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Using a mixed methods approach, this dissertation included two studies exploring procrastination and academic motivation beliefs of adolescents from Canada and Thailand. Study 1 examined the relationships between procrastination, motivation beliefsself-efficacy, self-efficacy for self-regulated learning, self-esteem, and test anxietyand academic performance and explored significant predictors of adolescent procrastination across two cultures. In this study, 312 Canadian and 401 Thai adolescents from secondary schools in an urban area in western Canada and an urban area in North-Eastern Thailand completed a 47-item survey containing procrastination and four motivation measures. In Study 2, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 14 Thai adolescents representing low and high achieving students, to provide additional information about the role of motivation on adolescent procrastination and investigate academic procrastination of Thai adolescents in more depth. The quantitative findings demonstrated that all motivation variables significantly predicted procrastination, with self-efficacy for self-regulated learning strongly influencing adolescents across cultures. Findings from the qualitative study revealed six themes pertaining to academic procrastination: a) definitions of procrastination, b) antecedents of procrastination, c) consequences of procrastination, d) overcoming procrastination, e) the role of motivation, and f) the role of cultures on motivation, achievement, and procrastination. Quantitative and qualitative findings were integrated and discussed in order to provide insights into adolescent procrastination. Theoretical and educational implications as well as suggestions for future research were also provided. / Psychological Studies in Education

Student motivation and achievement are often low for students from low socioeconomic status households and may decline when children from all walks of life enter middle school. Despite years of studies describing these declines and efforts to improve learning outcomes, the trends continue. Motivation has been studied from several theoretical standpoints, among them, self-efficacy, beliefs, goal orientations, and emotions. This dissertation introduces error orientation: how teachers and students react to and use errors in the classroom. A positive error orientation, one that views errors as opportunities to learn rather than punishments, may help improve students* emotions, self-efficacy, and future goal orientations, while aligning their beliefs in a more adaptive direction, thus reducing maladaptive academic motivation. A professional development design is proposed here to train teachers in using errors to the advantage of the learner by creating a positive error climate in their classrooms.