Procrastination during COVID-19 Pandemic: Comparison
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Please note this is a comparison between Version 2 by Jason Zhu and Version 1 by Paula Hidalgo-Andrade.

Procrastination involves voluntarily or habitually delaying unpleasant tasks for later. It is characterized by short-term benefits and long-term costs. The COVID-19 pandemic set specific circumstances that may have influenced procrastination behavior. Procrastination behavior was related to anxiety, distress, time management, self-control, and other variables. There is limited information about interventions to prevent or decrease procrastinating behaviors in the context of confinement or in the living conditions generated by the pandemic. 

  • academic procrastination
  • lockdown
  • procrastination
  • COVID

1. Introduction

In December 2019, the presence of a severe respiratory infection was detected in China. The disease, named “coronavirus disease 2019” (COVID-19) [1], spread rapidly outside of China; by 11 March 2020, it was declared as a pandemic by the World Health Organization Director, Dr. Tedros Adhanom [2]. To preserve the health of the population and avoid contagions, several countries adopted restriction measures. Mostly, those measures promoted closing country borders, home confinement, and social distancing [3]. All these restrictions affected the way people developed their daily activities such as working, studying, and leisure. These activities changed abruptly to remote settings, helped by the Internet and communication technologies.
The changes in daily activities provoked the presence of emotional distress [4], amplified also by the uncertainty of living in a pandemic [5]. To deal with these situations, people engaged in activities, mostly in front of screens [6] and, in some cases, procrastinated on some other compulsory tasks.
Procrastination is a psychological term that involves voluntarily or habitually delaying unpleasant tasks for later; it is characterized by short-term benefits and long-term costs [7,8,9][7][8][9]. Procrastination has been studied in different contexts, including academic [9,10,11][9][10][11], work [12], daily life [13], and health [14].
Academic procrastination refers to deliberate and unnecessary delay in completing academic tasks for no reason. It leads to painful feelings and negative learning experiences [9,11][9][11]. Several studies suggest that academic procrastination is a consequence of a self-regulation deficit in students [15,16][15][16]. Likewise, evidence indicates that personality traits, such as neuroticism and extraversion, are associated with procrastination [17].
Furthermore, procrastination at work is defined as delaying work activities by performing non-work-related actions during working hours, with no intention of harming the employer, employee, workplace, or customer. There are two subtypes of procrastination at work: (1) soldiering, which refers to the avoidance of performing work tasks for more than one hour per day without intent to harm others, and (2) cyberslacking, which is when employees may give the impression that they are working on their computers, but they may be performing other personal activities such as shopping online, using social networks, etc., incurring high costs to companies [12]. In the workplace, organizations have concerns about employees sometimes engaging in non-work-related activities during working hours. In a study conducted by Metin et al. [18] using a sample of 380 white-collar full-time employees in The Netherlands, the reseauthorchers found a negative correlation between work engagement and procrastination; this means that people with elevated levels of commitment clearly did not spend much time on non-work-related activities during working hours. Hence, procrastination and performance were negatively related.
On the other hand, procrastination of everyday life is the extent to which people perform routine life tasks on time or late, differing according to personal time orientation [13]. This domain can include delaying various kinds of activities, such as filing income tax returns, performing household duties, engaging in hobbies on a regular basis, visiting parents, returning a phone call, writing an e-mail, or meeting friends [19]. In a study in the US, carried out by Ferrari et al. [20] using three different adult samples, findings suggest that procrastination of everyday tasks can lead to problems with clutter in older adults. This is important because these problems related to clutter can reduce a person’s general satisfaction with life.
Everyone tends to procrastinate at various times in their lives. Some people tend to procrastinate most of the time, and others tend to procrastinate in specific situations [15]. Several variables related to procrastination have been identified, such as academic anxiety, self-handicapping, and COVID-19 fear in students. An explanation is that students could only study online given the imposed lockdowns, thus providing a more favorable context to procrastinate [8,10,11,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29][8][10][11][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28].
The COVID-19 pandemic was an unprecedented event that changed the daily activities of most of the world’s population [7]. There is evidence that procrastination during this period may present positive benefits such as an opportunity to “redefine career goals, rethink relationships, relook at personal philosophies, and re-explore passions” [30][29], whereas other studies have analyzed the negative effects including difficulties in distance learning [29][28], the perception that time is moving faster [28][27], an increase in Internet use [10], excessive use of social media [26][25], general distress [23][22], higher levels of depression, and decreased academic performance [31][30].

2. Variables Related to Procrastination

Two studies found that anxiety was positively correlated with procrastination and presented procrastination behavior as a cause of general distress due to the pandemic [11,25][11][24]. Additionally, academic anxiety and self-handicapping [25][24] were found to be positively correlated to procrastination. Other related variables were birth order and permissive parenting style [27][26], the ability to adapt to virtual methodology [29][28], academic performance [10], mental well-being [23[22][31],38], the psychoemotional state generated due to forced social distancing measures [8], a person’s neuroticism [24][23], lack of motivation, and stress [37][32].
Other variables may predict procrastination such as hedonic use of social network sites, job escapism, socializing [26][25], or because of lockdown adaptations [28][27]. On the other hand, it was found that procrastination negatively correlated with several variables such as digital competence and digital literacy [22][21], high perceived competence, time management skills, meta-cognition [37][32], hardiness [25][24], parents’ education, high self-control [27][26], and a person’s openness, conscientiousness, and extraversion [24][23].

