The Role of Attributional Thinking and Self-Regulation in Procrastination in Synchronous Online Graduate Courses

• In Event: Fostering Persistence and Self-Regulatory Processes in Online Courses

Abstract

We sought to understand if malleable variables, attributional thinking and self-regulation, were predictive of procrastination in synchronous online students. Procrastination is pervasive in asynchronous courses (Klingsieck et al., 2012), graduate students (Cao, 2012), and adult learners (Kerr et al., 2006). Procrastination predicts undesirable academic outcomes (Cerezo et al., 2017). Research indicates, for asynchronous students, attributional thinking and self-regulation predict procrastination (Rakes & Dunn, 2010) and respond to training (Dunn & Rakes, 2015). This has not been confirmed for synchronous online graduate students. Our participants were moderate procrastinators, which is detrimental to learning (Steel, 2007), and effort attributions and self-regulation were predictive of their procrastination, explaining 21.4% of the variance.

Authors

• Karee E. Dunn, The University of Tennessee - Knoxville

• Takuya Hayakawa, The University of Tennessee - Knoxville