Why gritty students procrastinate less? The mediating role of self-efficacy

Introduction: Procrastination is the intentional delay in completing tasks despite awareness of the negative consequences. It is common in higher education and has been associated with academic failure among students. Method: The present study analysed the role of self-efficacy in the relationship between grit (consistency of interests and perseverance of effort) and two dimensions of the procrastination scale (activity postponement and academic self-regulation). The sample consisted of 509 Portuguese university students aged 18 to 58 years (M = 21.61, SD = 5.470), including 288 (56.6%) women. Results: A mediation model analysis showed that higher grit was associated with lower procrastination and higher academic task regulation. The analysis also revealed a partial mediation effect of self-efficacy in the relationship between grit and self-regulation, but this mediating effect was not found in the relationship with task procrastination.
Conclusions: These findings suggest that grit and self-efficacy are complementary in explaining self-regulation but may be redundant in explaining procrastination. This justifies further studies to better understand the interaction between grit and self-efficacy in explaining the quality of learning and academic success in higher education.
This work was partially conducted at CIPsi - Psychology Research Centre, School of Psychology (FCT; UID/01662) and CIEd - Research Centre on Education (FCT; UIDB/01661/2020; UIDP/01661/2020), from the University of Minho, supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, through national funds of FCT/MCTES-PT, through national funds.