Tuckman Procrastination Scale

TPS

educationpsychologyTerms not stated: check with the authors

Permission: Terms not stated: check with the authors. The developers publish no terms of use that Folio could find. Ask the authors or the publisher before using it in a study, and cite the original publication.

A self-report measure of the tendency to procrastinate, most often used in its 16-item short form developed with college students.

Items

Response format

4-point Likert-type scale

Version

1.0

Ready-to-cite methods sentence

Procrastination tendencies were measured with the 16-item short form of the Tuckman Procrastination Scale (Tuckman, 1991), rated on a 4-point Likert-type scale (original-study reliability = .86).

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Reliability & validation

Notes

The abstract reports a reliability of .86 for the 16-item form without naming the coefficient. The 16-item form had a single-factor structure. Earlier versions had 72 and 35 items (35-item reliability .90).

Validation population

183 college students (Tuckman, 1991)

Known limitations

The 16-item form was derived and validated with college students. It measures self-reported procrastination tendencies; in the original study, the longer 35-item version correlated -.54 with a behavioral measure of task completion (the Voluntary Homework System).

Original citation

Tuckman, B. W. (1991). The development and concurrent validity of the Procrastination Scale. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 51(2), 473-480.

https://doi.org/10.1177/0013164491512022

Questions researchers ask

What does the TPS measure?

A self-report measure of the tendency to procrastinate, most often used in its 16-item short form developed with college students.

How many items does the TPS have?

The Tuckman Procrastination Scale (TPS) has 16 items.

Is the TPS free to use?

Folio could not find published terms of use for the TPS. Ask the authors or the publisher before using it in a study, and cite the original publication.

Who developed the TPS, and how do I cite it?

Tuckman, B. W. (1991). The development and concurrent validity of the Procrastination Scale. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 51(2), 473-480. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013164491512022

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Library entry verified November 2026. Metadata is provided for reference. Questionnaires are built in Folio Surveyor, subject to each instrument's licensing, and can be taken to Qualtrics, Google Forms or Microsoft Forms, with their CSV responses brought back for scoring.