In an effort to reduce procrastination in MOOCs, Huang et al. designed an randomized intervention for Chinese students on the platform *Xuetangx*. Three core interventions where deployed, each focusing on affecting a specific aspect of the Temporal Motivation Theory:
- Value: To increase the supposed value of completing MOOC assignments, students were notified that a successful submission would enter the student into a lottery for a monetary reward (gift card)
- Expectancy: To increase the self-confidence and self-efficacy, students were notified of how many other students have currently finished the assignment (i.e as of today, 47% of other students have already completed this assignment).
- Delay: To decrease delay, a planning prompt reminded students of the deadline and the assignment to be done.

This was compared to two control groups that used a simple call-to-action (such as reminding a student that Task X has yet to be done), and no calls-to-action.

Procrastination, TMT, and MOOCs - Huang et al. (2020)

Temporal Motivation Theory (TMT) explains the behavior of procrastination by providing a quasi-mathematical framework, by examining the underlying behavioral components that contribute to (or combat) procrastination. The five components are:
- Value: the tangible and intangible rewards that an individual would receive from completing a task.
- Expectancy: the individual's belief and self-confidence in completing said task.
- Delay: the the period of time an individual needs to wait before receiving the reward from completing said task.
- Sensitivity to delay: the willingness of an individual to tolerate longer delays.
- Utility: the likeness for the individual to perform said task.

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Pulling from the Latin roots "*pro*" (meaning forward, forth, in favor of) and "*crastinus*" (of tomorrow), procrastination is an irrational, but voluntary decision to delay an intended behavior or task.
- *Irrationality* is defined as "... choosing course of action[,] despite expecting that it will not maximize your utilities..."
- *Intended* is defined as something that one wants to interact with; the avoidance of random or irrelevant tasks would not be considered procrastination.

Procrastination

Key theories and methods related to motivation include:
- Instinct Theory
- Drive Reduction Theory
- Self-Determination Theory (SDT)
- Self-Efficacy
- Social Motives
- Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
- Expectancy-Valence Theories
- Incentive Theory
- Yerkes-Dodson Law
- Temporal Motivation Theory
- Remembered Success Effect
- Procrastination
- Gamification
- Game Based Learning

Theories and Methods of Motivation

Steel, P., and König, C. J. (2006). Integrating theories of motivation. Acad. Manag. Rev. 31, 889–913. doi: 10.5465/AMR.2006.22527462

Integrating theories of motivation.

Huang, N., Zhang, J., Burtch, G., Li, X., & Chen, P. Y. (2020). Combating Procrastination on MOOCs via Optimal Calls-to-Action 

Combating Procrastination on MOOCs via Optimal Calls-to-Action

Temporal Motivation Theory

References on Procrastination

Where one intentionally delays studying or completing the academic work that they need to submit. 
Factors that contribute to procrastination levels:
- time management
- self-regulation
- participation levels

Procrastination in an Academic Setting

Note that, in addition to causing people to put off their work till the last minute, procrastination causes people to postpone engaging in healthy behaviors (e.g., exercising, meditation, improving eating habits) until the "last minute" (e.g., when they are diagnosed with a life-threatening chronic illness). "1 day later" often becomes "1 year later," which then usually becomes "1 decade later." Hence, overall health is harmed, and the risk for chronic diseases increase.

Procastination | Connection to Health and Chronic Diseases

People can be any combination of -

- Productive/Unproductive procrastinators

- Active/Passive procrastinators

Types of procrastination

Much of the research has been conducted on binary gender identifying participants. The data has problems with inconsistent results, but it appears that men have greater risk for procrastinating in academic life. 

- men are more likely than women to procrastinate
- women show higher levels of academic performance, correlated with less procrastination
- men's procrastination adversely impacts their performance and satisfaction

Gender differences with procrastination

Academic procrastination is the practice of avoiding or postponing academic tasks. It is associated with various negative impacts, including a reduction in the quality and quantity of a student's work, lower goal commitment, less time allotted to studying, decreased course achievement, and a decline in long-term learning. In addition to poor academic performance, academic procrastination can elicit negative emotional reactions such as frustration, anxiety, shame, and guilt.

Academic Procrastination

Procrastination can help promote creativity when intrinsic motivation is low.

