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Research shows that more than 70% of college students procrastinate, with about 20% consistently doing it all the time.
Procrastination is putting off starting or finishing a task despite knowing that it will seriously compromise the quality of your work – for instance, putting off a major class project until the last minute.
In fact, research has shown that procrastination can be a harmful behavior that lowers a student's grades.
Now that so many colleges and universities are operating remotely because of the COVID-19 pandemic, we worry that students are more prone to procrastinate because they have less access to campus facilities and structured support from instructors. We raise these concerns as researchers who study students' motivation and engagement and their procrastination in online learning.
As professors, we've also heard our fair share of explanations and excuses for why students missed deadlines. Everything from “my computer doesn't work" to “my Wi-Fi went dead." We even had one student claim that “Grandma died" in one course and that “Grandpa died" in another course. We also have had students claim that their roommate deleted their homework.
Whether you see those reasons as valid or not, none of them really gets at why students procrastinate and end up in those kinds of situations in the first place. With that in mind, here are four tips that can help students deal better with the root causes of procrastination when it comes to online coursework.
1. Manage motivation
One of the main reasons students procrastinate is that they do not see their coursework as relevant to what they're doing now or expect to do later on. When students find that their academic tasks are interesting, important and useful, they are more likely to try harder to get them done and less likely to put them off.
Remote learning can make students feel bored and frustrated. Therefore, finding ways to stay motivated can prevent procrastination.
Remind yourself of the practical value of your academic tasks. Figure out the reasons you're studying something in the first place.
For instance, instead of viewing the completion of an assignment as a way to fulfill course requirements, you can think about how to turn your coursework into something related to your life or career goals. For a computer science student, a programming assignment could be made a part of your portfolio to help secure an internship or even a job – as some of our own students have done. A research report could be turned into an academic journal article to enhance your profile when applying for graduate school in the future.
2. Manage goals, tasks and time
College life can get hectic. Many college students must juggle coursework, social events and work commitments at the same time. Getting more organized helps stave off procrastination. This means breaking long-term goals into smaller short-term, challenging and clear goals and tasks.
The reason this technique works is that procrastination is directly related to an individual's preference and desire for working on a task. When a goal is too large, it becomes not immediately achievable; therefore, you will see this task as less desirable and be more likely to put it off.
By breaking a large long-term goal into a series of smaller and more concrete subgoals, you will see the project as easier to complete and, more importantly, your perceived distance to the finishing line will shorten. This way, you are more likely to perceive the project as desirable, and you will be less likely to procrastinate.
Second, you need to plan your time daily by listing tasks based on their importance and urgency, estimating how much time you need to complete each task, and identifying concrete steps to reach daily goals. That is, tell yourself that in the context of X, I will need to do Y to accomplish Z.
It is also important to plan your time according to how and when you prefer to study. For example, you may concentrate the most late at night, your memory may work the best in the early mornings, or you may collaborate better during the day.
In addition, you should use tech tools, such as calendar and task-management apps, to plan your time and monitor how much you're getting done.
3. Create a good learning space
Another important way to avoid procrastination is to make sure that your learning environment is supportive for learning.
During the coronavirus pandemic, students are usually learning from home, but sometimes they study wherever they happen to be, even at picnic tables in public parks. These places may not be best suited for academic activities.
These environments have many characteristics that may be more interesting and less emotionally draining than academic tasks. Therefore, students could drift away from academic tasks and wind up instead chatting with friends or watching sports. This is why choosing or creating a good place to study can help people stop procrastinating.
Try to set up your surroundings in a way that suits your learning habits, including where you put tables and chairs and how you use lighting and block out noises. For example, some students may enjoy learning in a quiet and dark space with a spotlight. Others may learn best when they use a standing desk next to a bright window and constantly play soft background music.
4. Get a little help from friends
Friends and classmates can help one another stop procrastinating. Colleagues and other contacts can hold one another accountable and help one another meet deadlines. This is particularly important for anyone who struggles with self-control. Research also has shown that having supportive friends and other peers can boost self-confidence and make tasks seem more valuable and interesting.
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, students are physically isolated from most of their friends and classmates. The social support that students normally receive in face-to-face settings, such as after-class chats and study groups, has also been moved to virtual spaces. That is, it's still available, but mainly through virtual means, such as instant-messaging apps, online collaboration tools or video conferencing software. Used wisely, these tools can help students work with friends to overcome procrastination and make the classwork more enjoyable.
