Implications of Uncertainty Avoidance and Procrastination on Some West African EFL Learners' Academic Behaviors

Abstract

This descriptive study that focused on a quantitative approach aims at exploring the factors that promote the avoidance of uncertainty and procrastination in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners. Recognized as being the major problem that prevents these learners from taking online courses, it is important to find suitable solutions to this for these students’ good, especially in these times of expansion of e-learning due to the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic. Through a semi-structured questionnaire of the 5-point Likert scale composed of 24 items administered to 230 learners recruited online in Benin and Niger, various quantitative data were collected, crossed, and analyzed through a descriptive interpretation statistical method of PASW 26 software. From the results obtained, it emerges that the majority of respondents (85.32%) are subject to the phenomenon of uncertainty avoidance and procrastination and this would be caused by the lack of self-confidence, motivation, sociability, self-regulation, dedication, self-sacrifice, and anxiety management. However, it turned out that the aforementioned phenomenon is not the prerogative of a particular gender but is linked to the socio-cultural environment of each one. Among other recommendations made are the development of the notions of self-study, self-control, motivational factors, knowledge in ICT, and the adoption of a rule of life.