Domain Specificity of Procrastination in School

Abstract

In the educational context, procrastination is a widespread phenomenon that is detrimental to learning progress, but currently, there is little knowledge about procrastination in schools. In this study, we conducted a detailed investigation of procrastination in German schools at the upper secondary level. Of particular interest were the procrastination frequency and potential domain specificity of the construct. For this purpose, we analyzed data from 4,056 high school students (with an average age of 16.38 years) from 225 school classes. Overall, 78.2 % of the students reported that they procrastinate at least occasionally, and general procrastination tendencies in school were comparable to the higher education context. The results furthermore suggest that procrastination is domain specific. The results contribute to a better understanding of the extent of domain-specific procrastination in school.