The risks of online learning: Procrastination in students during COVID-19 lockdown
The COVID-19 pandemic has become a major challenge to the education system at all levels, from primary school to university. Education has changed dramatically with an unprecedented growth in e-learning, where teaching is delivered remotely on digital platforms. The phenomenon of procrastination is a complex process featuring affective, cognitive and behavioural components, manifested in a tendency to postpone the actions necessary to achieve a task. Today, procrastination is widely investigated as a significant problem, especially for university students. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on learning and prostration is highly relevant in regard to online learning and its effectiveness. The paper analyzes the results of a study on procrastination among students. The study included 301 students aged 17 to 28 years, 246 (81,7 %) female and 55 (18,3 %) male, enrolled in higher education institutions in Moscow (M=20,05; SD=2,08). The research was conducted by means of a modified Scale of general procrastination (The Tuckman Procrastination Scale), which is widely applied to assess academic procrastination, and also by means of the Charles E. Osgood semantic differential method, which is used to study the system of respondents’ significant relations and to construct the semantic space of scale ratings. The results of the study suggest that during the period of self-isolation the level of student prostration was higher than average (M=60,20; SD=11,90). At the same time, the self-image survey conducted among the respondents showed a direct correlation between the level of prostration and the positive self-esteem of the respondent. The authors discuss the results in the context of research on student procrastination during the COVID-19 pandemic.