Presenting a Causal-structural Model for Academic Procrastination in Nursing and Midwifery Students (A path analysis study)

Academic procrastination is one of the most common problems at different academic levels. In recent years, procrastination has been defined as a lack of self-discipline. The aim of this study was to provide a causal-structural model for academic procrastination in nursing and midwifery students. The research method is correlational using structural equation modeling. The statistical population of the study included all nursing and midwifery students of Lorestan University of Medical Sciences in the academic year of 2019-2020, of whom 260 were selected by stepwise cluster sampling. The research instruments were: academic procrastination questionnaire, academic procrastination scale, motivational strategies for learning questionnaire, and measuring goal orientations, all of which had acceptable validity and reliability. AMOS-24 software was used to analyze the data. The results showed that all the indicators of the research model are in the desired range. In general, the fit indices were in acceptable ranges. The results showed that there is a positive significant relationship between the direction of goal orientation and academic procrastination (r = 0.41), between academic procrastination and academic burnout (r = 0.57), and between self-regulation and academic procrastination (r = 0.59). Academic self-regulation also mediates between goal orientation and academic procrastination, but academic self-regulation does not mediate between academic procrastination and academic burnout. Therefore, according to the findings, officials of medical universities should pay serious attention to the issue of student procrastination and try to reduce it by taking into account goal setting and self-regulation.