The Relation Between Needs Supportive Environments And Academic Procrastination

Abstract

Academic procrastination is a common problem in universities worldwide, with destructive effects on students’ well-being and academic achievement. Self-Determination Theory (SDT), an empirically supported theory of human growth, presents a way to understand the link between academic procrastination and environmental factors. More specifically, SDT postulates that humans have three innate needs, the need for competence, autonomy and relatedness and that environments supporting these needs promote growth behaviors and decrease self-destructive behaviors. Extensive evidence has demonstrated a positive relation between certain needs supportive environments, specifically, needs supportive teaching, autonomy and relatedness supportive parenting and relatedness supportive peers, and manifestations of desirable academic outcomes. However, no known study has examined the relation between these needs supportive environments and academic procrastination. This study therefore examines the influence of students’ reports of these needs supportive environments on their academic procrastination, using a cross-sectional design, in a sample of undergraduate students taking psychology courses at the American University of Beirut. Findings showed that perceived autonomy, structure, and relatedness supportive teaching, autonomy and relatedness supportive parenting, and relatedness supportive classmates, significantly negatively correlated with academic procrastination, but only autonomy supportive parenting and relatedness supportive peers significantly predicted academic procrastination after adjusting for possible confounders. It is concluded that increasing classmates’ support of relatedness and parents’ support of autonomy may protect against academic procrastination and should be the focus of future interventions for academic procrastination in colleges.