55 GLOBAL JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH VOL 10, NO. 1, 2011: 55-65 COPYRIGHT© BACHUDO SCIENCE CO. LTD PRINTED IN NIGERIA. ISSN 1596-6224 www.globaljournalseries.com ; [email protected] CORRELATES OF COURSE ANXIETY AND ACADEMIC PROCRASTINATION IN HIGHER EDUCATION.

JAMES AWUNI AZURE (Received 20, October 2009; Revision Accepted 20, January 2010)

ABSTRACT

The study examined the prevalence of procrastination among graduate students, and also investigated the relationship between academic procrastination and six dimensions of statistics anxiety. Participants were 103 Masters of Education graduate students enrolled in the final phase of a two-year Sandwich programme at the University of Education, Winneba in the Central Region of Ghana. Statistics anxiety and academic procrastination of teacher-participants were measured using the Statistical Anxiety Rating Scale (STARS) and the Procrastination Assessment Scale-Students (PASS). Findings revealed that a high percentage of students reported problems with procrastination on writing term papers, studying for examinations, and completing weekly reading assignments. A canonical correlation analysis (R c1 = .54) revealed that academic procrastination resulting from both fear of failure and task aversiveness correlated significantly to worth of statistics, interpretation anxiety, test and class anxiety, computational self-concept, fear of asking for help, and fear of the statistics lecturer. Implications for statistics anxiety reduction as a procrastination intervention are discussed.

KEY WORDS: Course Anxiety, Academic Procrastination, Task Aversiveness, Research Methods.

INTRODUCTION It has been estimated that as many as 80% of Research methods and statistics courses graduate students experience uncomfortable have been an essential part of many levels of statistics anxiety (Mann, 2001; programmes in higher education worldwide. The Onwuegbuzie &Wilson, 2003). According to rationale for teaching research methods and Onwuegbuzie, DaRos and Ryan (1997), statistics statistics at the university level is to enable anxiety is the apprehension which occurs when students to handle, use, and interpret research or individuals encounter statistics in any form and at statistical data in their field of study. An additional any level. Moreover, research methods and goal for teaching statistics is to prepare students statistics anxiety is situation-specific, in as much to deal effectively with statistical aspects of the as the symptoms only emerge at a particular time world outside the classroom (Gal & Ginsburg, and in a particular situation-specifically, when 1994; Nasser, 2004). learning or applying statistics in a formal setting Research and statistics anxiety, which is (Zeidner, 1991; Onwuegbuzie et al., 1997). experienced by majority of graduate students, Studies have found that many students tend to has been found to debilitate performance in experience high levels of course anxiety when statistics (Onwuegbuzie, 2000a; Walsh & confronted with statistical ideas, problems, or Ugumba-Agwunobi, 2002) and research issues, instructional situations, or evaluative methodology courses. As such, it is likely that situations (Zeidner, 1991; Onwuegbuzie & statistics anxiety is, in part, responsible for many Seaman, 1995; Onwuegbuzie & Daley, 1996). students delaying enrollment in these courses for Indeed, statistics anxiety appears to as long as possible. Moreover, it is possible that, involve a complex array of emotional reactions once enrolled in these courses, students with which, in mild forms, may induce only a minor high levels of statistics anxiety tend to discomfort. Severe forms, however, can result in procrastinate on assignments. negative outcomes, such as apprehension, fear,

James Awuni Azure , Department of Science Education, University of Education, Winneba-Ghana