Creativity and Procrastination

The expectation that a person who is intrinsicly motivated will show less procrastination is not backed by research. Less than 10 persent of variance in procrastination is due to high levels of inttrinsic motivation. It may have an influence on how people will directtheir attention during the time they are procrastinating, possibly causing specific types of procrastination or more thought focus on the task.

Intrinsic motivation does not mediate procrastination

There is a curvilinear relationship between procrastination and the quality of work, and the creativity of work. 
- Low procrastination can causally influence low creativity and moderate productivity.
- Moderate procrastination can causally influence high creativity and, with intrinsic motivation, high task efficiency.
- High procrastination tends to influence low creativity and low task efficiency, possibly due to time crunch.

Levels of procrastination

This study aimed to see if self-reported procrastination is correlated with people's actual procrastination behavior. The researchers found this to be the case.

Links between self-reports of procrastination and actual procrastination study

Procrastination is often acknowledged in therapeutic treatment of ADHD, but it is not officially seen as an ADHD-related symptom. As a result, little is known about the role of procrastination in symptomology of ADHD. This study aims to explore the relationship between procrastination and ADHD-related symptoms of inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity in undergraduate college students. Results indicated that only inattention was correlated with general procrastination, as well as susceptibility to temptation.

The relation between procrastination and symptoms of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in undergraduate students

This could consist of learning how to break down large tasks into smaller chunks, how to set more realistic deadlines for themselves, and reconsidering perfectionistic beliefs.

Procrastination Mitigation CBT Training for ADHD

A theory of human motivation that posits that the reasons why an individual chooses to participate and exerts effort, are based on self-determined regulations (such as intrinsic motivation). It states there are 3 desires that promote optimal function and growth:
- 1) Autonomy
- 2) Competence
- 3) Relatedness

Self-determination theory (SDT)

People behave based on the value that they perceive doing the behavior has to them. It takes into account expectancy (effort), instrumentality (performance) and valence (value/reward).

Expectancy-Valence Theories

Behavior results from a drive to transform an undesirable state to a desirable one

Drive Reduction Theory

Motivational theory in psychology comprises a five-tier model of human needs, often depicted as a hierarchical levels within a pyramid. Needs lower down in the hierarchy must be satisfied before individuals can attend to needs higher up.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Behavior is motivated by an organisms's desire for reinforcements and rewards and that this desire is what governs behavior
- Positive incentives: Increase Pleasure
- Negative Incentives: Remove Pain

Incentive Theory

Motivation leads to action. However, the quality of the action can vary depending on arousal. Arousal (stress, anxiety, stimulation) affects task performance. Task performance increases with level of arousal but only up to a point, at which performance decreases.

Yerkes-Dodson Law

This effect pertains to how students' memories and evaluation of prior challenging experiences impact their motivation to engage with similar challenging experiences in the future. Research has shown that after taking both a longer and shorter difficult math test, students prefer and will choose to repeat the longer test if it included a number of only moderately difficult problems that students could answer successfully. This pattern of preferences is known as the "remembered success effect".

Remembered Success Effect

- A method of learning where students are motivated to learn while playing a game.
   - I.e., playing a game for learning.

Game Based Learning

Self-efficacy is an individual’s subjective perception of his or her capability to perform in a given setting or to attain desired results, proposed by Albert Bandura as a primary determinant of emotional and motivational states and behavioral change.

Self-Efficacy

Social motives are a category of motivational theories which propose that behavior is driven by social needs, such as the need for affiliation, achievement, and power within a group context.

Social Motives as a Theory of Motivation

From a biological perspective, an instinct is a species-specific, unlearned pattern of behavior. These are complex, innate behaviors often triggered by events like maturation or seasonal changes. Unlike simple reflexes, instincts typically involve the entire organism, such as in migration or mating, and are controlled by higher brain centers.

Instinct (Definition)

A technology company introduces a high-stakes reward system for its programmers to increase their output. Programmers earn significant bonuses for the number of coding tasks completed each week. While the quantity of completed tasks increases, management observes a sharp decline in the creativity and quality of the code, along with a rise in employee-reported stress. Which of the following principles provides the most direct explanation for this decline in performance quality?

Motivational theories can be categorized based on their primary focus. These categories include biologically-oriented theories that address instincts and homeostasis, cognitive approaches such as Bandura's concept of self-efficacy, theories centered on social motives, and hierarchical models like Maslow's hierarchy of needs which organizes various motives.

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