Academic Procrastination among Indonesian University Learners: Interaction with Cheating, Absenteeism, and L2 Achievement

Abstract

Background. Many studies suggested that academic procrastination is particularly prevalent among learners at university level. However, empirical data on the interactions between academic procrastination and, respectively, learners’ attitudes towards cheating (AtC), absenteeism, and learning achievement, are either generally inconclusive or non-existent, especially in English as Foreign Language (EFL) literature. Thus, it is worthwhile to conduct a study to examine these issues in the Indonesian EFL context, home to one of the largest communities of EFL learners in the world.

Purpose. The aim of this study was to investigate academic procrastination of Indonesian EFL learners at university level and the interactions of these learners’ procrastination with AtC, absenteeism, and second/foreign language (L2) achievement.

Method. The study used an online survey method and 164 learners from non-English departments participated in this study.

Results. On the basis of descriptive statistics, it was found that the participants reported a moderate level of procrastination in English class. Furthermore, this study found that learners' procrastination significantly and positively correlated with their AtC and absenteeism. This indicated that the more learners procrastinated, the higher their approval of cheating behaviour, and the more likely they were to be absent in English classes. The predictive power of learner procrastination was 16.4% on AtC, and at 8.3% on absenteeism. Moreover, the study also found a significant, negative, and moderate relationship between learner procrastination and their L2 achievement with learners' procrastination being able to predict 16.5% of the total variance in L2 achievement.

Conclusion. Teachers are suggested to promote project-based tasks in groups where the step-by-step progress of learners is continually monitored, feedback given, and rewarded. This could discourage procrastination, absenteeism, as well as cheating behaviours, and potentially promote more optimal L2 achievement.