56 JAMES AWUNI AZURE nervousness, panic, and worry (Onwegbuzie, Statement of the problem 2000a). Statistics anxiety and procrastination has Research indicates that statistics anxiety been a major problem of undergraduate and is a multidimensional construct (Cruise, Cash & graduate students in all programmes. Statistics Bolton, 1985; Onwegbuzie, DaRos & Ryan, anxiety, which is experienced by majority of 1997). Using factor analysis, Cruise et al. (1985) graduate students in research methods, has identified six components of statistics anxiety, been found to debilitate performance in statistics namely: (a) worth of statistics, (b) interpretation and research methodology courses anxiety, (c) test and class anxiety, (d) (Onwuegbuzie & Wilson, 2003). A growing body computational self-concept, (e) fear of asking for of research has documented a consistent help, and (f) fear of statistics teachers. According negative relationship between statistics anxiety, to these authors, worth of statistics refers to a academic procrastination and course student’s perception of the relevance of statistics. performance. It has been established that the Interpretation anxiety is concerned with the levels of statistics anxiety experienced by anxiety experienced when a student is faced with students can be so great that undertaking making a decision from or interpreting statistical research methodology and statistics classes data. have come to be regarded by many students as a Test and class anxiety refers to the negative experience (Onwuegbuzie, 2000b). As anxiety experienced when attempting to solve a result of course anxiety, graduate students scientific problems involving some mathematics, often delay enrolling in research methodology as well as the student’s perception of her/his and statistics courses for as long as possible, ability to do science. Fear of asking for help sometimes waiting until the final semester of their measures the anxiety experienced when asking a degree programmes – which is clearly not the fellow student or lecturer/professor for help in optimal time to undertake such courses understanding the material covered in class or (Onwuegbuzie, 1997a, 2004). Unfortunately, few any type of statistical data, such as that studies (if any) have examined methods to contained in a research article or a printout. Fear reduce the worry and anxiety in learning statistics of research methods/statistics teacher is for graduate students in the social sciences concerned with the student’s perception of the (Onwuegbuzie & Wilson, 2000). Graduate research methods and or statistics instructor. students of the University of Education , Statistics anxiety either as a one-dimensional or Winneba, are no exception to this problem. as a multidimensional construct has been found Thus, although not yet empirically tested, it is to be related to science self-concept and self- likely that the propensity for academic image (Azure, 2005), number of university procrastination by graduate students of UEW is science courses, science ability, science related to levels of course and statistics anxiety. preparation, calculator use, learning style, ethnicity, and expected grade (Zeidner, 1991; Literature review Onwegbuzie, 1999a). Academic procrastination is defined as A growing body of research has the purposive and needless delay in beginning or documented a consistent negative relationship completing tasks (Rothblum, Solomon & between statistics anxiety and course Murakami, 1986) or programme. Because performance (Lalonde & Gardner, 1993; Pan & academic procrastination has been correlated Tang, 2004; Onwugbuzie, 2004). In fact, positively to generalised and specific kinds of statistics anxiety in research methods has been anxiety such as test anxiety and social anxiety found to be the best predictor of achievement in (Solomon & Rothblum, 1984; Rothblum et al., research methodology (Onwuegbuzie et al., 1986), it was hypothesised that academic 2000) and statistics (Fitsgerald et al., 1996; procrastination would be positively correlated to Gordon, 2004; Onwuegbuzie, 2005 ) courses. statistics anxiety associated with worth of Additionally, using qualitative techniques, statistics, interpretation anxiety, test and class Onwuegbuzie (1997a) reported that statistics anxiety, computational self-concept, fear of anxiety primarily affects a student’s ability to asking for help, and fear of the statistics understand fully research articles, as well as to instructor. analyse and to interpret statistical data.

