The relationships between student teachers' procrastination behaviors and thinking styles and decision making styles

The aim of this study is to investigate relationships between student teachers?procrastination behaviors, their thinking and decision making styles in terms of psycho -social variables.The participants were 984 (589 female and 395 male) who study various majorfield at Faculty of Education in Pamukkale University. Age range varied from 16 to 31.In this study, perceptions of student teachers? procrastination, thinking anddecision making styles were evaluated with Lay?s (1986) General procrastinationInventory, Aitken?s (1982) Academic Procrastination Inventory, Mann?s (1982)Decisional Procrastination Inventory, Epsteins?s (1996) Intuitive- Experiential andAnalytical-Rational Thinking Style Inventory and Scott and Bruce? s (1995) DecisionMaking Style Inventory. Psychometric characteristics of Lay? s General ProcrastinationInventory, Aitken? s Academic Procrastination Inventory and Mann?s DecisionalProcrastination Inventory were examined for Turkish samples in this study.In the analysis of data collected, depending upon the variety of dat gathered (t)and (r) correlation tests and variance analaysis were performed. If F values weresignificiant, Tukey test would be applied to find out the origin of difference amongprospective teacher groups. Besides, necessary statical analysis were carried out toadapted questionaire.The analysis show that procrastion was negatively related to rational thinking anddecisioin making style while positively related to dependent, avoidant and spontanousdecision making styles. Additionally it is noticed that procrastination acquires a differentcharacter in connection with different gender, age, grade, major filed, satisfaction withmajor field, time preferences for study, academic achievement, source of motivation andpreferred activate in free time.Implications of findings were discussed and some suggestions were made for theeducator, psychological counselor, and mental health professions in details.Key Words: Procrastination, General Procrastination, Academic Procrastination,Decisional Procrastination, Thinking Styles, Decision Making Styles, Student Teacher