Procrastination questionnaire for students (PFS)

Abstract

The Procrastination Questionnaire for Students (PFS) is designed to capture procrastination in the context of academic learning as a largely stable behavioral disposition across various situations. Procrastination is defined here as the postponement of personally important activities in favor of less important ones, where the actions actually performed deviate from one’s intentions concerning the more significant goal. The scale specifically measures the tendency among students to delay the start of study-related tasks, such as homework or preparing for lectures, or to fail to complete them promptly. The PFS was developed to provide a homogeneous measure of this tendency, explicitly excluding related but distinct phenomena like unpunctuality or lack of foresight, which are often conflated with core procrastination in other instruments.

Keywords

Procrastination, academic procrastination, students, learning, psychological assessment, self-regulation, delay, behavioral disposition

Authors

Margarita Engberding, Anna Höcker, Fred Rist

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Procrastination Questionnaire for Students (PFS) is to provide a psychometrically sound, homogeneous instrument for measuring core procrastination tendencies exclusively within the university learning environment. It was constructed to overcome limitations identified in existing scales, such as the Aitken Procrastination Scale (APS), which often confound core procrastination with related constructs like unpunctuality or lack of foresight.

The PFS aims to record procrastination as a relatively stable, situation-spanning behavioral disposition—the intrinsic inclination of students to begin academic tasks later than planned and subsequently miss established deadlines. Furthermore, the development included the creation of two versions: a seven-item version (PFS-7) and a highly economical four-item version (PFS-4), suitable for use in multi-topic surveys or as a preliminary screening tool.

Construct

The core construct measured by the PFS is Procrastination, defined as the voluntary delay of an intended, personally important course of action despite expecting negative consequences from the delay. The theoretical foundation distinguishes procrastination from mere delay (or postponement), which is often flexible and non-dysfunctional. Procrastination occurs specifically when important activities are deferred in favor of less important ones, resulting in actions that do not align with the individual’s intentions for achieving the higher-priority goal.

The PFS focuses specifically on academic procrastination, meaning the tendency to delay tasks related to university study, such as assignments, presentations, or exam preparation. Unlike broader definitions, the PFS items were carefully selected to measure the core tendency to put off tasks without confounding this measure with variables such as the perceived aversiveness of the task, consequences of procrastination (e.g., stress or performance decline), or related personality traits like poor planning skills.

Validity

Evidence for the validity of the PFS was established through advanced psychometric analyses, including confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM), which accounted for the ordinal nature of the response data. The scale demonstrates indicators of factorial validity, convergent validity, and criterion validity.

Specifically regarding criterion validity, simultaneous analyses of the PFS measurement models (PFS-7 and PFS-4) and the three-factor model of the Aitken Procrastination Scale (APS) showed strong relationships. The central procrastination factor measured by the PFS correlated nearly perfectly with the APS factor of Central Procrastination (.96 and .97). Correlation was lower with the APS factor of Unpünktlichkeit (Unpunctuality) (.38 and .35), confirming that the PFS successfully measures the core construct while minimizing contamination from related external factors. Furthermore, when the three APS factors were used to predict the PFS dimension, only the APS Central Procrastination factor significantly predicted the PFS factor, further supporting the specificity and criterion validity of the PFS in assessing core procrastination.

Reliability

While the initial documentation did not provide conventional reliability coefficients (such as Cronbach’s alpha), the analyses using non-linear confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) demonstrated satisfactory reliability. The standardized factor loadings (Table 2 in the original documentation) for both the seven-item (PFS-7) and four-item (PFS-4) versions confirmed that the items were highly associated with the underlying latent construct of procrastination. This satisfactory formal validity and reliability were established after the items retained were confirmed to be homogeneous in structure through rigorous testing.

Factor Analysis

The factor structure of the PFS was rigorously examined using non-linear Factor Analysis (FA) and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), specifically utilizing the 2-Parameter Normal Ogive Item Response Theory (IRT) Model to appropriately handle the ordinal, 5-category response format. Initial exploratory factor analyses (EFA) on the original 12 items suggested a predominantly unidimensional structure, with only one eigenvalue greater than 1 in both student samples (S1 and S2).

However, the initial one-factor model for the 12 items demonstrated insufficient fit according to the Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA). Further confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) indicated significant residual correlations among several items, suggesting high semantic redundancy (e.g., items related to “starting tasks” or “under pressure”). To achieve a more parsimonious, reliable, and valid instrument, items exhibiting high redundancy or measuring consequences of procrastination (like stress or performance loss) were excluded. This rigorous selection process resulted in the final, psychometrically superior seven-item version (PFS-7) and the four-item short version (PFS-4). Both finalized versions demonstrated good to excellent model fit (CFI and TLI values near 1.00, and acceptable RMSEA values) when modeled as unidimensional constructs, confirming their suitability for measuring central procrastination tendencies.

