Correlates of course anxiety and academic procrastination in higher education

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 (Rc1 = .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.