Anticipation And Conduct Self-Regulation Of Students Being Late For Class

Abstract

A problem raised in this article relates to the study of personal conditionality of university students’ habit of being late. Emphasis is placed on the fact that insufficient research has been done on personal determination of the habit of being late; in Russian society, it is regarded as a harmful one. So the issue of detection and correction of this habit among the higher education students, who are going to be professionals in various spheres of public life, will have a particular importance. The presented empirical research was aimed at verifying an assumption that the basis for the higher education students’ habit of being late may be the underdeveloped anticipation and a low level of self-regulation of behavior. The Russian State University (Moscow) conducted the research on comparison of the diagnostics results of aspects of female students’ anticipation and self-regulation of behavior in two experimental groups – girls who are constantly late and girls who excel in timeliness. It was found out that the more the students had a habit to be late, the less they developed both mechanisms; the latecomers significantly differed from "timely" students by lower indicators of the general level of anticipation and its two personal-situational and temporary components, as well as by a general level of self-regulation of behavior and its "planning" component. Finally, it was concluded that the time management education programs should include types of educational activities that develop those mechanisms, especially planning in the self-regulation structure.

Keywords: Female studentshabit of being latetimelinessanticipationself-regulation of behaviorpersonal characteristicsdifferences

Introduction

Current social and economic development, characterized by competition and strict control of time in all spheres of human life, places requirements on almost every person, and timeliness - the ability to do everything on time - is amongst them (Volodarskaya & Kondratova, 2015; Shmeleva., Kislyakov, Kartashev & Romanova, 2017; Kislyakov, Shmeleva, Silaeva, Belyakova, & Kartashev, 2016). An alternative to timeliness is the habit of being late. This habit creates a lot of inconvenience to a person and other people, causes irritation and nervous disorders. The problem of delays is particularly acute in the sphere of public production and social services. Human resources services involved in staff management in institutions and organizations are faced with tension in the work communities due to chronic delays of employees. Delays turn into loss of productivity at industrial enterprises and cause resentment among social services clients.

Based on a scientific evidence, the gradually forming habit of being late proved the generation of stable neural links in brain structures that serve as a basis for behavioral acts called as "dynamic stereotype" by I. P. Pavlov (Yurchuk, 2003).

Just as the habit of being late comes from self-efficacy of a person and the effectiveness of those groups where he/she is involved, so the reducing of the "latecomers" number at any institution increases its effectiveness. In the twenty-first century, there is ongoing intensive search for practices and methods of time management education, as an effective and wise control of lifetime in order to increase the productivity of efforts (Kudrinskaya, 2015; Mityaeva, Fomina, Tsvetkova, Rybakova, Gedulyanova & Khovanskaya, 2017; Tsvetkova, Rybakova, Fomina, Petrova & Shcheglova, 2016; Yoel, 2015).

Those often being late (untimely) students who attend a full-time day course also create problems for themselves, their teachers and fellow-students in higher education institutions. The standards of social conduct in Russian society regard the habit of being late as harmful, so the issue of detection and correction of this habit among the higher education students, who are going to be professionals in various spheres of public life, will have a particular importance (Boratko, 2013; Lagvilava, 2015; Maidanova, 2013; Mitrofanova, 2014; Nikolaeva, 2010).

Problem Statement

The habit of being late is considered in several contexts in Russian and foreign literature: as a characteristic of the whole culture (at the general trend level) and as an outcome of the established thinking patterns of a particular person and the peculiarities of his/her perception (Dahigg, 2015; Ippolitova, 2016; Krasnikova, 2017).

Personality traits of people, characterized by a habit of being late, have rarely been the subject of a separate research. However, some studies do exist. For example, this problem was explained by Sigmund Freud (Freud, 2017), a psychoanalyst, who identified several types of a character depending on the stage of psychosexual development of the individual. Habit of being late may be one of the traits of the anal type as a set of characterological peculiarities, fixed as a result of toilet train.

DeLonzor study (2003) shows that the latecomers have a number of features: they put off their things to do, i.e. prone to procrastination; they have a low self-control; they want to feel the severity of moment - the end of project, deadline, etc.; some of them show the attention deficit syndrome and hyperactivity. Problems with subjective time perception are possible (Klimova, 2010). DeLonzor (2003) developed a typology of latecomers depending on conditions in which this habit manifests itself: 1) deadliners are procrastinators; 2) producers overload themselves with tasks and then fail to cope with them; 3) absent-minded professors; 4) rationalizers look for external excuses for their being late; 5) indulgers are people who let things slide; 6) evaders are those who seek a cause to postpone it "until later"; 7) rebels are individuals with a need for attention. Krasnikova (2017) associates the habit of being late with infantilism, i.e. immaturity of a person.

