Path analysis of the relationship between intelligence beliefs and students' academic procrastination: Mediating role of achievement goals

The aim of this study was to explain the causal relationship between intelligence beliefs, achievement goals and academic procrastination. For this purpose, 375 students of Dezful Islamic Azad University were selected by stratified random sampling method. In order to measure the variables of the research, the Procrastination Scale (Lay, 1986); the Implicit Beliefs of Intelligence (Abd-El-Fattah & Yates, 2006) and the Achievement Goal Scale (Elliot & McGregor, 2001) were used. The model was evaluated using path analysis and with the help of Amos software. The results indicated that the proposed model had acceptable fit with regard to the indices obtained. In this model, the increasing belief in intelligence, the mastery-oriented and performance-oriented achievement goals have a significant direct effect on procrastination. In addition, the indirect effect of incremental intelligence beliefs on academic procrastination through the goal of mastery was also significant. But the direct and indirect relationship between entity intelligence beliefs and academic procrastination was not confirmed. Based on the above results, increasing belief in intelligence and increasing the inner motivation of students by encouraging and orienting the goal of mastery achievement in students can reduce the incidence of academic procrastination in them.