Strategies Used by Procrastinators and Non-Procrastinators to Cope with Test Anxiety

This study aimed to investigate the relationship of academic procrastination to coping strategies with test anxiety and to explore whether there are significant differences in using these strategies between procrastinators and non-procrastinators. The study sample comprised 455 high school students (mean age was 17.04 years). Two scales were used one for measuring academic procrastination and the other for measuring coping strategies with test anxiety. The scale of coping strategies is composed of four subscales: Danger control (e.g., using time effectively), anxiety control (e.g., relaxation), anxiety repression (e.g., denial of a situation that produces test anxiety), and situation control (e.g., cheating). Data were analysed using Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients, median-split method and t-tests. Results revealed that academic procrastination correlated positively and significantly with anxiety repression and situation control, and correlated negatively and significantly with anxiety and danger control. In addition, the results showed that anxiety repression was the most common strategy used by procrastinators, while anxiety danger was the most common strategy used by non-procrastinators. Significant differences were found between procrastinators and non-procrastinators in using coping strategies, where procrastinators used more strategies of anxiety repression and situation control, whereas non-procrastinators used more strategies of danger control and anxiety control.