CORRELATES OF COURSE ANXIETY AND ACADEMIC PROCRA STINATION 57 Solomon and Rothblum (1984) noted that literature on course anxiety and the implications nearly one-quarter of Caucasian-American to already available knowledge. College students report problems with procrastination on academic tasks such as Methods writing term papers, studying for examinations, Participants and keeping up with weekly readings. Academic Participants were 103 graduate students procrastination has been found to be associated from a number of education disciplines (e.g. with negative academic outcomes, including science education, mathematics education, home missing deadlines for submitting assignments, economics education, languages education, delaying the taking of self-paced quizzes, low special education, and health, physical course grades, and course withdrawal (Semb, education, recreation and sports) enrolled in Glick & Spencer, 1979; Onwuegbiuzie, 2004). various departments of a graduate-level research Solomon and Rothblum (1984) found that methodology course at the University of the fears of failure and task aversiveness are the Education, Winneba. Participation in the study primary reasons for procrastinating, and the latter was voluntary and anonymous, with no accounting for 18% of the variance. The fear of participant declining. In order to participate, failure factor includes items which relate to students were required to give their consent by evaluation anxiety and overly perfectionistic signing informed consent documents. The ages standards for one’s performance, and low self- of the participants ranged from 40 to 55 (mean = confidence. In contrast, the task aversiveness 45.40, SD = 6.8). Mean academic achievement, factor comprises items which reflect a dislike of as measured by grade point average, was 3.25 engaging in academic activities and a lack of SD = 0.36) from previous academic year’s work.. energy. These findings led them to conclude that Many of the participants were female (56.31%). there are two groups of procrastinators at the However, a (non-parametric) Wilcoxon two- undergraduate level: (a) a relatively small but sample t-test (Hollander & Wolfe, 1973) revealed extremely homogenous groups of students who no gender difference (p<.05) with respect to report procrastinating as a result of fear of failure, levels of overall academic procrastination, fear of and (b) a relatively heterogeneous group of failure, and task aversiveness. Indeed, this students who report procrastinating as a result of finding is consistent with other studies in which aversiveness of the task. procrastination scores by males and females were not significantly different e.g . Ferrari Purpose of the study (1989a). Additionally, a series of Wilcoxon two- No research appears to have examined sample t-tests revealed no gender difference the prevalence of academic procrastination (p<.05) with respect to the six dimensions of among graduate students of public universities in statistics anxiety, nor was a gender difference Ghana . This was the first purpose of the present found with respect to grade point average. Thus, study. The second purpose of the current all data were collapsed across gender. research was to investigate the relationship between academic procrastination and statistics Instruments and procedure anxiety among the Masters of Education (MEd.) Participants were administered the students. Statistical Anxiety Rating Scale (STARS) and the Procrastination Assessment Scale-Students Research hypothesis (PASS). The STARS, which was developed by Ho: There is no significant relationship between Cruise and Wilkins (1980), is a 51-item, 5-point statistics anxiety and academic procrastination Likert-scale instrument assessing statistics among graduate students of the University of anxiety in a wide variety of academic situations. Education, Winneba. The STARS has six subscales, namely, worth of statistics, interpretation anxiety, test and class Significance of the study anxiety, computational self-concept, fear of It was hoped that findings from this study asking for help, and fear of the statistics would not only increase our understanding of instructor. A high score on any subscale procrastination, but also would further our represents high anxiety in that area. The present understanding of statistics anxiety – which, in study used an adopted STARS instrument from turn, could assist in designing instructional and Gordon (2004); the score reliability of the STARS counseling strategies to improve students’ related subscales, as measured by coefficient alpha, was deficiencies in these areas. It will also add rich as follows: worth of statistics (.96; 95% 58 JAMES AWUNI AZURE Confidence Interval [CI] = .95, .97), interpretation undertaken by Solomon and Rothblum (1984) on anxiety (.90; 95% CI = .87, .92), test and class the reasons why college students procrastinate anxiety (.88; 95% CI = .85, .91), computational indicated two factors, namely, fear of failure and self-concept (.86; 95% CI = .82, .89), fear of task aversiveness. For the present study, the asking for help (.81; 95% CI = .75, .86), and fear coefficient alpha score reliability estimates of the of the statistics instructor (.83; 95% CI = .78, .87). PASS measures were .82 (95% CI = .80, .86) for The PASS, which was developed by the procrastination scale, .85 (95% CI = .82, .87) Solomon and Rothblum (1984), contains two for the fear of failure factor, and .76 (95% CI = parts. The first part lists six academic tasks .67, .83) for the task aversiveness factor. involving writing a term paper, studying for examinations, keeping up with weekly reading RESULTS assignments, performing administrative tasks, The means and standard deviations attending meetings, and performing academic pertaining to the PASS scale and the fear of tasks in general. Respondents were asked to failure and task aversiveness subscales are complete three rating scales for each of the six presented in Table 1 below. The PASS scale tasks indicating the frequency with which they mean was compared to the mean reported by the procrastinated on that task (1 = Never developers of the PASS (Solomon & Rothblum, procrastinate; 5 = Always procrastinate), whether 1984). The norm groups used in Solomon and their procrastination on the task is a problem (1 = Rothblum’s (1984) study comprised 342 Not all a problem; 5 = Always a problem), and university students (101 men, 222 women, 19 whether they want to decrease their unknown genders) who were enrolled in two procrastination on the task (1 = Do not want to sections of an introductory-level psychology decrease; 5 = Definitely want to decrease). As course . Ninety percent of the participants were recommended by its authors (Solomon & 18 to 21 years of age. Interestingly, the mean Rothblum, 1984), the PASS items pertaining to procrastination score reported by the graduate (a) the frequency with which respondents students in the present study (i.e. 35.42) was procrastinate on a task, and (b) whether their higher than that computed for participants in procrastination on that task is a problem were Solomon and Rothblum’s (1984) study (i.e. 33.39 summed to provide an overall measure of for the full sample). Unfortunately, although academic procrastination, with total scores these authors (Solomon & Rothblum) did not ranging from 12 to 60. Higher scores indicate report the standard deviation of the PASS scores academic procrastination. needed to conduct an independent t-test, the The second section of the PASS asks closeness in procrastination means suggests that students to think of the last time they the graduate students in the current study had procrastinated on writing a term paper. They the same propensity to procrastinate as did the were to indicate how much each out of 26 undergraduate norm group. Table 1 below reasons reflects why they procrastinated (1 = Not presents the means and standard deviations of at all reflects why I procrastinated; 5 = Definitely procrastination measures. reflects why I procrastinated). A factor analysis

