Relationship between time management disposition and academic procrastination among Chinese students: Systematic...

To systematically examine the overall strength of the relationship between time management disposition (stable individual differences in planning, monitoring, and controlling time) and academic procrastination (a behavioural tendency to unnecessarily delay learning tasks) among Chinese students, as well as to explore sources of heterogeneity.

A meta analysis was conducted following the PRISMA guidelines. Systematic searches were performed in Chinese (CNKI, Wanfang, VIP) and English (Web of Science, PubMed) databases for empirical studies (2000-2025) involving Chinese students and reporting the correlation between these variables. Sixty seven studies (N = 40,903) were included. A random effects model was employed to calculate the overall effect size, and subgroup analyses were conducted to examine the moderating effects of gender, age, and educational stage.

A significant, moderate negative correlation was found between time management disposition and academic procrastination (r = -0.460,95% CI [-0.507,-0.411], and p < 0.001). Moderator analyses showed that neither gender nor age was a significant moderator. However, educational stage exerted a significant moderating effect (P_Q = 0.002). The strength of the correlation varied markedly across educational stages: it was strongest among junior high school and secondary vocational school students, and relatively weaker among higher vocational college students, undergraduates, and postgraduate students.

Time management disposition is a significant correlate of academic procrastination among Chinese students, but the strength of this relationship varies meaningfully across educational stages. This study integrates conflicting prior findings and offers an empirical basis for developing stage specific interventions aimed at reducing academic procrastination through time management training.