Exploring the Effect of Group Size on Goal Setting & Sharing to Reduce Procrastination: Lessons Learned in a Field Study

Academic procrastination, referred to delay in executing scheduled academic tasks, has become a common problem in student life. In this paper, we examine whether group size would influence the effects of goal setting and goal sharing on reducing academic procrastination. Through a three-week field study followed by interviews, 21 participants were randomly assigned to three 2-people groups and three 5-people groups. They used a suite of mobile applications to set up their study goals, track their study and distraction time, and share their goals with other group members for 2 weeks. Results suggest that the 5-people groups had achieved better outcomes than the 2-people groups considering less fluctuation and more deduction in average distraction rate (distraction time divided by study time). We conclude by proposing several design implications concerning the design of mobile applications to reduce academic procrastination, and identify several future research directions on this topic.