Table 1.Means and standard deviations of procrastination measures

Measure M SD Procrastination scale 35.42 12.80 Fear of failure 9.82 4.35 Task aversiveness 8.39 1.65

Table 2 below presents the means and standard present sample scored higher than did 86% of deviations of the statistics anxiety measures. the norm group on this dimension. Because the Also presented are median percentile rank MPRES range from 62 to 86, it is clear that the equivalent scores (MPRES). The MPRES were participants in this study represented a moderate calculated by comparing the median anxiety to high statistics-anxious group. scores in the present study (Table 2) to the An item analysis of the first part of the percentile rank norms reported by the developers PASS was undertaken in order to determine the of the scale indicates that at least 50 % of the frequency of procrastination of a variety of CORRELATES OF COURSE ANXIETY AND ACADEMIC PROCRASTINATION 59 academic tasks. This analysis revealed that students reported that they nearly always or 43.7% of the graduate students reported that always procrastinate on administrative tasks they nearly always or always procrastinate on (17.3%), attendance tasks (6.8%), and school writing a term paper, 39.1% procrastinate on activities in general (16.5%). A series of Fisher’s studying for examinations, and 60.0% Exact Tests was used to compare the prevalence procrastinate on keeping up with weekly reading rates between the present sample and the norm assignments. A smaller percentage of graduate group.

Table 2. Means, standard deviations, medians, and median percentile rank equivalents of statistics anxiety measures.

Dimension M SD Median Median percentile rank equivalent Worth of statistics 41.73 14.03 42 86 Interpretation anxiety 31.76 8.39 32 77 Test and class anxiety 27.10 7.12 28 70 Computational self-concept 18.35 6.21 18 70 Fear of asking for help 8.21 3.59 8 67 Fear of the statistics teacher 12.24 4.07 12 62

Findings revealed that, although compared to the (p<.0.5) to report that procrastination was nearly norm group, a significantly (p<.05) smaller always or always a problem when studying for proportion of graduate students reported that examinations than were the norm group. they nearly always or always procrastinate on In terms of the extent to which attendance tasks (odds ratio = 0.24), a participants reportedly wanted to decrease their significantly larger proportion of graduate tendency to procrastinate, 65.2% indicated that students reported that they nearly always or they wanted or definitely wanted to reduce their always procrastinate on studying for procrastination when writing a term paper, 68.2% examinations (odds ratio = 1.76), keeping up with wanted to reduce it when studying for weekly reading assignments (odds ratio = 3.46), examinations, and 71.7% wanted to reduce it administrative tasks (odds ratio = 1.72), and when undertaking reading assignments. Nearly school activities in general (odds ratio = 1.69). one-third of the graduate students (i.e. 30.9%) With respect the degree to which the indicated that they wanted to decrease their graduate students felt that procrastination was a tendency to procrastinate when undertaking problem for them, 23.7% reported that it was administrative tasks, 24.1% when they were nearly always or always a problem when writing a involved in attendance tasks, and 42.8% when term paper, 21.5% reported that it was nearly undertaking school activities in general. The always a problem when writing a term paper, Fisher’s Exact Tests revealed that graduate 21.5% indicated that it was a problem when students were 2.09 times more likely (p<.05) to undertaking weekly readings. Nearly one-third report that they wanted or definitely wanted to of graduate students in the present study (i.e. reduce their procrastination when studying for 30.1%) indicated that procrastination was a examinations than were the norm group. problem for them when undertaking Table 3 presents part of the correlation administrative tasks. Less than 20% of matrix from which the canonical roots were participants reported that procrastination was a generated. It can be seen that after applying the problem for them when they were involved in Bonferroni adjustment, (a) the fear of failure attendance tasks (18.8%) and school activities in factor was positively associated with worth of general (8.3%). No statistics were reported by statistics, computational self-concept, fear of Solomon and Rothblum (1984) for these latter asking for help, and fear of the statistics teacher; three types of activities, although these authors and (b) the task aversiveness factor was stated that procrastination was less of a problem positively associated with worth of statistics, with the remaining tasks and school activities in computational self-concept, and fear of statistics general. The Fisher’s Exact Tests revealed that teacher. graduate students were 2.28 times more likely

