Abstracts
Abstract
Procrastination is a prevalent issue among university students and leads to long-term negative impacts on academic performance as well as mental health and quality of life. This paper investigated StudyTracker, a self-tracking digital application (app) that we developed for university students to use to track their study sessions. The app provided feedback to the student in the form of text and charts. We investigated the impact that StudyTracker had on procrastination habits, and explored how students interpreted their feedback data from the app. Results indicated that both the control group (N=9) and the experimental group (N=8) experienced a significant decrease in procrastination scores, however there was no significant difference between the two groups. The design implications of our findings are discussed.
Keywords:
- personal informatics,
- procrastination intervention,
- self-tracking,
- time management,
- university students
Résumé
La procrastination est un problème répandu chez les personnes étudiantes universitaires et entraîne des répercussions négatives à long terme sur les résultats académiques ainsi que sur la santé mentale et la qualité de vie. Cet article porte sur StudyTracker, une application numérique d’autosuivi que nous avons développée à l’intention des personnes étudiantes universitaires pour qu’elles puissent l’utiliser pour suivre leurs séances d’étude. L’application fournit une rétroaction à la personne étudiante sous forme de texte et de graphiques. Nous avons étudié l’impact de StudyTracker sur les habitudes de procrastination et exploré la manière dont les personnes étudiantes interprétaient les données de rétroaction fournies par l’application. Les résultats indiquent que le groupe de contrôle (N=9) et le groupe expérimental (N=8) ont connu une diminution significative des scores de procrastination, mais il n’y avait pas de différence significative entre les deux groupes. Les implications de nos résultats sur le plan de la conception sont discutées.
Mots-clés :
- informatique personnelle,
- intervention sur la procrastination,
- autosuivi,
- gestion du temps,
- personnes étudiantes universitaires
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Appendices
Biographical notes
Maya Murad completed her Master of Computer Science degree specializing in Human-Computer Interaction at Carleton University in Ontario, Canada. Her research explores how technology and data visualizations can lead to behaviour changes. Email: mayamurad@cmail.carleton.ca
KC Collins is associate professor in the School of Information Technology at Carleton University in Ontario, Canada, and former Canada Research Chair in Interactive Audio at the University of Waterloo. She specializes in the persuasive aspects of sound in technology. Email: kccollins@cunet.carleton.ca
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