Booth Id:
BEHA009
Category:
Behavioral and Social Sciences
Year:
2019
Finalist Names:
Knowles, Alyssa (School: Friendswood High School)
Abstract:
This study investigates if people procrastinate more on assignments that are worth a large percentage of grade or a small percentage of grade (Hypothesis I) and on extra credit or regular credit (Hypothesis II). Participants 14-17 years old (n=104) answered a series of questions about their procrastination habits and reported the start dates on each of the four assignment types. A 2-tailed, 2-sample t-test was calculated at the 95% confidence level to determine whether there was a significant mean difference for starting Hypothesis I and II. The confidence intervals did not overlap for Hypothesis I, indicating that these are independent samples with statistically different means. The confidence intervals did overlap for Hypothesis II, meaning that these are not independent samples with statistically different means. Next, a 2-sample t-test was calculated for the difference (0.09, 0.04, respectively) between the means of the two groups. The lower bound of the 95% confidence interval was greater than zero for Hypothesis I, showing that the participants in this study started high and low percentage assignments at different times. The lower bound of the 95% confidence interval was equal to zero for Hypothesis II, indicating that the participants in this study did not start extra and regular credit assignments at different times. Participants were categorized based on their procrastination habits to examine whether their tendencies affect their start date. Subjects were asked to rank their reasons for procrastination, their degree of procrastination, and their desire to improve their procrastination tendencies.