Research Focus

The focus of the project titled 'Productive Procrastination' is to gain insight on the differences of emotions evoked during "productive procrastination" and typical procrastination.

Background/Methods/Implications

Studies have shown that boredom leads to procrastination, the questions arises whether procrastination is a bad thing. Research studies have shown that student who productively procrastinate such as doing trivial homework instead of studying for an exam results in grades just as good as procrastinators, and they have fewer alcohol problems than students who procrastinate in the typical way. (Westgate, E.C. et al., 2016). this project focuses on understanding the level of emotion, such as guilt, during productive procrastination compared to typical procrastination. 

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In this project, participants were in three conditions. The first condition was the control conditions, where participants were given an hour to complete a test titled, 'College Critical Comprehension Assessment' or CCCA. The second conditions was to give participants the same test, but were also given a Raven's Matrices and were told that it was an IQ test and part of the study. The third and final conditions was to to give the participants the CCCA and Raven's Matrices but were told that it was simply a puzzle for fun. Participants were then asked to report their feelings on a Qualtrics survey, before and after the start of the experiment. 

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Responsabilities

In this project, I was mostly responsible for running the participants through the experiment and collecting data anlaysis. Before the participants arrived, I sent reminders to participants 24 hours and 2 hours before the start of the experiment to minimize no shows. Then, I organized the laboratory space such as, set up a GoPro for data recording, configured computers with Qualtrics consent form and pre-survey.​ Also, I was responsible for maintaining an organized excel spreadsheet that served as a participant log to manage participant information such as name, time of arrival, start and end time of experiment, etc. Once the participant arrived, I explained each step of the experiment and monitored participants during the hour-long session where I addressed any questions or withdrawal requests. After the experiment was done, I set up a final Qualtrics survey (post-survey) and conducted a follow-up with 10 questions to gather feedback on the study. Finally, I debriefed the participants and provided an overview of the studies purpose and nature. After participants left, I was responsible for uploading and updating participant information for data analysis.