Kui Xie, Cyphert Distinguished Professor; Professor of Learning Technologies; Director of The Research Laboratory for Digital Learning, The Ohio State University and Sheng-Lun Cheng, Assistant Professor of Instructional Systems Design and Technology, Sam Houston State University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
It also represents a collective loss of creativity.
Researchers have shown how creative thinking can be cultivated by simple habits like exercise, sleep and reading. But another catalyst is unplanned interactions with close friends, casual acquaintances and complete strangers. With the closure of coffee shops – not to mention places like bars, libraries, gyms and museums – these opportunities vanish.
Of course, not all chance meetings result in brilliant ideas. Yet as we bounce from place to place, each brief social encounter plants a small seed that can gel into a new idea or inspiration.
By missing out on chance meetings and observations that nudge our curiosity and jolt “a-ha!" moments, new ideas, big and small, go undiscovered.
It's not the caffeine, it's the people
Famous artists, novelists and scientists are often seen as if their ideas and work come from a singular mind. But this is misleading. The ideas of even the most reclusive of poets, mathematicians or theologians are part of larger conversations among peers, or are reactions and responses to the world.
As author Steven Johnson wrote in "Where Good Ideas Come From," the "trick to having good ideas is not to sit around in glorious isolation and try to think big thoughts." Instead, he recommends that we "go for a walk," "embrace serendipity" and "frequent coffeehouses and other liquid networks."
Just as today's freelance writers might use coffee shops as a second office, it was the tea- and coffeehouses of London in the 18th century that spurred the Age of Enlightenment. Then, as now, people intuitively knew they were "more productive or more creative when working from coffee shops," according to David Burkus, author of "The Myths of Creativity." As research shows, it's not the caffeine; it's the people. Simply being around other people who are working can motivate us to do the same.
In other words, creativity is social.
It's also contextual. The built environment plays a hidden but crucial role. Architectural researchers in the U.K., for instance, found that classroom design impacts the speed at which students learn. They found that classroom features, such as furniture and lighting, have as much impact on learning as teachers. Similar aspects of cafe design can enhance creativity.
Designing for creativity
Buildings influence a wide range of human functions. Temperature and humidity, for example, affect our ability to concentrate. Daylighting is positively linked to productivity, stress management and immune functions. And air quality, determined by HVAC systems as well as the chemical composition of furnishings and interior materials like carpet, affects both respiratory and mental health. Architectural design has even been connected to happiness.
Likewise, a well-designed coffee shop can facilitate creativity – where the unplanned friction between people can ignite sparks of innovation.
Two newly completed coffee shops, the Kilogram Coffee Shop in Indonesia and Buckminster's Cat Cafe in Buffalo, New York, were designed with this kind of interactivity in mind.
Buckminster's Cat Cafe in Buffalo, N.Y. (Florian Holzherr, Author provided)
Each has open, horizontal layouts that actually encourage congestion, which fosters chance encounters. Lightweight and geometric furniture enables occupants to rearrange seating and accommodate groups of various size, such as when a friend unexpectedly arrives. There are views outside, which promote calmness and offer more opportunities to daydream. And there is a moderate level of ambient noise – not too high or low – which induces cognitive disfluency, a state of deep, reflective thinking.
Restoring the soul of the coffee shop
Of course, not all coffee shops have closed. Many shops have reduced indoor seating capacity, limited patrons to exterior seating or have restricted services to takeout only as a means to stay open. All of them have faced the difficult task of implementing safeguards while retaining the atmosphere of their establishments. Some design elements, like lighting, can easily be retained amidst social distancing and other safety measures. Others, like movable seating for collaboration, are harder to achieve safely.
While these tweaks allow businesses to stay open and ensure the safety of customers, they sap spaces of their souls.
Philosopher Michel de Certeau said that the spaces we occupy are a backdrop on which the "ensemble of possibilities" and "improvisation" of everyday life occur.
When social life fully transitions into the digital realm, these opportunities become limited. Conversations become prearranged, while the side chats that take place before or after a meeting or event have been quashed. In video meetings, participants speak to either the whole room or no one.
For cafe owners, employees and customers, the post-pandemic era can't come soon enough. After all, while customers ostensibly stop by their local coffee shop for a jolt of caffeine, the true draw of the place is in its haptic and hectic spirit.
Korydon Smith, Professor of Architecture and Co-Founder of Global Health Equity, University at Buffalo; Kelly Hayes McAlonie, Adjunct Instructor of Architecture, University at Buffalo, and Rebecca Rotundo, Associate Director of Instructional Design, University at Buffalo
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
