deadlines are binary indicators of a tendency to procrastinate. Other evidence is often subjective or anecdotal. In self-paced Personalized System of Instruction (PSI) courses, even these metrics do not exist since students learn material and take tests at their convenience. Yet PSI is an effective teaching strategy in courses such as an introductory programming where students have diverse backgrounds and varied computer literacy. PSI allows individuals to invest the appropriate time without overwhelming new programmers or underwhelming the experienced. Most importantly, a well-designed PSI course can instill time management skills to counter procrastination. Yet, PSI course designs must be evaluated and compared to quantify success. Using a web-based PSI approach, data can be collected and used to quantify procrastination. We present candidate procrastination metrics for comparing student populations, the merits of various teaching strategies, and the impact of course features. Additionally, correlations with traditional metrics (i.e. Grade Point Average (GPA), Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), hours completed, etc.) are examined to determine what external factors - if any - impact procrastination and require normalization for comparative evaluation of course designs. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2009.