Why Polish Students Delay Their Careers

Polish university freshmen often wait too long before taking action on their future plans. A recent survey of 522 first‑year students across 16 majors shows a clear link between how they are wired and the habit of delaying tasks. The study looks at temperament, the tendency to put things off, and how confident students feel about finding a job after graduation.

Researchers used the Formal Characteristics of Behaviour Temperament Inventory to measure seven temperament traits. They recorded procrastination with a Polish version of Lay’s scale and measured self‑perceived employability with a local scale that splits into internal and external parts. GPA was taken directly from school records.

Analysis found that lower briskness, rhythm, sensory sensitivity, stamina and activity, plus higher emotional reactivity and lingering thoughts, predict more procrastination. This pattern leads to a small but significant drop in internal employability, with indirect effects ranging from .02 to .05. The same traits also relate to lower GPA and weaker external employability, while GPA itself shows no link to any employability measure.

Because the design captures everything at one point in time, the results show patterns, not cause and effect. Still, the data suggest that temperament‑driven procrastination is something students can change, and that grades alone cannot tell whether they are ready for the job market.