60 JAMES AWUNI AZURE Table 3: Pearson product-moment correlation of procratination measures and the statistics anxiety dimensions Procrastination Procrastination measure Statistics anxiety factor scale Fear of failure Task aversiness

Worth of statistics .15 .34* .38* Interpretation anxiety .23 .26 .25 Test and class anxiety .20 .20 .24 Computational self-concept .15 .30* .32* Fear of asking for help .26 .39* .26 Fear of the statistics teacher .09 .31* .37*

* Statistically significant (i.e p<.001) after Bonferroni adjustment.

The strength of the relationship between the two correlation indicates how much variance the sets sets of variables was assessed by examining the of weighted original variables share with each magnitude of the canonical correlation other (Thomson, 1984). In the present study, the coefficients. These coefficients indicate the first canonical correlations (R c1 =.26) appeared to degree of relationship between the weighted be moderately educationally significant, 2 procrastination dimension variables and the contributing 6.8% (i.e R c1 ) to the shared weighted statistics anxiety variables. In addition, variance. The second canonical correlation (R c2 the statistical significance of the canonical roots = .03) did not appear to be educationally was tested via F-statistic. The canonical analysis significant. Consequently, only the first canonical revealed that both canonical correlations correlation was interpreted. combined were statistically significant (F [12, Data pertaining to the first canonical root 254] = 3.78, p<.05). However, when the first are presented in Table 4. This table provides canonical root was excluded, the remaining both standardised function coefficients and canonical root was not statistically significant. structure coefficients. An examination of the Together these results suggest that the first standardized canonical function coefficients canonical function was statistically significant but revealed that, using a cutoff correlation of 0.3 the second was not. recommended by Lambert and Durand (1975, Thomson (1984) opined that, because cited in Owuegbuzie, 2004) as an acceptable the calculated probabilities are sensitive to minimum loading value, two of the six statistics sample size, particular attention should be paid to anxiety dimensions (i.e. worth of statistics and the educational significance of the obtained fear of asking for help) made an important results. The educational significance of canonical contribution to the anxiety-composite-with fear of correlations typically is assessed by examining asking for help being the major contributor (See their size (Thomson, 1984). The canonical Table below).

CORRELATES OF COURSE ANXIETY AND ACADEMIC PROCRASTINATION 61

Table 4: Canonical solution for first function.

Standar dized Structure Variable Coefficient Coefficient Structure 2 Statistics Anxiety Dimension: Worth of statistics 0.460* .850* .723 Interpretation anxiety -0.038 .604* .365 Test and class anxiety -0.233 .520* .270 Computational self-concept 0.213 .735* .540 Fear of asking for help 0.553* .793* .629 Fear of the statistics teacher 0.199 .799* .638 Reason for Procrastination Dimension: Fear of failure 0.684* .874* .764 Task aversiveness 0.532* .770* .593

