Our study on procrastination is trying to work with vulnerable populations this time. I haven't still come across any finding on procrastination among children population. What will be the best method to study this behaviour among children?
Check habits, routines related with doing homework, house chores and stuff like that. I would interview both, parents and kids, for more objective measure. Good luck with your study :)
Check habits, routines related with doing homework, house chores and stuff like that. I would interview both, parents and kids, for more objective measure. Good luck with your study :)
II agree with Anna. I would interview parents and kids but I would have certain measures in there like: I want to finish the job as fast as I can so use something like a Likert Scale or questionnaire.
However, a really interesting co-variate to put in is perfectionism and are they more likely to do it without the pressure of the family.
So a question like my parents expect me to be the very best. 1 2 3 4 5.
I have to be the very best. 1 2 3 4 5
So we can get both sides and see if there is correlation between parent and child's viewpoint on effort and so then we can see how procrastination may work. Although there is an element of social desirability, I would ask them to read the book and tell them to come back a week later to see if they have read it. Preferably a made-up story. How would this be measured? I would be probably ask them quite difficult and simple questions relative to age, of course like who is the main baddie in the made-up story?
However, procrastination may be due to task difficulty, so I might put in a puzzle task: simple medium, difficult and impossible. These are the variables I would control for.
I hop this make sense and good luck.
These are better answers than mine (above), although from my anecdotal experience 1) they most definitely do procrastinate, and 2) try to compare highly time-dependent tasks to ones that are more flexible. Such as, they must complete the task exactly at 8:20 am (such as getting the bus) versus they have to complete their homework sometime in the evening before 8:00. Parental reports and child-interviews will definitely be good. If you do conduct a study and come up with some possible interventions, I urge you to send me your findings and recommendations. From my perspective, if you can develop an intervention to reduce childhood procrastination, you deserve a prize.
I appreciate all your contributions. I think an intervention model to reduce childhood procrastination will be a great idea.
My next question is that, in addition to the parental reports and child interviews, can there be a simple experiment for the children with some tasks?
I would be interested in factors that impact procrastination. Maybe you could design an experiment in which there are some distractors (toys) in the room and the child is asked to do a task. Then you measure procrastination as a function of them being involved with objects that are not involved in the task and measure how long until they complete the task. I would want to measure variables such as 1) number of verbal prompts needed, 2) does the nature of the instruction impact procrastination? For example you could test whether verbal instructions are more effective or visual instructions, or a combination of the two. You'd also have to control for how interesting/involved the distractors are. I suppose it all depends on what it is that you are trying to measure. I'd like to know how to best motivate children to do a task and not to procrastinate, so my design would probably focus on the details of the instructions given and the environment.
some references maybe can help you:
Procrastination, academic success and the effectiveness of a remedial Program DOI:10.1016/j.jebo.2014.12.007
The Relationship of Procrastination and Self-efficacy with Psychological Vulnerability in Students DOI:10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.12.797
Procrastination and Self-efficacy: Tracing vicious and virtuous circles in Self-regulated Learning DOI:10.1016/j.learninstruc.2013.09.005
Mediating perceived parenting styles–test anxiety relationships: Academic Procrastination and maladaptive Perfectionism DOI:10.1016/j.lindif.2014.05.004
We showed that the parental behavior in the childhood influence the later academic procrastination.
Conference Paper Parental control of child as a predictor of academic procrastination
Thank you for the suggestions. I'm opened for further discussions.
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