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The Relationship of Motivationand Flow Experience to Academic

Procrastination in University Students

EUNJU LEE

School of Humanities and Social SciencesHalla University, South Korea

ABSTRACT. In this article, the author examined the relationships of motivation and flowexperience to academic procrastination in 262 Korean undergraduate students who com-pleted a questionnaire on procrastination, flow, and motivation. The results indicated thathigh procrastination was associated with lack of self-determined motivation and low inci-dence of flow state. The results also indicated that, although amotivation and intrinsic moti-vation showed significant unique effects on procrastination, they did not contribute sig-

nificantly to the variance in procrastination when the effects caused by flow experienceswere considered. The author discusses implications for practice and gives suggestions forfurther research.

Key words: flow, procrastination, self-determined motivation

PROCRASTINATION is the lack or absence of self-regulated performance and

the tendency to put off or completely avoid an activity under ones control (Tuck-

man & Sexton, 1989). As a student proceeds through school, the responsibility

for controlling performance shifts progressively from parents and teachers to thestudent, and it reaches a high point during the college years. According to

Solomon and Rothblum (1984), as many as 50% of college students procrastinate

on academic tasks at least half of the time and an additional 38% report procras-

tinating occasionally.

Procrastination is a behavior that is endemic in the academic domain, and it

may be related to problems encountered by many college students. Solomon and

Rothblum (1984) have shown that students who habitually procrastinate believe

that their tendency to procrastinate significantly interferes with their academic

An earlier version of this article was presented at the meeting of the International Asso-ciation of Applied Psychology, Singapore, July 2002.

The Journal of Genetic Psychology, 2005, 166(1), 514


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two forms of non-self-determined motivation (i.e., non-self-determined extrinsic

motivation, amotivation). Extrinsic motivation is classified into self-determined

and non-self-determined extrinsic motivation, whereas intrinsic motivation is self-determined. Sencal et al. (1995) suggested that students who had intrinsic rea-

sons for pursuing their studies were less likely to procrastinate, whereas those who

had extrinsic reasons were more likely to procrastinate. These previous findings

lead one to question if the relationship of procrastination to motivation is differ-

ent depending on whether motivation is self-determined or non-self-determined.

However, few researchers have examined this proposition.

On the basis of previous research results, I expected that procrastination would

negatively correlate with self-determined motivation and positively correlate with

non-self-determined motivation. That is, students with high self-determined extrin-sic motivation, although they are extrinsically motivated, would be less likely to

procrastinate.

I also examined the flow experience of academic procrastinators. When

doing an activity, students sometimes become totally immersed in the activity to

the point of losing awareness of time, surroundings, and all other things except

the activity itself. Csikszentmihalyi (1975, 1990) used the termflow to describe

this optimal psychological state. The flow state includes many, if not all, of the

following characteristics: (a) the existence of a balance between the perceived

skills of an individual and the perceived challenges of a situation, (b) the pres-ence of clear goals, (c) the presence of unambiguous feedback, (d) concentration

on the task at hand, (e) a loss of self-consciousness, and (f) a transformation of

time (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990; Jackson & Marsh, 1996).

Many researchers have suggested that individuals who are highly motivated

would experience high instances of the flow state (Csikszentmihalyi & LeFevre,

1989; Graef, Csikszentmihalyi, & McManama-Gianinno, 1983; Haworth & Hill,

1992). Specifically, Csikszentmihalyi and LeFevre demonstrated a positive link

between intrinsic motivation and the experience of this psychological state. When

people are freely doing what interests them (intrinsically motivated behaviors),their behaviors are characterized by concentration and engagement that occurs

spontaneously and they become wholly absorbed in the activity (Csikszentmi-

halyi & Nakamura, 1989).

More recently, Kowal and Fortier (1999) demonstrated that individuals who

were motivated in a self-determined manner reported high instances of flow. They

suggested that self-determined forms of motivation might facilitate flow, whereas

non-self-determined forms of motivation might have detrimental influences on

flow states. Somuncuoglu and Yildirim (1999) also suggested that students who

were motivated in a self-determined manner were likely to be deeply engaged intheir learning process and to consequently experience the flow state.

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who experience flow state are not likely to put off their learning tasks until later.

Messmer (2001) suggested that one of the keys to perform an activity in flow state

is to avoid procrastination. The author assumed that flow experience would beassociated not only with high self-determined motivation, but also with low pro-

crastination. However, these assumptions were speculative and no researchers

have examined the relationship between the extent of procrastination and flow

experience.

On the basis of previous research findings, I sought to clarify the motiva-

tional patterns and flow experiences of academic procrastinators. Specifically, I

examined the relationships between students academic procrastination and their

motivation and flow experience. I also was interested in exploring whether the

presumed relationships between procrastination and flow experiences werecaused by the covariance between flow and motivation or whether they were inde-

pendent of motivational effects. Therefore, I examined whether flow experiences

continued to be significantly related to procrastination even when the effects of

motivation measures were considered.

