The Mediating Role of Academic Procrastination in the Relationship between Attention Deficit / Hyperactivity and Sluggish Cognitive Tempo Symptoms with Academic Performance of Lower Secondary School Students

Nowadays, academic performance and the factors affecting it has drown psychologists and educational science researchers’ attention. The aim of this study was to investigate the mediating role of academic procrastination in the relationship between attention deficit /hyperactivity (ADHD) and sluggish cognitive tempo (SCT) symptoms with academic performance performance of lower secondary school students.

The research method was descriptive-correlational and the statistical population was all lower secondary school male students in Tabriz in 2020-2021 academic year. A sample of 250 students were selected from this population by multi-stage cluster sampling method. To collect the data, Child Behavior Rating Scale (Swanson et al., 1980), Sluggish Cognitive Tempo Scale (Penny et al., 2009), Academic Procrastination Test (Savari, 2011) and Educational Performance Questionnaire (Dortaj, 2004) were used. For data analyses, correlation matrix, structural equation modeling and goodness-of-fit indices in AMOS-24 software were used.

The results of structural equation modeling showed that the symptoms of ADHD as well as the symptoms of SCT have a direct and indirect effect on academic performance mediated by academic procrastination.

Based on the results, it can be said that students' academic performance, in addition to traditional factors such as ADHD and procrastination, can be affected by newfound variables such as SCT, and this highlights the need to study as much as possible the factors affecting academic performance.