Understanding and Addressing Student Procrastination in College

Procrastination is common in the collegiate sphere. However, procrastination is often stigmatized as causing college students to be unsuccessful. Most students have been told not to procrastinate, but they continue to do so, implying that student procrastination will not stop. Yet, significant discontinuities exist between emerging procrastination related research--specifically the distinction between active and passive procrastination, the concept of temporal discounting, and the methods of project management, each of which conflict with the standard advice given to students. This article synthesizes research in the aforementioned areas in order to create a more nuanced view of student procrastination and to establish better mechanisms to encourage student productivity.