Method

Participants

The original participants for this study were 277 college students enrolled at

two relatively small universities in South Korea. I found invalid response profiles

(i.e., lack of variability, incomplete data) for 15 students, so I dropped their data

from the sample analyses. Analyses were based on 262 college students (138 men,

124 women). Students represented a variety of academic majors, and they were

enrolled in an educational psychology course. They ranged in age from 18 to 24

years (Mage = 20.02, SD = 1.20). The majority of the students (84%) were sopho-

mores; 12% were freshmen, and 4% were seniors.

Procedures

In the second month of the first semester, I asked students to complete the writ-

ten questionnaire packets in their regular classrooms. I explained to the students

that the purpose of the questionnaire was to gain a better understanding of college

students feelings and behaviors related to learning activities. The questionnaire

took 20 min to complete. All responses were anonymous and confidential.

Measures

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from very true (4) to not at all true (1). Items on the scale include: I needlessly

delay finishing jobs, even when theyre important, I postpone starting in on

things I dont like to do, and When I have a deadline, I wait till the last minute.The reliability of the scale (Cronbachs ) was .83 in this sample.

I administered the Korean version of the Flow State Scale (Jackson & Marsh,

1996) to assess flow. Because this scale was developed from athletes descrip-

tions of being in flow, I asked students to relate questions to the thoughts and feel-

ings they might have experienced during the learning process. The original ver-

sion consisted of nine subscales, but I included only the five subscales that

attained an acceptable level of reliability. The five subscales were: challengeskill

balance (I felt I was competent enough to meet the high demands of the situa-

tion); clear goals (I knew clearly what I wanted to do); unambiguous feedback(I had a good idea while I was performing about how well I was doing); con-

centration on task at hand (My attention was focused entirely on what I was

doing); and loss of self-consciousness (I was not concerned with what others

may have been thinking of me). Each subscale assessed four items. Students

rated each item on a 5-point Likert-type scale in terms of their level of agreement,

high agreement (5) or disagreement (1). Cronbachs alpha coefficients for five

subscales ranged from .77 to .84 (M= .80).

Finally, I translated the Academic Motivation Scale (Vallerand et al., 1993)

into Korean and used the instrument to assess students learning motivation. Eachitem of this scale represents a possible reason for why students go to school. In

the present study, I adopted intrinsic motivation, self-determined extrinsic moti-

vation, non-self-determined extrinsic motivation, and amotivation. Examples

from each construct include: because I experience pleasure and satisfaction

while learning new things (intrinsic motivation); because I think that education

will help me better prepare for the career I have chosen (self-determined extrin-

sic motivation); to get a more prestigious job later on (non-self-determined

extrinsic motivation); and I really feel that I am wasting my time at school

(amotivation). I gave four possible responses for each of the four subscales, thatyielded a 16-item scale. Students rated the items on a 7-point Likert-type scale

from very true (7) to not at all true (1). Cronbachs alpha coefficients for each

construct ranged from .83 to .93 (M= .86) in this sample.

Results

The first research question of this study concerned the relationships of stu-

dents academic procrastination with their motivation and flow experience.

Results are presented in Table 1. As expected, procrastination was significantlyand positively related to amotivation. I obtained a significant, negative correla-

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TABLE 1. Intercorrelations of Procrastination With Motivation and Flow (N= 262)

Motivation

PRO AMO NSDEM SDEM INT Skill

PRO AMO .28*** NSDEM .11 .39*** SDEM .13* .40*** .16** INT .24*** .50*** .06 .36***

Skill .30*** .28*** .16* .20** .30*** Goal .41*** .36*** .03 .38*** .38*** .54***Feed .32*** .18** .13* .23*** .21** .49***Conc .29*** .07 .01 .07 .11 .39***Self .49*** .12* .19** .06 .04 .22***

M 2.78 1.95 2.10 2.13 3.63 3.50SD .52 .73 .61 .68 .78 .71

Note. PRO = procrastination; AMO = amotivation; NSDEM = non-self-determined extrinsic motivation; INT= intrinsic motivation; Skill = challenge-skill balance; Goal = clear goal; Feed = unambiguous feedb

Self = loss of self-consciousness.*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.


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that procrastination was significantly and negatively correlated with all five of the

flow subscales.

I conducted a hierarchical multiple regression analysis to investigate theindependent and joint contribution of motivation and flow measures to predict the

students academic procrastination. There were two purposes in performing this

multiple regression analysis. First, I was interested in determining whether flow

measures continued to be significantly related to procrastination even when the

effects of motivation variables were taken into account. Second, I wanted to iden-

tify motivation and flow variables, which were the strongest predictors of pro-

crastination. The results of this analysis are shown in Table 2.

In the first step of the hierarchical multiple regression analysis, I entered four

motivation measures that accounted for 9% of the variance in students procras-tination, F(4, 257) = 6.38,p < .001. Amotivation and intrinsic motivation were

significant predictors, and non-self-determined extrinsic motivation and self-

determined extrinsic motivation were not significant.

