Metacognitive Awareness, Procrastination and Academic Performance of University Students in Hong Kong

Academic performance has long been the focus of educational research. There are so many factors that can affect the results of the academic performance of a student. This study focuses on how university students in Hong Kong self-regulate their academic learning. Two factors were investigated for their self-regulation: the use of metacognitive skills and the punctuality for learning. Three hundred and fourteen students from two universities participated in this study by filling out a self-administered questionnaire, which consists of three instruments measuring metacognitive awareness, procrastination, and academic performance. The results show that ‘high metacognitive awareness’ and ‘low procrastination tendency’ are two positive elements for academic learning. For analysis purposes, the data were divided into four categories by using the mean scores of each variable: students with high level of metacognitive awareness and high level of procrastination; students with low level of metacognitive awareness and low level of procrastination; students with high level of metacognitive awareness but low level of procrastination; students with low level of metacognitive awareness but high level of procrastination. The results show that the students without any of these positive elements are significantly lower in G.P.A. than students from the other three groups; however, it is surprising to find that the students who have two positive elements do not get a higher G.P.A. than those who have only one of these positive elements.