*loadings with large sizes

With respect to the reason for procrastination set, and six dimensions of statistics anxiety. (see Table 4 above) both dimensions (i.e. fear of Interestingly, this appears to be the first study to failure and task aversiveness) made an important determine the prevalence of academic contribution to the composite set. procrastination among graduate students in Structure coefficients are the correlations Ghana. Findings revealed that from between a given variable (dimension) and the approximately 40% to 60% of the graduate scores on the canonical composite (i.e. latent students reported that they nearly always or variable) in the set to which the variable always procrastinate on writing a term paper, (dimension) belongs (Thompson, 1984). Thus, studying for examinations, and keeping up with structure coefficients indicate the degree of weekly reading assignments. Additionally, relationship of a given variable in the set with the between 20% and 45% of graduate students canonical composite for the variable set. The reported problems with procrastination in these structure coefficients (Table 4) revealed that all three areas. Furthermore, between 65% and six dimensions of statistics anxiety made 75% of the students wanted to decrease their important contributions to the first canonical procrastination on these tasks. As noted by variant. The square of the structure coefficient, Solomon and Rothblum (1984), the high which is the proportion of variance that the frequency of self-reported procrastination on original variable shares linearly with the canonical writing term papers, studying for examinations, variant, is used to determine the relative and keeping up with weekly reading assignments importance of the significant variables. suggests that these tasks are deemed to be more The square of the structure coefficient important to students than are such tasks as (Table 4) indicated that worth of statistics, fear of attending classes or meetings, filling out forms, the statistics teacher, fear of asking for help, and and registering for course. According to computational self-concept made very large Solomon and Rothblum (1984), because contributions, explaining 72.3%, 63.8%, 62.9% students perceived performing the former set of and 54.0% of the variance, respectively. (These tasks as important in as much as course grades variances are not unique and thus do not sum to are directly based on them, students are more 100%). Interpretation anxiety and test and class likely to procrastinate on completing these tasks anxiety made moderate contributions. With because they find them aversive and are afraid of regard to the reasons for procrastination cluster, failure. both dimensions made noteworthy contributions, An extremely disturbing finding is that a with fear of failure making the largest contribution larger proportion of students in the present study (See Table 4) – explaining 76.4% of the variance. than in the undergraduate norm group reported that they nearly always or always procrastinate DISCUSSION on studying for examinations and on weekly The purpose of this study was: (a) to reading assignments. These results are examine the prevalence of procrastination among extremely surprising, bearing in mind that graduate students and (b) to investigate the graduate students tend to represent the upper relationship between academic procrastination echelon of academic achievers. The mean grade 62 JAMES AWUNI AZURE point average of the present sample, 3.57, majority of graduate students’ courses, confirms their high-achieving status. Solomon particularly those which represent their areas of and Rothblum (1984) did not report their mean study. However, in research methodology and but it is likely to have been significantly lower. statistics classes, which many students believe to Thus, it is important to determine why be the most difficult (Onwuegbuzie, 1998a), it is academic procrastination appears to be so high likely that frequent procrastination debilitates among graduate students. For example, it could performance – even if it results from reflect the complexity of course material and perfectionism. As such, future studies should assignments at this level. That is, students who investigate the potential debilitative role of were low procrastinators as undergraduates, procrastination in these courses. once they become graduate students, are Perhaps that most disturbing finding in intimidated by the increased level of complexity the present study was the fact that the graduate and academic standards whether perceived or students were nearly 3.5 times more likely to real and thus procrastinate more. Thus, an report that they nearly always or always interesting line of research would be whether procrastinate on weekly reading assignments levels of academic procrastination are stable than were the undergraduate students in across students’ undergraduate and graduate Solomon and Rothlum’s study. Bearing in mind years. the complex and laconic nature of statistics and It is also possible that graduate students research methodology textbooks, it is likely that procrastinate more for different reasons than do the frequency of procrastination for statistics and undergraduates. Specifically, whereas the latter research methodology instructors is self-evident. may procrastinate more as a result of low This is particularly disturbing because highly academic ability and low self-confidence procrastinating college students are more likely to (Rothblum et al., 1986; Dolinsky, 2001), report the presence of physical symptoms rebelliousness and resentment (Rorer, 1983; (Rothblum et al., 1986) and depression (Saddler Milgram et al ., 1988), or an attempt to protect a & Sacks, 1993). vulnerable self-esteem (Zeidner, 1991; Huntley, The second major finding was that Schneider & Aronson, 2000), it is possible that for procrastination resulting from both fear of failure graduate students, delaying academic tasks such and task aversiveness appears to be related as writing a term paper are indicative of significantly to worth of statistics, interpretation perfectionism. anxiety, test and class anxiety, computational As noted by Saddler and Sacks (1993) self-concept, fear of asking for help, and fear of and Onwuegbuzie (2000a), some procrastinators the statistics instructor. The finding that engage in perfectionism either to produce a academic procrastination is related to statistics flawless product (i.e. self-perfectionism) or to anxiety is consistent with the bulk of the literature impress others (i.e. socially prescribed which has documented a relationship between perfectionism). Indeed, Onwuegbuzie (1997a), in procrastination and generalized and specific a qualitative study of graduate students enrolled kinds of anxiety such as fear of failure, test in research methodology courses, found that anxiety, social anxiety, and self-consciousness perfectionist behaviour is associated with (Solomon & Rothblum, 1984; Rothblum et al., procrastinating over research proposals. 