In the second step of the analysis, I entered the five flow measures. When I

added this set to the prediction equation, it accounted for an additional 32% of

the variance in procrastination, which constituted a significant increase in the

explained variance, F(7, 250) = 19.28, p < .001. I found significant negative

effects for loss of self-consciousness, clear goal, and concentration on the task-

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TABLE 2. Results of the Hierarchical Regression Analysis Predicting Pro-crastination

Variable Step 1 Step 2

Motivationamotivation .19* .11non-self-determined extrinsic motivation .03 .04self-determined extrinsic motivation .01 .03intrinsic motivation .14* .07

Flowchallengeskill balance .08clear goal .28***unambiguous feedback .06concentration on the task .14**loss of self-consciousness .44***

Fvalue 6.38*** 19.28***

R 2 .09*** .41***R 2 .32***


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at-hand items. Furthermore, after I entered these flow measures into the analysis,

motivation measures no longer had a significant unique effect. These results indi-

cated that procrastination was best predicted by students flow experiences ratherthan by motivation. That is, the students who concentrated on the task at hand

and had clear goals with little self-consciousness tended not to procrastinate in

their academic work.

Discussion

In this study, I demonstrated that students who were motivated in a self-

determined manner (i.e., who engaged in practice for the pleasure and satisfac-

tion associated with the activity or who chose to participate for their own bene-fit) reported low procrastination tendencies. Conversely, students with high

amotivation who had no sense of control over their learning processes reported

high procrastination tendencies. These results are consistent with Sencal et al.

(1995), in which less autonomous forms of motivation were associated with

higher levels of procrastination.

Furthermore, the relationship of extrinsic motivation to procrastination var-

ied depending on whether the task was self-determined or non-self-determined.

That is, high extrinsic motivation did not elicit procrastinating behaviors if it was

self-determined. These results indicated that procrastination was an individualbehavioral tendency associated with the lack of self-determination.

Few researchers have examined the relationship between procrastination

and flow experiences. In the present study, I showed that students procrastina-

tion tendencies were negatively related with their flow experiences. The more

students procrastinate in doing their academic work, the less likely they are to

experience flow state in learning processes. Specifically, students who were out

of balance between the perceived skills of themselves and the perceived chal-

lenges of a task were likely to procrastinate in their studies. In addition, students

who did not have clear goals, did not concentrate on the task at hand and hadhigh self-consciousness showed high procrastination tendencies.

These results provide useful strategies for teachers to reduce students pro-

crastination tendencies. That is, teachers should be sensitive to the balance

between students skills and the challenges of the task. In addition, teachers need

to help students to have clear goals in their work, to concentrate on the task at

hand, and to not be excessively self-conscious in learning.

Furthermore, in the present study, I found that procrastination was predicted

mainly by students flow experiences rather than by motivation. Although amotiva-

tion and intrinsic motivation showed significant unique effects on procrastination,motivation did not contribute significantly to the variance in procrastination when

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the flow, which rarely has been examined by researchers studying procrastination.

Therefore, this study contributes to the understanding of procrastination by explor-

ing significant correlations of students procrastinating behaviors.I found that self-consciousness was the strongest and most significant predic-

tor among the five flow subscales. That is, high procrastinators were more likely to

be concerned with what others may have been thinking of them, how they were pre-

senting themselves, and about their performance during the learning process. These

results are consistent with Covington (1992) and Ferrari, Johnson, and McCown

(1995), who found that some people procrastinated as an avoidance technique to

protect their self-esteem. If they did poorly, then they could say that it was because

they put off studying until the last moment. If they did well despite procrastinating,

then others would perceive them as particularly able. By procrastinating, studentscloud the causal factors involved in performance, such that in the event of poor per-

formance, one may attribute the low grade to lack of effort rather than to low abil-

ity. In line with previous findings, on the basis of this study, I suggest that students

who are concerned with others evaluation may try to avoid the situation in which

they are to be evaluated by procrastinating their academic tasks. Teachers and edu-

cators should provide students with the learning environment in which comparison

and competition among students are not prominent.

The results of the present study contribute to theory and practice by high-

lighting the association of procrastination with motivation and flow experience.If the conditions that increase the use of procrastination can be identified, then

perhaps these conditions can be changed. Therefore, this study should be of inter-

est to educators and counseling psychologists who, in their work with students,

seek to develop effective interventions that reduce task delays and increase per-

sonal responsibility for academic performance.

However, several limits of this study suggest that researchers should be cau-

tious in drawing definitive conclusions from the results. First, although the pre-

sent results indicated that motivation and flow are significant predictors of pro-

crastination, the amount of variance accounted for is modest. Another limitationof the present study is that I selected the sample in a nonrandom way, and all of

the participants were Koreans. Thus, participants may not be representative of

university students in general. In future studies, researchers should consider

diverse populations to determine the robustness of the findings.

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