3. Sociodemographic Characteristics of the Samples

Regarding the sociodemographic characteristics of the samples in the 13 included empirical studies, participants’ characteristics varied, although most of them were students and workers aged between 14 and 60 years old. Age was found in one study to be positively related to procrastination. Specifically, a study showed that students aged 23 and older have higher levels of academic procrastination than students between the ages of 17 and 19 [11]. Additionally, gender was a significant variable in one study where male students were found to exhibit a higher presence of procrastination behaviors than female students [10].
The geographical regions of the empirical studies varied: two studies were from China [24,25], two were conducted in Russia [22,29], and two in Turkey [10,11]. Other studies included in this scoping review were conducted on Algeria [38], Austria [37], Greece [26], Indonesia [27], Pakistan [28], and Ukraine [8]. One study presented results from several countries, including Brazil, Colombia, Germany, Israel, and Norway [23].

4. Context and Environment

Procrastination was mostly studied in academic contexts. In total, 10 studies included a sample of university and high school students, with variables related to the academic environment having an impact on procrastination, such as internet consumption [10[10][25],26], task aversiveness and fear of failure [37][32], sleep patterns [28][27], parenting styles [27][26], and anxiety [11,25][11][24]. On the other hand, four of the articles studied procrastination in the same academic context but focused on how procrastinating behavior affected the learning process in distance education amongst students and schoolteachers [8,23,30,38][8][22][29][31].

5. Instruments Used to Measure Procrastination

All the reviewed articles measured the levels of procrastination during the pandemic. Table 1 indicates the instruments used by each study and shows that three instruments were commonly used—namely, the Academic Procrastination Scale [40][33], the Tuckman’s Procrastination Scale [41][34], and the General Procrastination Scale [42][35]. Other instruments employed were the Procrastination Questionnaire for Students [43][36] and the Procrastination Academic Scale for Students [44][37]. Five studies also implemented questionnaires designed specifically for their studies [23,26,28,29,38][22][25][27][28][31].

