Why Do Distant Learning Students Procrastinate on Research Papers?
Why Do online First Year Composition Students Procrastinate?
Distant learning students procrastinate on research papers because their attention is not focused on school work, but the activities that are entertaining to them. We felt that this issue needed to be explored because distant learning and online learning is a fairly new topic amongst society that is barely being accepted. It is an alternative form of learning usually online, or at home. Why is it that distant learning First Year Composition students procrastinate on their assignments? College itself adds a weight load of stress on First-Year Composition ( FYC ) of this type because these students have to deal with school work in addition to other stresses: dealing with difficulties at home, having social lives, most have a job outside of school, some are providers in their household, and some are already parents and must take care of their children. With so many activities, students refrain from practicing self-regulation and time management, and begin to procrastinate to not have to deal with the stresses of these activities. Procrastination is when a student knowingly refrains from completing an assignment. If students knew what was refraining them from completing their assignment, students would do away with them, practice self-regulation, and time management to complete their work in a timely fashion.
Dissatisfaction with the public school system is the most prominent factor in the decision to home school or pursue an online education. In the article, “ The Impact of Schooling on Academic Achievement: Evidence From Home schooled and Traditionally Schooled Students,” it has found that the home schooled students who had the highest scores came from families with high income families with university educated parents. These parents invested more than $600 dollars on materials for each student. The more the parents have invested and were involved in the education of their child, the better scores they have received.
There have been studies that students who come from homeschooling have less chances of being involved in a classroom in college. Coming from a home schooled family, you would imagine they would not be outspoken, but they are like any other person who attended public school. In "The Social And Educational Outcomes Of Homeschooling” by Joseph Murphy, he provides an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of research that has already been found on home schooled students. He had two “pathways” that examined the impacts of homeschooling. The first way was the outcomes in four areas: society, public school, costs, and family. The second one was on the outcomes on: academic achievement, social development, and post-school success. “More accurately, remarkably little attention has been devoted to this important outcome in the home school literature.” Murphy found that there was no actual information that could back up his thoughts on homeschooling, so he thought that students who were home schooled would be less likely to become successful than public school students.
The table below shows, one of the students we interviewed showing how they felt on the topic procrastination. The student’s response was related to one of the sources we found that the student felt that stresses came with procrastination were not being able to sleep because of the fact that there is too much homework.
Distant education programs offer flexibility and accessibility to students who are otherwise unable to undertake traditional on-campus study because of family and work commitments or geographical concentrations. In "Comparing Satisfaction, Life-Stress, Coping And Academic Performance Of Counselling Students In On-Campus And Distance Education Learning Environments" by Brett Furlonger and Emilia Gencic, a survey was conducted on 295 students who were trying to achieve a bachelors or masters in counseling. The survey was used to measure their levels of satisfaction, stress, coping, and academic performance between the students who were distance learners and those that were on-campus students. They were able to find that “75% of all students will experience moderate levels of stress during an academic period, irrespective of where or in what mode they choose to study.” No matter how they decide to achieve a higher education, whether it be on-campus or online learning, students will experience stress when trying to complete their assignments. This study found that students who searched for support from friends, family, or peers were better at balancing their stress and managing their time with the assignments. It also shows “post-hoc analysis revealed that on-campus students utilized avoidance to a significantly greater extent than off-campus students,” so students use procrastination as form of coping skill for their stress whether they are on-campus learners or distant learners. The study was conducted on postgraduate students who had an interest in counseling and that is an issue because some of these students already have their bachelors in counseling. This means they already had experience in the field they were studying which could affect the outcome of the study.
Procrastination has been related to generalized and specific kinds of anxiety. There was a
study done in "Situational And Personal Determinants Of Academic Procrastination” by Norman
Milgram, in which 112 females from different majors were recruited to complete personality tests and other quizzes throughout a period of four days on why they procrastinated. They all stated that they felt they procrastinated because they had anxiety, stress, and paranoia from their everyday lives. It was stated that, “One may criticize this measure on the grounds that whereas the dependent variable referred to actual behavior, the scores were obtained..” “... the validity of the behavioral measure depends on the veracity of the students”. The study showed how these individuals’ out of school anxieties caused them to procrastinate with their school work.
