Day, Mensink & O'Sullivan (2000): Patterns of Procrastination
Day, Mensink and O'Sullivan's study introduced the Academic Procrastination Questionnaire, which scores how much a student procrastinates and also which pattern lies behind it. In their general student sample, 32% scored as severe procrastinators. The most common patterns among those students were being socially focused and optimistic, or ambivalent and independent-minded. Students who had actively sought counselling for procrastination showed different patterns, more often evaluation anxiety, a discouraged or depressed pattern, or dependence on others.
| Citation | Day, V., Mensink, D., & O'Sullivan, M. (2000). Patterns of academic procrastination. Journal of College Reading and Learning, 30(2), 120–134. |
|---|---|
| Study type | Questionnaire study introducing a new measure, with a general sample and a help-seeking sample |
| Sample | 248 university students plus 17 counselling clients seeking help for procrastination |
| Key finding | 32% of the general sample scored as severe procrastinators, and the patterns behind their delay differed systematically from those of students who sought help |
What the study found
Rather than scoring procrastination on a single dimension, the authors built a questionnaire that also measured candidate patterns behind it, then compared ordinary students with students who had asked for help. Just under a third of the general sample met their threshold for severe procrastination. Within that group, the commonest profiles were socially focused, meaning other people and other commitments took priority, and optimistic, meaning a confident underestimate of how long the work would take, along with an ambivalent and independent-minded profile that resisted being told when to work. The counselling clients showed a more distressed set of patterns, clustering around evaluation anxiety, discouragement or low mood, and reliance on others to get started.
Why it matters
The practical point is that two students with identical procrastination scores can need opposite advice. An optimistic procrastinator who genuinely believes the essay takes four hours needs better estimates and interim deadlines. A student avoiding work because of evaluation anxiety needs the stakes of a first draft lowered, and planning tools alone may make things worse by adding another thing to fail at. The study also suggests that the people visible in university counselling services are not a representative sample of procrastinators, which matters when interventions are designed around them. Prevalence figures here sit in the same range as other student surveys, with roughly a third to a half reporting procrastination serious enough to be a problem.
Caveats
This is a single-institution study with a modest sample, published in a smaller journal, and the help-seeking group of 17 is too small to support firm claims about clinical profiles. The patterns come from the authors' own questionnaire, so they describe how that instrument carves up the behaviour rather than confirmed types existing in nature, and later work using latent profile analysis on larger samples produced overlapping but differently named groups. Everything is self-report, collected at one point in time, with no behavioural measure of actual delay. Read it as a useful argument that procrastination has distinguishable patterns, not as a settled taxonomy.
Peer-reviewed study in the Journal of College Reading and Learning (Taylor & Francis). Verified via Crossref.
Related
Types of procrastination, the overviewSolomon & Rothblum on frequency and reasonsFerrari on decisional, arousal and avoidant typologiesProcrastinating on coursework deadlines
Frequently asked questions
What percentage of students are severe procrastinators?
In this study, 32% of the general student sample scored as severe procrastinators. Other surveys using different measures put chronic, problematic academic procrastination at roughly a third to a half of students, with far higher numbers reporting occasional delay. The figures vary with the instrument used, so treat any single percentage as an estimate.
Are there different types of procrastinators?
Research keeps finding distinguishable patterns, though the labels differ between studies. This paper described profiles including a socially focused pattern, an optimistic pattern that underestimates how long work takes, an ambivalent and independent-minded pattern, and more distressed patterns driven by evaluation anxiety or low mood. The practical value is in matching the fix to the pattern, not in collecting a label.
Why does knowing my procrastination pattern help?
Because the effective response differs. Underestimating time is solved with better estimates, interim deadlines and tracking how long tasks really take. Avoidance driven by fear of judgement is solved by making first attempts low-stakes and by self-compassion rather than tighter scheduling. Applying the wrong one tends to produce a tidier plan and the same behaviour.