The Positive Effects of Procrastination

The Positive Effects of Procrastination:

Procrastinating Improves Memorization Skill
Miguel D. Dee
Asia Pacific College

Introduction

The Positive Effects of Procrastination

According to (Chu and Choi, 2005) there are two types of

procrastinator, the active and the passive but either way its still
procrastination but the reason why they are different is due to the belief that
there are procrastinators that doesnt fail and enjoys procrastinating. Lets
define the two types of procrastinator; the passive procrastinator is the
traditional procrastinator that fails to do a task while the active
procrastinators are people who procrastinate but they are able to pass and
tell themselves at the end of the task procrastinating is worth it. The term
used to describe on how active procrastination works is self-handicapping
meaning they suspend their work to make time favorable to them.
Many people suggests ways of overcoming procrastination such as
time management and setting deadlines but the thing is some college
students cannot overcome procrastination why? Theres temptations
everywhere, peers, social networks, etc. and procrastinators have a
marketing lifestyle, they wont do tasks if theyre not going to gain benefits
or unless the reward is immediate.
The reason why I am interested in this field is because as a college
student I know the struggle of doing things at the last minute by saying so I
thought that if some students are active procrastinators then they are good
are memorizing because students try to learn and study the materials at the
last minute. Since they do this over a prolonged period of time, perhaps even
their entire academic careers, their memory may become accustomed to
learning a large amount of information quickly and it hones their short-term
memory unfortunately, this pattern of behavior would reduce opportunities
to practice skills related to holding information for long intervals.
Procrastinators study lesson materials at the last minute but why wait?
The reason is that procrastinators use time as motivational factor also known
as Temporal Motivation Theory ( Steel and Konig, 2006). To illustrate this
theory suppose a teacher announced that they will have a quiz in 2 weeks
time, the student has two options, socialize or to do the essay; the student
wants to socialize and to achieve a high grade. The reward for the quiz is not
immediate so the motivation to do the quiz is low and the motivation to
socialize is high. As the quiz approaches the motivation to review to have a
high grade is high but is it really possible to absorb all of the lesson
materials?
Pre-crastinators on the other hand are the complete opposite of
procrastinators. They are the one who do tasks as soon as possible. The

The Positive Effects of Procrastination

catch is that hastily finishing a task just to relieve working memory can be
inefficient or even dangerous. For example, Rosenbaum says, hurrying to
complete an assignment at work could cause you to make errors that you
then have to spend extra time fixing. Carrying a large armload of grocery
bags from the car just to get them all in the house could cause injury.
Or that might just be lazinessa perception that one big trip would be easier
than two trips. Rosenbaum admits that his theory is still being formulated.
For example, spending an hour answering emails at work, to ease the burden
on working memory, might be the same as procrastinationfocusing on
email as a way to put off a more difficult project.

Statement of the Problem

Procrastination has often been categorized as self-regulatory failure
(Sencal, Koestner, & Vallerand, 1995; Steel, 2007). This failure has been so
widespread that a study by Potts found that approximately 75% of college
students consider themselves procrastinators (as cited in Steel, 2007).
Additionally, Solomon and Rothblum found that about 50% procrastinate
consistently (as cited in Steel, 2007). As a result most students fail or their
academic performance tends to suffer but why do some students still pass?
In academic setting some exams or quizzes have an enumeration and
identification type of test so it requires memorization skill. As stated earlier
procrastinator are good in memorization but is it really possible to hone
short-term memory just by procrastinating? Is procrastination worth it? After
the quiz or exam what will happen to the lesson materials? Will they forget
about it or itll go to the long-term memory?
Purpose of the study
The purpose of this research is to determine whether short-term
memory is really enhanced by continuously absorbing lesson materials at the
last minute and somehow the mind is used to it. This research also
determines the impact of pre-crastinating to memory whether theyre bad at
memorization and their work is prone to errors.

The Positive Effects of Procrastination

Research Questions
For the purpose of this study, the following questions were addressed:
1.) Due to continuously procrastinating overtime and absorbing all the
materials at the last minute and to be able to pass, is it possible that
procrastinators minds are used in absorbing and memorizing details? If this
is possible then they are good in memorizing in a short period of time. On
the other hand pre-crastinators are bad in memorization since they are the
type of people who want to unload tasks in their memory as soon as possible
and they are prone to errors.
2.) Are pre-crastinators worst than procrastination? Since they finish
task sooner they dont have the time to check and fix their work and it might
cause anxiety due to over thinking whether they did good or not.
3.) A student procrastinates due to distractions such as social networks
or games but if the distractions are gone theyll get bored and their boredom
will come to certain point that they will do the task because theyve got
nothing else to do. So the question is, is procrastination optional?
As part of this study, investigation included one research hypothesis:
1.) Students who procrastinate have a larger capacity for short-term
memory and those pre-crastinators are bad in memory tasks
2.) Pre-crastinating is worst than procrastination
3.) Procrastination isnt optional-- its something they dont know how to
not do.