Institute of Art Design + Technology Dún Laoghaire
Ireland’s campus for the Creative Industries

Sarah Singa 

BSc [Hons] Applied Psychology

I am a Student of the B.Sc. Applied Psychology at IADT specialised in the course's practice path. I am particularly interested in organisational psychology and completed my research paper on self-esteem, life satisfaction, and its effects on academic procrastination among undergraduates. Other areas I am keenly interested in are positive psychology, transpersonal psychology, and forensic psychology. In the future, I plan to expand my knowledge of organisational psychology and deepen my interest in these topics, such as applying to volunteering and work associated with the area.

Project Overview

It has been shown that people procrastinate at various times, such as delaying work-related tasks or assignments that must be completed at home. Academic procrastination, which involves delaying an assignment or studying for a test, also occurs in an educational setting. Many studies have found that academic procrastination can have an impact on various aspects of a student’s life. The aim of the project was to investigate self-esteem, Life satisfaction, and its effects on academic procrastination among undergraduates. This project was carried out in the form of an online survey to investigate further the topic of self-esteem, life satisfaction, and academic procrastination and add clarity to previous research by determining whether or not self-esteem and life satisfaction have an effect on academic procrastination.


Project Description

This project is titled “Investigating Self-Esteem, Life Satisfaction, and its Effects on Academic Procrastination among Undergraduates” The project’s goal was to investigate if self-esteem and life satisfaction affected academic procrastination among undergraduates. The rationale for this study is that previous research has researched the effects of self-esteem and academic procrastination and life satisfaction and academic procrastination among undergraduate students. This project reported new findings by combining these variables (self-esteem and life satisfaction) that still need to be studied in future studies. This project may help to understand the phenomenon investigated in the project. The project was a correlational design and an online quantitative survey using questionnaires (The general procrastination scale, Rosenberg self-esteem scale, and the satisfaction with life scale) to collect data. The independent variable was to measure the student’s level of self-esteem. The independent variable of life satisfaction was used to measure students’ subjective well-being. The dependent variable measured the student’s academic procrastination. The project was cross-sectional. The project used convenience and snowball sampling, gathering participants (undergraduates from first to fourth year) from IADT and online discussion boards like Reddit. The participants were given a link to the questionnaires using Qualtrics. Before disturbing the online survey to the public, a pilot study was conducted to ensure there were no problems with the survey. The online survey was distributed via a link through Reddit and a QR to the students of iadt. The ethical standards of the DTPEC in IADT were followed in the treatment of the participants.


Project Findings

The project was conducted by multiple regression analysis, and all the assumptions were met. The results were significant when using the entry method; F (2,136) = 9.150, p<.001, R2= .344, R2 Adjusted= .106). The results from the gathered data suggested that self-esteem and life satisfaction had an effect on academic procrastination among undergraduate students. The finding corresponds with previous research, such as Yang et al. (2021), who concluded that self-esteem was a precursor to academic procrastination. Student’s self-esteem was falling while academic procrastination was rapidly increasing. Yang (2021) found that increased procrastination predicted decreased life satisfaction in Chinese and British students. Yang et al. (2021) and Yang (2021) research used correlation and self-report measurements similar to the present study. The project contributed to the research by providing an Irish and other sample from other countries through Reddit. This gives the project a wider perspective on how academic procrastination is viewed and treated around the world. For universities to combat academic procrastination among undergraduate students, universities should implement group counselling intervention programmes. Research has shown that these programmes help reduce academic procrastination (Ozer et al., 2013, cited in Zack & Hen, 2018). Universities can introduce a study skill centre to help students develop self-regulation and self-efficacy. Encouraging strategies such as double body to help lower procrastination can help students.


Investigating Self-Esteem, Life Satisfaction, and its effects on Academic Procrastination among Undergraduates

Investigating Self-Esteem, Life Satisfaction, and its effects on Academic Procrastination among Undergraduates