Self-Assessment
Tuckman Procrastination Scale
Based on Tuckman's (1991) Procrastination Research
Measure your tendency to put things off with this 16-question assessment. Answer honestly about your typical habits.
The Research Behind the Scale
The Tuckman Procrastination Scale was developed through rigorous academic research and has been validated across multiple countries and populations.
From the Research
"The lack or absence of self-regulated performance has been labeled procrastination, the tendency to put off or avoid an activity under one's control."
— Tuckman, B. W. & Sexton, T. L. (1989).
The TPS measures your tendency to delay or avoid tasks that are within your control. It focuses specifically on self-regulation failures: putting off important work, waiting until deadlines, making excuses, and struggling to start or finish tasks.
It does not diagnose ADHD, depression, or any clinical condition. It does not measure general time-management skill or laziness. A high score means you frequently delay tasks. A low score means you typically don't. The scale does not tell you why you procrastinate.
From the Research
"The scale was first developed as a 72-item scale, and after performing factor analysis the scale was accepted with 35 items. In a subsequent study of college students, a factor analysis yielded 16 unidimensional items."
— Tuckman, B. W. (1991). The Development and Concurrent Validity of the Procrastination Scale. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 51(2), 473–480.
Bruce Tuckman started with 72 candidate statements about procrastination behavior. Through statistical analysis with college students at a U.S. university, he narrowed this to 35 items that loaded on a single factor. A follow-up study refined it further to 16 items, forming a concise, one-factor measure of procrastination tendency. Tuckman recommended this shortened version for identifying procrastination tendencies in academic and work settings.
From the Research
"Procrastination is a pervasive self-regulatory failure. It has a negative impact on performance and is associated with stress, worry, and feelings of guilt among those who procrastinate recurrently."
— Rozental, A. & Carlbring, P. (2014). Psychology.
The 16-item TPS has strong psychometric properties. In Tuckman's original study (N=183), internal consistency was high (Cronbach's alpha = 0.86). Cross-cultural validations in Turkey and Argentina found similar reliability (alpha ~0.86–0.87), confirming the single-factor structure holds across populations.
The scale also shows strong concurrent validity. Students who scored higher on the TPS delayed self-paced homework assignments more and scored lower on self-efficacy measures (correlation of −0.54 with a behavioral procrastination measure and −0.47 with self-efficacy).
Sources: Tuckman (1991), Uzun Özer et al. (2013), Tisocco & Fernández Liporace (2021).
Procrastination by the Numbers
Research suggests procrastination is widespread, particularly in academic settings.
Source: Steel, P. (2007). The nature of procrastination: A meta-analytic and theoretical review. Psychological Bulletin, 133(1), 65–94.
Several validated scales measure procrastination. They overlap but have different strengths.
Common Questions
This assessment uses items from Bruce Tuckman's 1991 procrastination scale, which was published in Educational and Psychological Measurement and distributed via ERIC. We use a 5-point response scale rather than the original 4-point scale. We are not affiliated with Tuckman's estate or Ohio State University.
The Tuckman Scale measures general procrastination tendency (delaying tasks, making excuses, time wasting). For a measure focused on irrational delay specifically, try our Irrational Procrastination Scale. For a broader procrastination assessment, see our General Procrastination Scale.
About This Assessment
This tool uses the original 16-item Tuckman Procrastination Scale (1991) for educational self-reflection purposes.