Academic Procrastination and Student Achievement in an Introductory Economics Course

Procrastination and its adverse effect on student performance at the college and university level has been studied extensively in other disciplines, particularly in educational psychology. However, the topic has been neglected very much in economics education literature. This study examines the motivational and cognitive factors of procrastination and how they affect student achievement, as reflected by exam scores, and is based on samples of two large sections of introductory micro and macro classes, each initially consisting of 177 and 180 students, respectively. Using homework assignment data, the results show that in almost all of the exams given in the two classes, procrastinators on the average scored significantly less than non-procrastinators. Using both homework assignments and survey data in the macro section, the results show that procrastination has a significant and negative influence on student achievement with homework assignment data but a negative and insignificant effect with survey data. Implications are discussed, particularly as to the benefit of identifying and assisting procrastinators early in a semester by the timely evaluation of students’ completion of homework assignments.