Summarizing the analyses results of publications, which considered personal characteristics of people with a habit of being late, we concluded that it was difficult to find any research amongst them that could confirm the assumptions by objective methods of data processing. Thus, the challenge of this research is scientific underdevelopment of this subject, in general, and the students’ case study, in particular.

Research Questions

The empirical study was based on the assumption that the underdeveloped anticipation (ability to anticipate events) and self-regulation of behavior provide the basis for the students’ habit of being late (Kislyakov et al., 2018). This means that female students who excel at timeliness will surpass their fellow students in terms of these basic individual psychological mechanisms development. Tasks of the research are to find answers to two questions: 1) what are the relationships between the habit of being late, anticipation and self-regulation of behavior? 2) are there any statistically significant differences in anticipation development levels and self-regulation of "timely" female students and those who are constantly late for classes?

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this study is to identify any possible personal determinants of the habit to be late (a low level of anticipation and self-regulation of behavior) and to outline ways for psychological assistance to students - "latecomers" who want to get rid thereof.

Research Methods

The study was conducted at the Russian State University (Moscow). The sample includes the results of psychological diagnostics of 72 third-fourth year female students, majoring in "Psychology of performance management" in 2015-2018. Total sample was divided into two groups of 36 girls each. Group I consisted of students, who had been systematically late for classes for three years; group II included students that are distinguished by timeliness. A self-assessment scale from 0 – "never late" to 10 - "always late" was used for division into groups. At the same time, it was important that the students would agree with the self-assessment of each subject. An anticipatory consistency/prognostic competence test by V. D. Mendelevich (Mendelevich, 2003) was used for anticipation diagnosis; the spatial (SA), temporal (TA), personal and situational anticipation (PSA) was investigated based thereon. Self-regulation of the behavior pattern method by V. I. Morosanova (SMTA; Morosanova, 2004) was used for the study of a self-regulation pattern. The obtained data were subjected to correlation analysis by Pearson; comparative analysis of the data was performed with Student's t-test.

Findings

The results obtained with anticipatory consistency test are summarized in Table 1 and shown in Figure 1 .

The results obtained by Self-regulation of Behavior Pattern method of diagnostics (SBSM) are summarized in Table 2 .

The generalized data obtained by both methods are summarized in Table 3 and presented in Figure 2 .

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See Full Size >

Correlation analysis of the whole sample revealed concurrency of the habit to be late for classes both with the self-regulation of the behavior pattern and with the indicators of anticipatory consistency. In particular, the estimation of habits to be late for classes correlates closely and negatively with planning (r = -0.311, when p = 0.008) and the total level of SBS (r = -0.55, when p = 0.000); as well as with temporal anticipation (r = -0.687, when p = 0.000) and the total level of AC (r = -0.471, when p = 0.000).

The comparative analysis of Student's t-test data showed the statistically significant differences between groups according to indicators: a general level of self-regulation of behavior (t = 4,857, when p = 0.000), planning (t = - 2.882, when p = 0.005); a general level of anticipation (t = 4.186, when p = 0.000), temporal anticipation (t = 5.771, when p = 0.000). The group of female students-latecomers has a significantly lower level of these indicators.

Conclusion

The obtained results show that: a) there is a close relationship between the habit of being late, anticipatory consistency and self-regulation of behavior: the more this habit is pronounced, the less both mechanisms are developed and vice versa; b) the latecomers differ from the "timely" students by lower indicators of the level of anticipation development in general and, in particular, its time component; lower indicators of the general level of self-regulation of behavior and its "planning" component. Thus, the hypothesis put forward at the beginning of the study was confirmed. This means that the learning activities that develop anticipation and increase the level of self-regulation of behavior, particularly the "planning" component, would be appropriate to be included into the time management course program. In addition, we can use the obtained data to develop and implement trainings on anticipatory consistency, on development and optimization of self-regulation of the behavior pattern within the additional vocational education system.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the Russian State Social University for the possibility to conduct this study.

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