Metacognition and Academic Procrastination: A Meta-Analytical Examination

Procrastination is a universal phenomenon that occurs to most individuals in various settings. Such prevalence of academic procrastination suggests a need for systematic research that documents potential factors that lead to academic procrastination and subsequently explores potential ways to reduce procrastination, such as metacognition. Grounded upon the Self-Regulatory Executive Function (Wells and Matthews in Cognit Emot 8(3):279–295. https://doi.org/10.1080/026999394084089421994), metacognition plays an essential role in explaining and predicting procrastination. As the first attempt, this study aims to review and synthesize past empirical findings on the relationship between metacognition and procrastination. Fifty-nine relevant articles involving a total of 23,627 participants were synthesized in this meta-analysis. Using the robust variance estimation, results showed significant small effect sizes of metacognition for passive procrastination (− .28), but not for active procrastination (.03). Further, different dimensions of metacognition showed different relation patterns with procrastination. In particular, metacognitive belief and metacognitive regulation were significantly associated with passive procrastination; however, metacognition (regardless the types) was not significantly associated with active procrastination. After controlling for all proposed moderators (grade level, individualistic index, and gender), no significant moderation effects were found in the overall metacognition–active procrastination relationship or metacognition–passive procrastination relationship. The implications of the findings were discussed.