Construct On Academic Procrastination And Its Effect Factors' Model

Academic Procrastination is defined as unadapted learning practice that students know well that they are responsible and are willing, but fail to accomplish their learning tasks in due time or push forward to the future the "then done work.". Academic procrastination has its characters: postponing beginning; done awfully, insufficient planning. Basing on literature searching, open-ended questionnaire surveying, experts' inspection, exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, the researcher made out the construct of Academic Procrastination and developed Academic Procrastination Inventory for College Students. The researcher found:(1) The Academic Procrastination Inventory for College Students had good validity and reliability. It was up to psychology testing theory and was suitable for surveying use.(2) Three dimensions were identified in Academic Procrastination Inventory for College Students: postponing beginning; done awfully, insufficient planning.(3) There is significant difference between gender, grade, subject, city or country, parents' habits and parenting style. Results show that:Female students were significant lower than male students in postponing to begin, done awfully and total Academic Procrastination.The significant grade differences were found in postponing beginning, done awfully and totaling academic procrastination. Multiple comparison procedures indicated that fresher and graduate were significant lower than sophomores and juniors.Main effects of major were found in postponing beginning and insufficient planning. As for postponing beginning, students of science & engineering and arts were significant higher than those of literary history and medicine. And in insufficient planning, differences were found mainly between science & engineering and literary history and medicine. In general, the order of score on Academic Procrastination Inventory science is science & engineering＞art＞literary history.＞medicine.Students came from villages were significant lower than their city or town counterparts in postponing to begin, but no significant difference was found between city oriented and town oriented.Parents' habits and parenting style had main effect on academic procrastination. Those whose parents had habits of procrastination were significant higher, and democratic parenting style was lowest.(4) Personality, academic self-efficacy, time management tendency, achievement motivation and perfectionism correlated significantly with academic procrastination.(5) Conscientiousness, neuroticism, academic self-efficacy, time management tendency, achievement motivation (striving for success, avoiding failure), perfectionism had direct positive effects on academic procrastination. Neuroticism, avoiding failure and perfectionism had direct negative effects.(6) Multiple-interaction existed between conscientiousness, neuroticism, academic self-efficacy, time management tendency, achievement motivation (striving for success, avoiding failure) and perfectionism, and affected academic procrastination. Conscientiousness had indirect effects, mediated by academic self-efficacy, time management tendency, striving for success. Neuroticism mediated by avoiding failure and perfectionism. Academic self-efficacy mediated by time management tendency and striving for success. Striving for success mediated by time management tendency. Perfectionism mediated by striving for success and avoiding failure.(7) In all the factors, the most powerful was produced by conscientiousness. The secondary powerful were time management tendency, striving for success, academic self-efficacy, neuroticism and avoiding failure. The last one is perfectionism.