Impact of birth order on procrastination among college students in Eldoret town

Abstract

The study sought to investigate the impact of birth order on procrastination among college students in Eldoret town. The study sought to achieve the following objectives: (1) to find out the prevalence of procrastination among college students in Eldoret town, (2) to find out the relationship between birth order on procrastination among college students in Eldoret town, (3) to investigate the relationship between age and procrastination among college students in Eldoret town and, (4) to investigate the relationship between gender and procrastination among college students in Eldoret town. The study adopted the ex post facto design. This single survey study purposively recruited 20 firstborns, 20 middle children, and 20 last-borns, from the KIM school of management, Eldoret campus. The sample comprised 30 male and 30 female respondents. Data was collected using a questionnaire. Hypothesis testing was done using the chi-square test. The findings showed that a total of 33 (55%) felt that birth order did affect their motivation for doing things while 27 (45%) felt that it did not affect them. , it is apparent that those who procrastinated were 28 (46.7%) while those who did not procrastinate were 32 (53.3%). Out of the 28 who postponed things that they could do at that moment, 21 said they always did so while 7 postponed sometimes. A total of 35 respondents indicated that they often gave up on a task whenever it got difficult while 25 (41.7%) opined that they never did so. The study concluded that there is a statistically significant relationship between procrastination and the respondents’ birth position. An examination of the cross-tabulation above shows that most of those who procrastinated were last borns and a few middle borns. Hypothesis testing result confirmed that there was a statistically significant association between procrastination and age of the respondents. Of the 28 respondents who procrastinated, 16 (57.1%) were female while 12 (42.9%) were males.

Key words: birth order, procrastination