Delay discounting of reinforcer value and student success

Abstract

Student procrastination may be caused by the fact that reinforcers for studying are delayed, however, no task measuring the impact of delay on the value of academic outcomes currently exists. We developed a measure of academic discounting modelled on tasks successfully used in the delay discounting literature. Participants made hypothetical choices between working for money (the smaller, sooner reinforcer) and working on an assignment that was due at various times (the larger, later reinforcer).

We piloted two versions of the academic discounting task, and identified the superior version. We then examined the impact of delay on the value of academic outcomes across three experiments. Participants were first-year psychology students. Participants across all studies showed systematic decreases in the subjective value of the assignment as a function of delay, and exponential and hyperbolic models described the shape of this decrease in value well. Experiment 1 found that high procrastinators were not more impulsive on the academic discounting task than low procrastinators, thus further refinements were made to the task in Experiment 2. Experiment 2 found that reinforcer magnitude was inversely related to discounting rate; participants discounted an unimportant assignment more steeply than an important assignment. Finally, Experiment 3 found that correlations among the academic discounting task, a self-report measure of procrastination and discounting of other commodities depended on whether tasks were experiential and/or whether they captured an aspect of unpleasantness.

The overall results of these experiments suggest that delayed rewards are an important contributor to student procrastination. The academic discounting task could be adapted to assess other potential contributors to student procrastination. Understanding the decision- making processes involved in this common issue could aid in the development of interventions that improve student learning outcomes.