Participants
Before selecting any candidates I thought on how to choose the most relevant participants. That’s why I decided to make sure that all of the interviewees finished their Foundation year and graduated to the 1st course, because these types of candidates seem to be more experienced both life wise and study wise. I have chosen this criteria to make them tell me how hard was to pass Foundation with their high level of procrastination. In addition, I was looking for students who now try to improve in their studies in order to see their attitude towards procrastination at their time of high procrastination and now when they realised that procrastination is a bad friend. There is an interesting fact which shows that males’ procrastination level is much higher than females’, because all of four participants are males. Remember that these four interviewees were not randomly chosen but they were selected after having a test that shows level of procrastination.
Four of three interviewees take a social science discipline (Business, Arts, Psychology and Management). However, one of them does Engineering. All of them had to re-sit their exam papers at least once and their average marks are not above 60%. The ages of participants vary from 19- 21 years, none of them is married, none of them have any disabilities and none of them lives in poverty. Moreover, all of participants apart form one never had any experience studying abroad before coming to Malaysia. Therefore, they have some self-control problem and poor time management. Two of participants were answering on Russian language and the rest were answering in English.
Results
The results of the research are pretty interesting, because all of the participants had their own thoughts and ideas about the procrastination problem. Therefore, this part shows categories which appeared as the outcome from the analysis of the interviews. It is organized in 3 periods: 1) views and attitudes, 2) first experience, 3) the ways to overcome the bad habit.
Views and Attitudes
This period is about the participants’ thoughts about procrastination and what this term means to them. One of participants said that it is just a bad habit which can be overcome with ages. Others say that this habit is one of those that are hard to stop, because a lot of effort has to be used. Despite all of them having different opinions and thoughts, there is one thing that they are sure about. And that is the fact that procrastination affects their study in a bad way. Moreover, students say that due to this problem they have lost the sense of limit. Meaning that they do unnecessary things more than the ones that are really important. For example, some of participants play video games, while others sleep too much and watch movies. All of four interviewed students stated that procrastination only affects their studies, but nothing else. For example, the do not procrastinate when they have some health issues or when they feel hungry.
This section is basically about the attitude of students towards procrastination before their first heavy experience. Here they talk of procrastination as if it is the most fearsome thing ever.
First Experience
This section is about how the participants faced the biggest procrastination in their lives. Two of four of the students said that they started their procrastination path in UNMC. However, the remaining students said that their first procrastination experience was in their home country, but even though the level of procrastination increased as they came to Malaysia. All of participants said that the major reason of their procrastination is freedom. They stated that they don’t feel responsible while their parents are so far away from them. All of the students believe that being out of control at this young age is a very complicated process because a lot of things depend on their personality.
The ways to overcome the bad habit
The last section contains information that the participants gave on how to overcome the procrastination based on their experience. I was very surprised that all of four of the interviewees try to overcome this bad habit of theirs. Each of them gave some good advices on how to become more hardworking and active. They all said that procrastination is a bad very bad habit and to overcome this phenomenon a lot of hard work and dedication have to be put.
By looking at the points described above some theories can be made. First theory is that procrastination negatively affects students’ study. Although it sounds obvious, there are still some people who can study well and procrastinate at the same time. Second theory is that the procrastination depends on person’s personality. As all participants said: ‘’ Procrastination can be overcome only by yourself, nobody but you can help you to understand it’’. Third theory is that most of students lack self-control and discipline. All of four interviewees stated that their procrastination level increased after coming to Malaysia, because there is nobody to control them but after studying the Foundation year the participants do better in terms of decreasing their procrastination level.