1986; Ferrari, 1991c; Milgram, 1991). Interestingly, levels of both self-oriented Solomon and Rothblum (1984) also perfectionism and socially prescribed reported a statistically significant positive perfectionism are high among graduate students correlation between the fear of failure factor and (Onwuegbuzie & Daley, 1999). Thus, knowledge evaluation anxiety. In contrast, the relationship of the interplay between procrastination, between procrastination resulting from task perfectionism, and achievement among graduate aversiveness and statistics anxiety contradicts students would be helpful. Solomon and Rothblum’s (1984) finding of no Nevertheless, the fact that most graduate relationship between the task aversiveness factor students appear to delay writing term papers and and evaluation anxiety. This incongruence, studying for examinations might explain why however, perhaps highlights the uniqueness of underachievement is prevalent in research the statistics anxiety construct from other forms methodology (Onwuegbuzie, 1997; Tang, 2005) of anxiety. In any case, the relationship between and statistics (Onwuegbuzie et at ., 1997) academic procrastination and statistics anxiety classes. Presumably, procrastinating does not provides further evidence that procrastination is necessarily lead to underachievement in the more than a deficit in time management and CORRELATES OF COURSE ANXIETY AND ACADEMIC PROCRASTINATION 63 study skills, but includes cognitive-affective procrastination in addition to self-report components (Solomon & Rothblum, 1984; instruments. Rothblum et al ., 1986). In fact, according to Several practical implications can be Rothblum et al. (1986), high procrastinators do derived from the results of the present study. not differ in their study behaviour as much as Because approximately two-thirds of graduate they differ on anxiety. students report that they want to reduce their It is possible that, once enrolled in tendencies to procrastinate when writing a term statistics and research methodology courses, paper, studying for examinations, and high procrastinators experience extreme undertaking reading assignments, instructors elevations in statistics anxiety, because these should find ways to help them accomplish this. classes threaten their self-esteem (Onwuegbuzie, For example, statistics and research 2000b), levels of hope (Onwuegbuzie, 1998b), methodology instructors could break up their term and the like, which result from the perception that projects into parts, and require that each part be these courses are too difficult, as well as from an submitted for formal or informal grading at regular attitude that statistics is not relevant for them intervals. (Onwuegbuzie, 2003). With respect to reading assignments, The fact that participants were students might be asked to undertake a written or predominantly female is an important limitation of oral summary of each assigned reading. In fact, the study. Nevertheless, the fact that no gender students can even be required to develop differences were found in the present study with advance or post-organisers (e.g. concept maps) respect to overall academic procrastination, fear of all material read, because these techniques of failure, task aversiveness, and all six have been found to increase levels of dimensions of statistics anxiety, as well as the performance (Onwuegbuzie, 2004). In addition, fact that the overwhelming majority of previous whereas some high procrastinators may benefit research has documented that males and from traditional interventions for procrastination females report similar levels of academic such as time management and study skill procrastination (e.g. Effert & Ferrari, 1989; counseling (Ziestat et al., 1978), self-discipline Onwuegbuzie & Wilson, 2003), suggest that the and self-criticism (Mulry et al., 1994), findings of the present study may be similarly compliance-based and defiance-base generalisable to both male and female graduate paraxodical strategies (Rohrbaugh et al., 1981), students. and the use of external contingencies as noted Another limitation of the current study by Rothblum et al. (1986), others may benefit stems from the fact that participants were almost more from interventions which focus on anxiety exclusively students of a single university. As management and reduction. The latter could be such, it cannot be assumed that the present accomplished through a number of cognitive and findings generalize to graduate students of other behavioural techniques, such as relaxation universities and institutions. Thus, more research therapy, systematic desensitisation, and in this area is needed using students from other meditation (Gilliland & James, 1983; higher institutions in Ghana. Gordon,2004). Such students also could be given information about how to direct attention away CONCLUSION from self-centered worries when they are The fact that academic procrastination engaged in statistical activities. Whatever was assessed via a self-report instrument, rather interventions are implemented, it is essential that than on actual behaviour, is perhaps another their efficacy be documented. limitation of the study, because it is possible that students may give socially desirable responses. REFERENCES However, according to Rothblum et al. 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