Difficulties in Emotion Regulation and Academic Procrastination Experienced by Pre-Service Teachers: Investigating the Mediation of Social Media Addiction

Abstract

The present study aims to investigate the relationship between difficulties in emotion regulation and academic procrastination among pre-service teachers, with the mediation role of social media addiction. For this aim, the data was collected from the pre-service teachers enrolled in diverse teacher training programs, and several hypotheses were tested through a mediation model. The findings first revealed that the difficulties in emotion regulation significantly and positively predict both academic procrastination and social media addiction among pre-service teachers. Besides, pre-service teachers’ academic procrastination levels were significantly and positively predicted by their social media addiction levels. The mediation analysis further showed that social media addiction partially and significantly mediates the association between difficulties in emotion regulation and academic procrastination among pre-service teachers. The obtained findings suggest that as the difficulties in emotion regulation experienced by pre-service teachers increase, their addiction levels to social media platforms or applications likewise increase, which in turn leads to an increased level of academic procrastination among them. The findings of the current study emphasize the need to enhance pre-service teachers’ emotion regulation skills in teacher training programs to improve both their well-being and academic achievement. The findings were discussed with the relevant studies, and recommendations were offered in this regard.