Procrastination is "act of needlessly delaying tasks to the point of experiencing subjective discomfort" (Solomon &Rothblum, 1984, p. 503). Almost everyone procrastinate at one point or another in their lives. Procrastination is general problem in society; about 20% of adults report that they are chronic procrastinators (Harriot& Ferrari, 1996). In academic settings, students have some tasks such as reading assignments, homework and studying for examinations. Academic procrastination is a students’ tendency to intentionally postpone such academic tasks despite of its negative outcomes (Senecal, Koestner, &Vallerand, 1995; Steel, 2007).

Procrastination includes behavioral, cognitive, affective and motivational components (Sokolowska, 2009). Each component focuses on different aspects of procrastination. Within the motivational component, the role of self-efficacy in procrastination has attracted the attention of the researchers in the field (e.g. Wolters, 2003). However, there are no consistent results in the literature concerning the relationship between the procrastination and self-efficacy. While some studies failed to provide evidence for the relationship between self-efficacy and procrastination in academic setting (e.g. Milgram, Marshevsky & Sadeh, 1995; Saddler & Buley, 1999), others indicated a significant relationship (e.g. Tuckman, 1991; Wolters, 2003). Also, there is a conflict for the pattern of the relationship between these variables in the literature. Some studies indicated a negative relationship between self-efficacy and procrastination (e.g. Lindsley, Brass & Thomas, 1995), i.e., students with lower level of self-efficacy are found to procrastinate at higher level. On the other hand, some studies revealed that students with high level of self-efficacy even procrastinate (e.g. Pajares, 1996). The present study aims to investigate the Turkish elementary students’ procrastination in science in relation to their self-efficacy beliefs.

Related literature also revealed mixed results concerning gender differences in academic procrastination.Some studies reported no differences (e.g. Solomon & Rothblum, 1984), some of them advocated that women are at greater risk (e.g. Haycock, McCarthy &Skay, 1998) and the others indicated that male procrastinate academic tasks more than females (e.g. Senecal, Koestner & Vallerand, 1995). The current study aims to examine gender differences in academic procrastination of Turkish elementary studentsto make contribution to literature about procrastination tendency of different genders and investigate its occurrence for Turkish students. Indeed, culture has an important effect on people behavior and defines different behaviors for males and females. Accordingly, gender role stereotypes are dominant in some cultures such as Turkish culture (Eskin, 2003).  For example, Uzun Özer, Demir and Ferrari’s (2009) study revealed that males tend to procrastinate more than females in Turkish society. The authors attributed this result to the collectivistic and interdependent nature of Turkish culture in which females are expected to be more successful and procrastinate less. Finding of such studies can make implication to counselors’ expectations for procrastination for females/males and directed them to setting appropriate counseling techniques and treatment goals for different gender types (Haycock, McCarthy &Skay, 1998; Uzun Özer, Demir& Ferrari, 2009).

Overall, in line with the aforementioned literature, current study aims to investigate how well self-efficacy and gender predict Turkish elementary students’ procrastination in science and whether there is an interaction between gender and self-efficacy on students’ procrastination.

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