The Draws and Drawbacks of College Students’ Active Procrastination

When students procrastinate, they divert time from academics toward other activities, returning to academics at a later time. The prevailing consensus among higher education scholars and practitioners is that procrastination reflects motivational struggles and harms students academically (Milgram & Tenne, 2000). However, some students intentionally procrastinate in college and appear to benefit from doing so. Active procrastination describes the behavior of students who prefer to work under pressure, choose to postpone assigned work, complete requirements by deadlines, and attain satisfactory grades (Chu & Choi, 2005). An active procrastinator might, for instance, start writing a paper the night before it is due. She would engage in this activity not as a last resort but with the anticipation of staying focused, meeting assignment expectations, and achieving her desired grade in a minimal amount of time. Although “legitimizing the procrastination process” is a possible implication (Schraw, Wadkins, & Olafson, 2007, p. 23), caution is warranted in light of the competing evidence and potential impact on students. To simultaneously weigh the appeal and ramifications of active procrastination, this study identifies reasons for college students’ commitment to procrastination alongside perceived limitations of the behavior. Active procrastination is a departure from the form of procrastination defined by scholars as passive (i.e., avoidant, maladaptive) in nature. Traditionally, researchers linked procrastination to difficulty with self-regulation and discomfort with making decisions (Milgram & Tenne, 2000), as well as low confidence and grades (Corkin, Yu, & Lindt, 2011). To better understand why some procrastinators did not experience these correlates or outcomes, scholars reframed procrastination as an active, rather than a passive, behavior (Choi & Moran, 2009; Chu & Choi, 2005). By approaching procrastination as an active (i.e., purposeful, adaptive) behavior, scholars could highlight beneficial outcomes for students who intentionally delayed academics. Survey-based studies of active procrastination have included undergraduates of all academic levels and a range of ethnic backgrounds. The studies, which reported aggregate results and did not test for grouplevel differences, demonstrated overall positive relations between active procrastination and desirable characteristics. Researchers demonstrated connections to high grades in a human development course (Corkin et al., 2011), life satisfaction and self-reported cumulative GPA for students at three Cana dian universities (Chu & Choi, 2005), and emotional stability for Canadian business students (Choi & Moran, 2009). Corkin et al. expressed concern, however, about negative correlations with students’ motivation for learning. Two major qualitative studies shed light on college students’ procrastination. In an interview-based study of German undergraduates from 17 disciplines, most themes were “deficitoriented” (p. 404), reflecting a lack of motivation, self-regulation, or confidence (Klingsieck, Grund, Schmid, & Fries, 2013). The aspect of working best under pressure emerged for a small