How Can Procrastination Affect Academic Performance? A Case Study at the Corporación Universitaria Del Caribe (CECAR)

Abstract

The text presented here is the product of a study carried out at the Corporación Universitariadel Caribe CECAR in response to the hypothesis of the existence of correlations between the state of procrastination and the performance of students in academic programs. One of the reasons that motivated this study was the concern of the university community in relation to the trend that hasbeen presented by the performance below the national average in the external test Saber PRO. This benchmark is one of the indicators used by the Ministry of National Education to evaluate the quality of university academic programs in Colombia. To carry it out, the Procrastination Assessment Scale Students (PASS) by Solomon and Rothblum (1984) was used, emphasizingacademic trajectory, aversion to homework, perfectionism and self-esteem as categorical variables, which was applied to 867 students from the different undergraduate programs at CECAR. The analysis of the information was done using SPSS software, version 26, with the intention of identifying the state of procrastination in the academic programs, characterizingthe associativity of procrastination with the academic programs and, finally, correlating procrastination with the academic performance of the students. The results of the analysis showed that 89.10 % of the surveyed population is procrastinating, distributed as follows: 41.80 % of the population is in a state of low procrastination, 39.70 % is in a state of medium procrastination and 7.60 % is in a state of strong procrastination. As for the second objective, the association between the state of procrastination and academic programs was demonstrated using the Mann Whitney test carried out using non-parametric variables, obtaining significance values of 0.000, which is less than 0.05, demonstrating that there are significant differences between the two variables. In addition, it was found by comparative analysis of means that the order of contribution of each of the variables evaluated on the state of procrastination: Perfectionism or fear of failure, anxiety, aversion to tasks and academic history. Finally, the third objective was achieved by determining Spearman's Rho correlation coefficient with a value of 0.243, showing correlations between procrastination and students' academic performance. This value is interpreted as the existence of positive and moderate correlations,with significance at the 0.01 level, thus proving the hypothesis that directs the research. This result reveals the need for interventions adjusted to the needs detected, i.e. fear of failure and anxiety