In the article by Andrea Carvalho Beluce & Katya Luciane de Oliveira Students, “Students’ Motivation for Learning in Virtual Learning Environments. Paidéia (Ribeirão Preto),” found that online learners need to have self motivation and good instructors in order to perform well in a virtual learning environment. Research was done through a series of questions to portray to educators and psychologist the levels of motivation and demotivation that students had. The questions were focused on how often they participated in class, completed work, and were also pertaining to their self-motivation. When attending an online learning program there is a need for a student to have “motivation [to learn is recognized] as one of the main determinants for the success and the quality of [their] the academic learning.” Unlike when students were attending high school through the public school system students were pushed to complete their assignments. If a student does not have self motivation, no matter how they decide to pursue their education, whether it be online or on campus, they will fail. “A teacher can perform a critical factor in the students persistence in activities undertaken in virtual environments” and when students feel that connection, they won’t be embarrassed to ask questions and that will make them feel confident in the material. They will then know that they are capable of completing the assignment, and will refrain from procrastinating which in turn will allow them to be less stressed during their academic career. The issue with this study was that when students were asked these questions, about their motivation to complete each course, their answers could have been more socially valued than what they truly felt. Which is why we decided that we needed to see why students procrastinated on their homework because we felt that these articles were all lacking important factors and were not really answering our question as to why students procrastinate.
By having this issue of procrastination, we had to find the truth behind this madness of
pushing the work to the last minute. We further went into depth with our sources to get more
insight into what were the reasons why you as students procrastinated. We plan on interviewing
students who are attending an online class to see what they feel is the reason behind their
procrastination. This will give us a first look as to what students feel is keeping them from
completing their assignments. We also plan on interviewing Bonnie Garcia and her experiences
as an online instructor. By doing so we will be able to see an instructor’s perspective on how
well her students perform compared in her online class and on campus class. We decided that
students who are in ENGL 1302 so we can see what students in the Rio Grande Valley think
when they hear “homeschooling” or “distant learners” and what they believe are the struggles
and positive outcomes of attending. Students who are attending an online class so we can have a
personal insight on students who are currently enrolled so we can see what they feel are the
struggles and the positive outcomes of attending an online class. These are the questions below
that we decided to ask the students to see why they procrastinate, how often they do so, what
strategies they use to stay focused on their homework, and see what keeps them from completing
their work.
We decided to test and see what was causing First Year Composition online learning
students to procrastinate. We interviewed six FYC students who were attending an online
English class at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, to see what was causing them to
knowingly refrain from doing their assignments. Due to these interviews we noticed that the
reason behind their procrastination is that the students felt overwhelmed with their life outside of
the classroom. One of students in our interview said that “ I have 5 more other classes and a full
time job, a social life, a girlfriend, family and political events and the stuff that needs to be
completed before law school. Mainly my life.” They have activities such as working, hanging out with their friends, significant other, and also have other class assignments to complete. We also noticed that not all First Year Composition students procrastinate on their research paper. Some individuals are very organized and can handle the pressure that comes with writing a research paper although they were organized, they still had anxiety and stress from their life outside of school.
We found that the students had similar answers in that they were afraid of failing their research paper and with that brings anxiety, which is what students try to avoid. We asked the students why they felt what are the stresses that came with procrastinating “The fear of not having the correct format and not having enough time to proofread my entire project” and also “The pressure of feeling you didn't do a really good job by writing a paper right before it's due.” These students needed self motivation to finish their assignments. They needed to remind themselves that they are capable of completing the assignment and have the tools to be able to do so. The students were unbalanced and did not practice self regulation or time management. An issue for the students was the environment shift from high school to college, for example one of the students had only done one research paper in her life. In the table below we can see how this student was confident when writing a essay.
