The Effect of Mindfulness Training on Academic Procrastination in Students with High and Low Test Anxiety

Abstract

A B S T R A C T Background and Purpose: Academic procrastination is one of the behavioral problems that has affected the academic life of most students. People who are procrastinated deny their position and task at the moment and are unaware of what to do. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the effect of mindfulness training on academic procrastination in two groups of students with high and low test anxiety Method: In this study, a pretest-posttest design with two control and two experimental groups were used. The statistical population of the study included all sixth grade primary school students in Sari city who were studying the academic year of 2017-2018. Sample size consisted of 60 students from the mentioned papulation who were selected by cluster random sampling method and assigned in two control and experimental groups with high test anxiety students (n=30) and two control and experimental groups for low test anxiety students (n=30). The experimental groups received eight sessions of mindfulness intervention. Solomon's academic procrastination questionnaire (1984) and Spielberg test anxiety inventory (1970) were used for data collection. Data analysis was performed using covariance analysis. Results: The findings of this study showed that mindfulness training was effective in high anxiety students (P = 0.01 and P <0.01) but had no effect in low anxiety students (P <0.5 and P = 0.5). F). There was also a significant difference in the effectiveness of mindfulness training on academic procrastination in students with high anxiety and low anxiety (F = 0.1 and P = 0.1). Conclusion: According to the findings, it can be concluded that test anxiety as a moderating variable in students' success is effective on the effect of mindfulness training on academic procrastination. Therefore, to reduce students' academic procrastination through mindfulness training, it is necessary to pay attention to the component of student test anxiety. According to the findings, it is concluded that test anxiety is effective on the effectiveness of mindfulness education on students' academic procrastination; therefore, in order to reduce students 'academic procrastination through mindfulness training, it is necessary to pay attention to the component of students' test anxiety