The purpose of the present study was to investigate the factors associated with procrastination and anxiety, both of which can impact a student’s college experience significantly. The research question we examined was whether perceived parenting styles, locus of control and self-efficacy could predict anxiety and procrastination in our sample of college students. The participants were college students in India (N = 156), who responded to an online survey with self-report questionnaires measuring the variables of interest. The results found that procrastination was significantly correlated with general (r = -0.597) and social self-efficacy (r = -0.241), and locus of control (r = 0.276), while anxiety was significantly correlated with these variables (r = -0.420, r = -0.248, r = 0.294, respectively) and the acceptance-involvement dimension of parenting (r = -0.227). A multivariate regression was conducted with procrastination and anxiety as outcome variables, locus of control, social and general self-efficacy, parental acceptance-involvement, parental strictness-supervision, and helicopter parenting included as covariates and gender, history of child sexual abuse, history of parental neglect, and ongoing treatment for a mental health concern included as factors. These predictors significantly contributed to the variance in procrastination (R2 = 0.3826) and anxiety (R2 = 0.4009). General self-efficacy emerged as the only significant predictor ( = -0.612) of procrastination in the model described, while gender ( = -0.117), ongoing treatment for a mental health concern ( = 0.147) and general self-efficacy ( = -0.451) emerged as significant predictors of anxiety. These results suggest that general self-efficacy can be a variable of further investigation for interventions targeted towards improving procrastination and anxiety among college students.
Procrastination and Anxiety among Indian college students: The role of perceived parenting styles, locus of control and self efficacy
