Procrastination and Anxiety among Indian college students: The role of perceived parenting styles, locus of control and self efficacy
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.