With our interviews we were able to see that the students had also similar answers and that technology was a big distraction when they would try to complete their assignments. Cell phones and social media weren’t benefiting them in completing their papers. All of this information gives us a more in depth insight to why first year college students procrastinate on their assignments. These students were offered extra credit from their instructor to participate in our research and interestingly, out of the six students who took the survey only one was a male. The girl’s answers were complete sentences and offered an insight as to why they would procrastinate in their online course. While the only male participant’s answer was short and to the point.
Procrastinating won’t be the solution to anybody's problems. Procrastination is happening because students are so overwhelmed with their own activities outside of school. They have a life outside the classroom and that is what gives them anxiety or stress. There are students who have bills to pay, children to feed, mothers to care for, brothers and sisters as well to help out with. When you also add classwork that can make or break their career it is adding even MORE stress to their daily lives. Also, students tend to procrastinate with activities that they enjoy participating in which is social media, the cell phone, watching tv, and going out with friends. When students participate in these activities they loose concentrations for example Student A “ I feel that technology is a huge distraction! When trying to complete assignments i'll tell myself to take a break and end up being on my phone for two hours!” As far as procrastination goes a key factor is to know how to manage your time, which you can do by simply knowing when to dedicate your time to your priorities. Managing time is easy, you can go to a store to buy a little notebook or board where you can write what is it you need to get done. By doing these simple steps you are planning out the day or week ahead. You will then know what it is you need to do first that has more urgency to it. It’s self-regulation and time management that a student needs. So buying a calendar and writing down due dates and managing the time you will study, time you will work out, amount of time you will dedicate to your friends or significant other can help you feel organized and relieve some stress. For instance, to manage your time you can buy a planner and dedicate specific days to studying or simply make a checklist on the things you need to do, and once you write out what it is you have to do you are managing your time. One example is that my boyfriend and I make time for one another on specific days. Sundays and Wednesday nights are our date nights. Thursday night through Saturday night I am working and I know that no studying can happen then. I make time to study Monday all day and Tuesday, this will vary person to person, because I feel that this schedule works best for me. Everyone’s schedule is different and you should keep track of the activities for school, home, and for you social life. Also as a student you need to self motivate yourself and believe that you can complete your homework. One psychological study that was done that I learned in my Psychology 1301, was that every morning write down what you would like to accomplish and how you can complete your goal. For the next seven days you should have been able to accomplish your goal. You should practice time management, motivate yourself, put away the phone and social media. By doing so you will be able to complete the years you have in college with less stress than you would if you did not practice these helpful tips.
Works Cited Page
Beluce, Andrea Carvalho, & Oliveira, Katya Luciane de. (2015). Students’ Motivation for
Learning in Virtual Learning Environments. Paidéia (Ribeirão Preto), 25(60), 105-113.
https://dx.doi.org/10.1590/1982-43272560201513
Furlonger, Brett, and Emilia Gencic. "Comparing Satisfaction, Life-Stress, Coping And
Academic Performance Of Counselling Students In On-Campus And Distance Education
Learning Environments." Australian Journal Of Guidance And Counselling 24.1 (2014):
76-89. PsycINFO. Web. 28 Feb. 2016.
Martin-Chang, Sandra, Odette N. Gould, and Reanne E. Meuse. "The Impact Of Schooling On
Academic Achievement: Evidence From Homeschooled And Traditionally Schooled
Students." Canadian Journal Of Behavioural Science/Revue
Milgram, Norman A., Weizman Dangour, and Amiram Raviv. "Situational And Personal
Determinants Of Academic Procrastination." Journal Of General Psychology 119.2
(1992): 123-133. PsycINFO. Web. 28 Feb. 2016.
Murphy, Joseph. "The Social And Educational Outcomes Of Homeschooling."
Sociological Spectrum 34.3 (2014): 244-272. PsycINFO. Web. 28 Feb. 2016.
Student A. Personal Interview. March 13, 2016.
Student B. Personal Interview. March 11, 2016.
Student C. Personal Interview. March 11, 2016
Student D. Personal Interview. March 10, 2016.
Student E. Personal Interview. March 10, 2016.
