Undergraduates’ Negative Emotion and Academic Procrastination During COVID-19: Life Autonomy as a Mediator and Sense of School Belonging as a Moderator

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the impact of COVID-19 on undergraduate students' academic procrastination and negative emotions. It seeks to examine the relationship between negative affect and academic procrastination among university students, considering the mediating role of life autonomy and the moderating effect of a sense of school belonging. Methods:The study sample consisted of 776 university students from the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China. Data collection involved the use of the Negative Affect Scale, Academic Procrastination Scale, Life Autonomy Scale, and Sense of School Belonging Scale. SPSS version 26.0 and PROCESS V3.5 80 to conduct relationship analysis, test the mediation model (model 4) and the moderated mediating model (model 7). Results: The findings revealed significant relationships among the variables. Negative emotions were negatively related with life autonomy and sense of school belonging, and positively related with academic procrastination. Academic procrastination showed a negative correlation with both life autonomy and sense of school belonging. Sense of school belonging exhibited a positive relationship with life autonomy. The study also identified life autonomy as a mediator in the relationship between negative emotions and academic procrastination. Additionally, the sense of school belonging moderated the initial segment of the negative emotion-life autonomy-academic procrastination pathway. Discussion: This study contributes to a better understanding of the association between negative affect and academic procrastination. It highlights that negative emotions have a direct and indirect influence on academic procrastination through the mediating role of life autonomy. Moreover, the moderating role of sense of school belonging suggests that the relationship between negative affect and life autonomy is stronger when the sense of school belonging is weaker.

Negative Emotions Present in the Classroom After Pandemic Covid-19

“…In our case, we can observe that the participating students in these focus groups are still adapting to the university environment, which, under this context, presents significant socialization challenges because they were abruptly removed from a high school environment, and this causes a lack of belonging to the university, because they entered amid the pandemic, and they did not have socialization among peers and professors, part of this is described by Xianpeng in (Xianpeng, et al, 2023).…”

“…The pandemic was an unprecedented global event that caused negative impacts on the emotions of students. Anxiety, depression, stress, and fear are among the most documented negative emotions in various research studies, additionally, these studies also report mental health issues, psychological problems, a feeling of not belonging to the school, this has caused severe academic procrastination among students (Wang, 2022;(Xianpeng, et al, 2023). Steel defines procrastination as the voluntary delay of a planned course of action, despite expecting to be worse off due to the delay (Steel, 2007).…”

“…These results are of great interest, because we are detecting a trend towards isolation even when they have many classmates to socialize with. Xiapeng describes this situation as a lack of belonging to the school in the post-pandemic era, in which students find themselves trapped in situations of unpleasant emotional activation (Xianpeng, et al, 2023).…”

More sense of self-discipline, less procrastination: the mediation of autonomous motivation

“…Firstly, numerous studies have suggested that selfdiscipline can bolster performance in tasks that require self-control and is linked to a range of positive outcomes, including academic success, decreased procrastination, and delayed gratification (Duckworth and Seligman, 2005;Waschull, 2005;Duckworth and Seligman, 2006;Shi and Qu, 2022). Secondly, a substantial amount of research indicates that self-efficacy and a sense of control, both closely related to a sense of successful self-discipline, can effectively reduce procrastination (Klassen et al, 2008;Katz et al, 2014;Wäschle et al, 2014;Zhang L. et al, 2018;Zhang Y. et al, 2018;Shao et al, 2023;Tian et al, 2023). Thirdly, heightened feelings of self-discipline can strengthen domains of behavioral self-control, such as promoting healthy eating behavior and pro-social decision-making (Tian et al, 2018).…”