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oai:figshare.com:article/29654957 2026-09-30T14:51:13Z category_25954 category_25966 category_26209 portal_753 item_type_6 month_year_09_2026

The relationship between procrastination and students' grades Nichola Nicholls (9435029) Behavioural economics Experimental economics Other education not elsewhere classified Procrastination Grades Higher education Nudge Students Undergraduate test scores Submission time Lower grades SDG 4 Quality education <p dir="ltr">This dataset and dofile underpin a published paper using undergraduate test scores and submission time data from the university LMS to investigate whether later submission times (taken as indicative of procrastination) are associated with lower grades. Following this investigation, the paper reports on an experiment testing whether a nudge giving information about the finding that later submission times are indeed associated with lower grades (as found in the first investigation) is effective at moving students' submission times earlier. This study starts by examining the relationship between procrastination and grades. The researcher employed a large sample (n = 17,241) of timed submissions of online assessments, where having multiple observations for each individual makes it possible to control for individual fixed effects. The data confirm a significant negative relationship between procrastination and grades. To address procrastination, two “nudges” encouraging earlier submission were tested with a smaller class group. The first was a communication about social norms relating to submission times, and the second was an information nudge highlighting grade disadvantages of late submission. Disappointingly, neither nudge led to earlier average submission times. This finding adds to a small body of work suggesting that nudges might be less effective when trying to change habitual behaviours.</p> 2026-09-30T14:51:13Z Text Journal contribution 10.25403/UPresearchdata.29654957.v1 https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/The_relationship_between_procrastination_and_students_grades/29654957 CC BY 4.0