why students procrastinate

1. Comparison:

When students are constantly compared about their performance with others, they get into a mindset of “Whatever I do I will be compared. So, why do it sincerely?” Slowly, the start procrastinating. They stop doing their hardwork. They start working with poor dedication.

2. No Relevance:

If an assignment or project is of no relevance to what they study, the result goes two ways. First, the student could become curious to learn new things. Or, the student sees no relevance and begins procrastinating.

3. Don’t know where to begin:

Students will expect simple & clear instructions on how to do any work. If they don’t know how to get started, they procrastinate. Besides, when students don’t understand what is being expected of them, what type of work they expect, how the results should be, they postpone tasks.

4. No Understanding:

Lack of understanding is another fundamental reason behind students procrastinating. A student should be able to understand at least to a minimum level of how subjects, topics, assignments, and projects work. Only then, they can process. Lack of understanding leads to a lack of interest in students. Over time, you can see them procrastinating.

5. Convenient Deadlines:

Set Evenly spaced, convenient deadlines. It yields better results than imposed, one-final deadline. Here is an example. Big assignments/projects will overwhelm students. But, with evenly spaced deadlines it will be easy for students to divide the assignment into chunks and work. Student’s progress can also be monitored from time to time. Note that, Lenient deadlines also make students procrastinate. So, follow an evenly-spaced deadline strategy.

6. No Support System:

Students need a positive support system to encourage them. A constructive feedback system is preferable instead of a ‘critic-mode’. Encouraging systems in different ways will prevent students from procrastinating and start acting.