Procrastination as a Threat to the Psychological Security of the Educational Environment

The present study provides an analysis of the concept of procrastination and its features, together with a discussion of the fundamental approaches to its investigation. It examines procrastination as a threat to the psychological security of the educational environment. The author presents the results of an empirical investigation of the characteristics of interpersonal relations in the educational environment, academic motivation, and general motivation of students with various degrees of procrastination. The subjects of the investigation were 95 students, of the average age of 18.2 years, in an institution of higher education dedicated to the humanities. The subjects were evaluated using the procrastination scale for student populations developed by C. Lay, the academic motivation scale of R.J. Vallerand, the self-evaluation survey of motivation of academic, intellectual, and professional activity developed by N.A. Bakshaeva and A.A. Verbitsky, and the “Survey of Interpersonal Relations in an Educational Environment” developed by G.S. Kozhukhar and V.V. Kovrov. The primary hypothesis of the study, that the interconnections of interpersonal relations in an educational environment with academic and general motivation would differ in the groups of students with different levels of procrastination, was confirmed. The differences in the evaluations of the quality of interpersonal relations, and indicators of academic and intellectual motivation of students with different levels of procrastination were of special particular significance. It was shown that, the higher the level of students’ procrastination, the greater the interaction between the negative aspects of interpersonal relations in the educational environment and the external academic motivation.