Procrastinação acadêmica: um estudo acerca das variáveis ambientais que influenciam no comportamento de adiar tarefas entre estudantes universitários.

Abstract

Procrastination corresponds to a topographical class that encompasses different actions, such as postponing tasks, extending activities, interrupting tasks or even failing to do so. Existing research on procrastination is divided into three different axes: study habits, clinical research, and everyday life. The present study aims to identify the environmental variables that influence the behavior of procrastinating among university students. A cross - sectional, survey - type survey was conducted with a sample of 337 participants from undergraduate students at the Federal University of Ceará - Campus Sobral / CE. The data were collected through an electronic questionnaire. The results indicate a prevalence of academic procrastination of 46% among respondents and that the type of course (p = 0.03) influences this postponement. Concerning the concurrent activities, the use of social networks (p <0.001) is pointed out as the main alternative task that students engage. It was also possible to identify that reading texts is the most delayed activity (p <0.001). The variables that show a higher probability of occurrence to the behavior of procrastinating did not present statistical significance (p = 0.053), indicating a possible low discriminative power of the respondents on this behavioral relation. In addition, emotional responders (p <0.001) and anxiety (p = 0.02) prevailed among the study participants. It is concluded that the study clarifies some environmental variables related to academic procrastination, and that this occurs in a significant prevalence among university students, which can significantly affect their academic life. Institutional practices and low self-knowledge prove to be potential targets for future research.