Instrument

Test Type: Self-report questionnaire (Psychological Scale)

Format: Paper-and-pencil or online administration

Language Available: German (Documentation: deutsch, Items: German)

Population Group: Students (academic context)

Age Group: Adults (Samples ranged from 19 to 61 years, with mean ages around 24 years)

Population Details: The scale was validated using two student samples (S1: N=457; S2: N=1228) from the University of Münster. Sample S1 was recruited in Summer Semester 2005, and Sample S2 in Winter Semester 2006/2007. The samples were heterogeneous concerning study subjects. Females were overrepresented in both samples, particularly in S1 (65.2% female).

Test Methodology: The scale uses a 5-point rating scale (Likert-type format). Responses are anchored by (Fast) nie (Almost never), Selten (Seldom), Manchmal (Sometimes), Häufig (Often), and (Fast) immer (Almost always). The instruction asks respondents to reflect on the frequency of the listed behaviors over the last two weeks concerning study-related tasks. The data analysis employed non-linear factor analysis and SEM models (specifically the 2-Parameter Normal Ogive IRT Model implemented via the WLSMV estimator in Mplus) to account for the ordinal and potentially non-normally distributed nature of the data.

Keywords

Psychometrics, self-report, academic performance, university students, behavioral delay, measurement invariance, confirmatory factor analysis, Structural Equation Modeling

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: Not provided in source content.

Affiliation Email addresses:

• Dipl. Psych. Margarita Engberding: [email protected]
• Dipl. Psych. Anna Höcker: [email protected]
• Prof. Dr. Dipl. Psych. Fred Rist: [email protected]

Correspondence Address:

• GESIS – Leibniz-Institut für Sozialwissenschaften, Postfach 12 21 55, 68072 Mannheim, E-Mail: [email protected]

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The scale was developed within a research and treatment project on procrastination at the Psychological Institute of the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster. The data used for validation were collected in 2005 (S1) and 2006/2007 (S2) as part of two diploma theses (Deters, 2004; Frings, 2008). Information regarding specific permissions, copyrights, or fees for external use is not explicitly detailed in the documentation, but contact information for the authors and GESIS is provided.

Reference’s

The development and validation of the PFS relied on existing literature and scale development efforts, including:

• Aitken, M. E. (1982). A personality profile of the college student procrastinator. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Delaware.
• Deters, J. (2004). Diploma thesis. University of Münster. (Cited as Deters, 2006 in some contexts).
• Ferrari, J. R., O´Callaghan, J., & Newbegin, I. (2005). Prevalence of procrastination in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia: An international study. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 21(1), 1-10.
• Flora, D. B., & Curran, P. J. (2004). An empirical study of the performance of robust test statistics for structural equation models with nonnormal data. Psychological Methods, 9(4), 467-478.
• Frings, C. (2008). Diploma thesis. University of Münster.
• Glöckner-Rist, A., & Hoijtink, H. (2003). The performance of maximum likelihood estimation for factor analysis of ordinal variables. Applied Psychological Measurement, 27(2), 118-135.
• Helmke, A., & Schrader, F. (2000). Prokrastination bei Schülern und Studenten. Zeitschrift für Pädagogische Psychologie, 14(4), 187-197.
• Little, R. J. A., & Rubin, D. B. (1987). Statistical analysis with missing data. New York: Wiley.
• Muthén, L. K., & Muthén, B. O. (2007). Mplus User’s Guide (Version 5). Los Angeles, CA: Muthén & Muthén. (Referenced for the Mplus software used in non-linear analysis: http://www.statmodel.com).
• Patzelt, V., & Opitz, S. (2005a). Prokrastination und Studienorganisation: Eine Studie zur Rolle der “Verschulung” von Studienfächern. Zeitschrift für Pädagogische Psychologie, 19(1), 37-47.
• Patzelt, V., & Opitz, S. (2005b). Messung der Prokrastination: Eine Validierungsstudie zur Aitken Procrastination Scale. Diagnostica, 51(3), 117-126.
• Rist, F., Deters, J., Opitz, S., & Patzelt, V. (2006). Prokrastination: Eine Übersicht. Psychologische Rundschau, 57(4), 209-218.
• Steel, P. (2006). The nature of procrastination: A meta-analytic and theoretical review of quintessential self-regulatory failure. Psychological Bulletin, 133(1), 65-94.
• Steel, P. (2007). The structure of procrastination: A prototypical analysis. Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 21(2), 17-38.
• Steel, P. (2008). The procrastination equation: How to stop putting things off and start getting stuff done. New York: HarperCollins.

Items of the Procrastination questionnaire for students (PFS)

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

Instruction (Instruktion): Hier geht es vor allem um Schwierigkeiten beim Erledigen studienbezogener Tätigkeiten. Geben Sie bitte an, wie häufig die genannten Verhaltensweisen bei Ihnen vorkommen. Beziehen Sie Ihre Aussage dabei bitte auf die letzten 2 Wochen, in denen Sie etwas für Ihr Studium tun sollten (z.B. Lernen für eine Prüfung, Hausarbeiten, usw.).

Response Format (Antwortvorgaben): 5-stufiges Antwortformat mit den Benennungen (Fast) nie, Selten, Manchmal, Häufig und (Fast) immer.

Items (PFS-7 Version)

Anmerkung: Die Nummern in Klammern entsprechen der Position der Items in der ursprünglichen 12 PFS Item Version.