Academic Anxiety and Self-handicapping Among Medical Students During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Moderated Mediation Model

Abstract

Background: The outbreak of 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) could increase the risk of academic anxiety among medical students. Research has revealed that academic anxiety was a risk factor for self-handicapping, however, little is known about the underlying mechanisms that may mediate or moderate this association. This study examined the mediating role of procrastination and moderating role of hardiness in the association between academic anxiety and self-handicapping during the COVID-19 pandemic.Methods: This study measured academic anxiety, self-handicapping, procrastination and hardiness in a sample of 320 Chinese medical students, and explored the relationship between variables.Results: Results showed that academic anxiety was positively correlated with procrastination and self-handicapping, and negatively correctly with hardiness; procrastination was positively correlated with self-handicapping, and negatively correctly with hardiness; hardiness was negatively correctly with self-handicapping. Furthermore, procrastination partially mediated the relationship between academic anxiety and self-handicapping, and both the effects academic anxiety on self-handicapping and the mediating effect of procrastination were moderated by hardiness. The direct effect was stronger for medical students with lower hardiness, and the indirect effect was potent for medical students with both levels of hardiness.Conclusion: During the COVID-19 outbreak, the effect of academic anxiety on self-handicapping of medical students was affected by procrastination and hardiness. These findings suggest that we need to pay attention to the academic anxiety and procrastination of medical students during the COVID-19 pandemic, and we can intervene in self-handicapping by cultivating hardiness in the future.

Into the Unknown: Uncertainty and Procrastination in Students From a Life History Perspective

“…Our findings also demonstrated that procrastination was higher in Time 1 than in Time 2, though the difference in procrastination was not significant between the two time periods. While our results cannot conclude that procrastination levels were higher during the pandemic than before (Aucejo et al, 2020;Biricik and Sivrikaya, 2020;Jia et al, 2020), our finding showed that procrastination was higher during the initial phases of the pandemic than in the subsequent phases, suggesting that sudden changes brought about by COVID-19 played a part in encouraging procrastination. The lack of significant difference in procrastination may be an artifact of the similarity in environmental uncertainty levels.…”

“…Taking it all together, existing studies established that COVID-19 has resulted in a preponderance of procrastination among students in higher education (Aucejo et al, 2020;Biricik and Sivrikaya, 2020;Jia et al, 2020); yet, they do not elucidate how COVID-19 have effected an increase in procrastination. Drawing upon previous findings and employing a life history framework (Griskevicius et al, 2013;Del Giudice et al, 2015;Chen and Qu, 2017), we propose that the increase in procrastination may be attributed to the heightened levels of uncertainty in the pandemic.…”

“…COVID-19 has unequivocally disrupted the academic life of students (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2020;Chaturvedi et al, 2021). Studies examining the impact of COVID-19 reported decreases in study hours and increases in academic procrastination among students in higher education (Aucejo et al, 2020;Biricik and Sivrikaya, 2020;Jia et al, 2020). Additionally, the nature of online learning from home further encourages procrastination as students not only need to exert higher levels of self-control to overcome isolated learning and the challenges of online learning (Drumm and Jong, 2020;Rasheed et al, 2020;Hong et al, 2021), they must also resist distractions present at home (e.g., television and social media, Meier et al, 2016;Pan, 2020).…”

Stop Academic Procrastination During Covid 19: Academic Procrastination Reduces Subjective Well-Being

“…The anxiety experienced by students regarding lessons during the Covid-19 pandemic can lead to academic procrastination behavior ( Jia, Jiang, & Lin, 2020). The results of researchers' observations on Indonesian students showed an increase in academic procrastination behavior.…”

Procrastination during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Scoping Review

“…Several variables related to procrastination have been identified, such as academic anxiety, self-handicapping, and COVID-19 fear in students. An explanation is that students could only study online given the imposed lockdowns, thus providing a more favorable context to procrastinate [ 8 , 10 , 11 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 ].…”