BACKGROUND: Short-term academic procrastination may be accompanied by negative outcomes such as anxiety, stress, and depression. The current study aims to evaluate the two parameters of procrastination and test anxiety in physiotherapy students and explore whether a relationship exists between them. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A descriptive, cross-sectional survey with a prospective study design was carried out over a period of 6 months. The study used a two-staged cluster sampling method: 220 undergraduate and postgraduate physiotherapy students from colleges in Mumbai and Navi Mumbai participated in the study, ensuring participation of students from each year of the course. The Westside Test Anxiety Scale was administered to evaluate test anxiety, and the Academic Procrastination Scale was used to evaluate procrastination. To illustrate the basic demographics of the participants, descriptive statistics were used. A correlation matrix was used to analyze the correlation between the two parameters. RESULTS: The mean procrastination score of the physiotherapy students was 74.1. Amongst undergraduates, the highest procrastination was seen in the 3rd Bachelor of Physiotherapy students (mean = 76.7), whereas among postgraduates, the highest procrastination was seen in Master of Physiotherapy 1 students (mean = 75.7). The mean test anxiety score was 3, indicating moderately high test anxiety among students. There was a statistically significant, positive correlation between test anxiety score and procrastination score (P value = 0.000, Pearson's correlation co-efficient = 0.383). CONCLUSION: Both test anxiety and the tendency to procrastinate were present among undergraduate and postgraduate physiotherapy students, in varying degrees. There was a positive correlation between the two factors.

BACKGROUND: Students' perception of their academic environment has a substantial influence on their actions, academic accomplishments, satisfaction, goal attainment, and behavior. The study was carried out to evaluate the perception of academic environment in physiotherapy students, and to identify the specific domains which could act as predictors of academic performance. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This descriptive, cross-sectional research was conducted over 12 months using total population sampling. Three hundred and forty-three (139 postgraduate and 204 final year) final year and postgraduate physiotherapy students from five colleges of Mumbai and Navi Mumbai, who conformed to the inclusion benchmarks, participated in the study. Perception of educational environment was evaluated using Dundee Ready Education Environment Measure (DREEM). Academic performance was evaluated using the percentage obtained in the last university examination. Data were entered in MS Excel (©Microsoft, USA) and converted to Stata Version 15.1© StataCorp, College Station, for further analysis. The mean values and standard deviations for perception of educational environment were calculated and linear regression models were used to conduct multivariate analysis for each item in the questionnaire. RESULTS: The mean total DREEM score of physiotherapy students was 129.97 ± 22.72. Students whose Students' Academic Self-perception scores were in the “Feeling more on the positive side” category showed a 4.17 point increase in percentage scores as compared with those who reported feeling like a total failure/had many negative aspects to their academic self-perception (95% confidence interval [CI]: 2.46, 5.89; P < 0.001). Students whose Students' Perception of Learning (SPoL) scores were in the “Teaching highly thought of” category showed a 2.75 point increase in percentage scores as compared with those who viewed teaching poorly/negatively (95% CI: 0.44, 5.06; P = 0.02). CONCLUSION: Physiotherapy students had a “more positive than negative” view of the academic environment; however, a few “problematic areas” need to be remediated. Efforts to improve students' academic self-perception may improve their academic performance since this was the strongest predictor of their academic performance, followed by total DREEM scores and SPoL.

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