6. Intervention Strategies

The reviewed literature did not present strategies focused on lowering or changing the levels of procrastination; two articles, however, made suggestions on how to reduce it but neither implemented nor measured the suggested strategies. The first study observed the effect of physical activities during the lockdown and concluded it could decrease negative feelings associated with anxiety and depression; it presented a weak correlation with lower levels of procrastination [11]. The second strategy aimed to lower procrastination habits and to increase levels of self-control by creating organizational skills, setting goals, and promoting healthy habits [27][26].
Table 1.
General information of selected articles.
Article Title Author (year) Type Country Objectives Instruments for Measuring Procrastination Conclusion and Recommendations Quality Assessment Based on “QualSyst” [39]Quality Assessment Based on “QualSyst” [38]
COVID-19 fear in sports sciences students and its effect on academic procrastination behavior Biricik and Sivrikaya [11] Scientific article Turkey To examine the COVID-19 fear levels of the students of the faculty of sports sciences and their academic procrastination behavior in terms of various variables and to determine the correlation between them. Academic Procrastination Scale [40]Academic Procrastination Scale [33] There was a weak positive correlation between COVID-19 fear and academic procrastination behavior. Students who worked out during the pandemic had less fear of COVID-19; however, this had a weak effect on reducing academic procrastination behavior. Higher education institutions should provide aid for students to overcome negative emotions and improve academic performance. 1.55
Distance learning during the corona-lockdown: some psychological and pedagogical aspects. Valieva [29]Valieva [28] Conference Paper Russia To summarize and analyze factors that, to a certain extent, influenced the effectiveness of distance learning for educators. Author’s questionnaire of irrational procrastination The teacher’s ability to procrastinate can play a certain role in the issue of adjustment to rapidly changing conditions in the distance mode; other times, quick decision-making may be crucial. 1.22
Effects of COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown on lifestyle and mental health of students: A retrospective study from Karachi, Pakistan Ali et al. [28]Ali et al. [27] Scientific article Pakistan To investigate the correlations between changes in sleep pattern, perception of time, and digital media usage. To explore the impact of these changes on the mental health of students of different educational levels. Author’s questionnaire Findings indicate the decline in the mental health of students due to the lockdown. Longitudinal studies on the subject are needed. 1.73
Examining the relationship between academic procrastination behaviors and problematic Internet usage of high school students during the COVID-19 pandemic period Tezer et al. [10] Scientific article Turkey To examine the relationship between academic procrastination behaviors and problematic Internet usage of high school students during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Academic Procrastination Scale [40]Academic Procrastination Scale [33] Results show that academic procrastination behavior and problematic internet usage have a positive correlation. 1.64
A preliminary study of online learning: the influence of the class approaches and the personality of students Sun et al. [24]Sun et al. [23] Scientific article China. To answer these questions (1) Will different formats of online courses generate different learning effects? and (2) What kinds of students are best fitted in each of these approaches? Tuckman’s Procrastination Scale [41]Tuckman’s Procrastination Scale [34] Procrastination is negatively correlated with a person’s openness, conscientiousness, and extraversion; however, it is positively correlated with a person’s neuroticism. More studies are needed to design a self-reflection scale that could be used for online learning to improve the reliability and validity of the data. 1.73
Identifying resilience factors of distress and paranoia during the COVID-19 pandemic Mækelæ et al. [23]Mækelæ et al. [22] Pre-print. Brazil, Colombia, Germany, Israel, and Norway To study resilience, a successful adaptation despite risk and adversity, in five countries: Brazil, Colombia, Germany, Israel, and Norway. Authors questionnaire Thriving, keeping a regular schedule, engaging in physical exercise and less procrastination served as factors protecting mental well-being. Procrastinators had a higher score on general distress than participants who spent no or little time procrastinating. 1.36
Influence of poor digital competence on procrastination of university teachers Kosycheva et al. [22]Kosycheva et al. [21] Scientific article Russia To describe the possible ways of evaluating digital competence and digital literacy of university teaching staff and underline the importance of university teachers’ ICT skills development. Tuckman’s Procrastination Scale [41]Tuckman’s Procrastination Scale [34] Procrastination in teachers is correlated to working conditions; digital competence and digital competence beliefs; fear of failure and tasks aversiveness. 1.18
Learning during COVID-19: the role of self-regulated learning, motivation, and procrastination for perceived competence Pelikan et al. [37]Pelikan et al. [32] Scientific article Austria To investigate differences in students who perceived themselves as high vs. low in competence with respect to these constructs. Passive procrastination adapted from Procrastination Questionnaire for Students [43]Passive procrastination adapted from Procrastination Questionnaire for Students [36] Students who experienced themselves as highly competent use SRL strategies procrastinated less. 1.60
Academic anxiety and self-handicapping among medical students during the COVID-19 pandemic: a moderated mediation model Jia et al. [25]Jia et al. [24] Pre-print China To examine the mediating role of procrastination and moderating role of hardiness in the association between academic anxiety and self-handicapping during the COVID-19 pandemic. The General Procrastination Scale [42]The General Procrastination Scale [35] Academic anxiety was positively correlated with procrastination and self-handicapping, and negatively correlated with hardiness. Procrastination was positively correlated with self-handicapping and negatively correlated with hardiness; hardiness was negatively correlated with self-handicapping. Furthermore, procrastination partially mediated the relationship between academic anxiety and self-handicapping, and both the effects of academic anxiety on self-handicapping and the mediating effect of procrastination were moderated by hardiness. 1.45
Motives and consequences of social network sites: teachers in Greece a case study Gougas and Malinova [26]Gougas and Malinova [25] Scientific article Greece. To evaluate the hedonic use, utilitarian use, socializing, procrastination, job escapism, and work productivity of the specific professional team from the use of social network sites (SNSs). Authors’ questionnaire Hedonic use of SNS is correlated with procrastination to analyze the relationship between the motives for use of SNSs. 1.18
Academic procrastination during the COVID-19 pandemic: the control, parenting style, and family factors Rahdadella and Latifah [27]Rahdadella and Latifah [26] Conference Paper Indonesia To identify individual characteristics, family characteristics, parenting styles, self-control, and academic procrastination and analyze the influence of individual characteristics, family characteristics, parenting styles, and self-control towards academic procrastination in undergraduate students. Procrastination Academic Scale for Students [44]Procrastination Academic Scale for Students [37] The birth order and mother’s permissive parenting style positively affected academic procrastination. Additionally, the father’s education and the student’s self-control had a significantly negative effect on academic procrastination. It is important to improve self-control and not apply a dominant permissive parenting style, to prevent procrastination. 1.81
The nature of the manifestation of procrastination, level of anxiety and depression in medical students in a period of altered psycho-emotional state during forced social distancing because of pandemic COVID-19 and its impact on academic performance Romash [8] Scientific article Ukraine To investigate and evaluate the level of anxiety, depression, and the nature of the manifestation of procrastination in medical students Faculty of Medicine and the Faculty of Training Foreign Citizens of Ivano-Frankivsk National Medical University in a period of altered psychoemotional state during the period of forced social distancing and its impact on academic performance. The General Procrastination Scale [42]The General Procrastination Scale [35] Procrastination occurs in the surveyed medical students in the period of altered psychoemotional state during forced social distancing. Results show that in the group with low procrastination, the success rate is higher than in groups with medium and high procrastination. 1.45
The psychological and behavioral side-effects of coronavirus outbreak (COVID-19) on the Algerian researchers’ scientific work and academic plans: The case of master two and PhD students Khiari and Khiari [38]Khiari and Khiari [31] Scientific article Algeria To investigate thoughts, feelings, and perspectives of 202 male and female Master Two and PhD students about how the lockdown impacted their research and on what levels. Author’s questionnaire Coronavirus crisis and the quarantine have negative effects on their mood, spirits, and psychological well-being, which leads to procrastination and loss of motivation. 1.60

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