Examining the association between academic procrastination and perfectionism in University of Malta students

Abstract

Perfectionism and academic procrastination are two phenomena commonly experienced in students. Studies have highlighted some of the implications of the associations between them including feelings of uncertainty about one’s capabilities. Burnam and colleagues (2014) explained how maladaptive perfectionism, can contribute to higher levels of procrastination in academic settings, because students tendentially set very high standards and consequently feel overwhelmed and delay tasks. This study explored the association between perfectionism and academic procrastination in university students. A total sample of 102 university students, (n = 78 females, n = 24 males), undergraduates and post-graduates, were recruited through social media and completed an online questionnaire, by using convenience sampling. The questionnaire contained two scales, the Big Three Perfectionism Scale and the Procrastination Assessment Scale for students. The findings of this study revealed a significant association between self-oriented perfectionism, self-worth contingencies, concerns over mistakes, doubts about action, self-criticism, rigid perfectionism, and selfcritical perfectionism with the fear of failure domain in academic procrastination. Therefore, this shows that essentially self-criticism and self-oriented perfectionism, two of the components of maladaptive perfectionism, are highly associated with fear of failure Nevertheless, the reasons for this association, and the reasons behind the fear of failure, must be further investigated in future research for a clearer understanding of the relationship between the two phenomena.