Academic procrastination behaviours, internet addiction, and basic psychological needs of adolescents: A model proposal

This is a descriptive study conducted to investigate how the academic procrastination behaviours of adolescents are explained in terms of Internet addiction and the basic psychological needs. A hypothesized theoretical model accounting for the academic procrastination behaviours of adolescents in terms of Internet addiction and the basic psychological needs was proposed. Moreover, in this study it was aimed to investigate academic procrastination behaviours of adolescents in terms of some sociodemographic variables like gender, class level, school type, grade point average, parents' educational level, parents'monthly income level, daily internet use time. The study universe consists of adolescents attending high schools in Bayrampaşa district of İstanbul province in 2016-2017 academic year. The sample of the study was a total of 914 students, 493 girls and 421 boys, who were educated in different high school types selected by stratified sampling method. Data were collected by Academic Procrastination Scale, Internet Addiction Scale, The Psychological Needs Scale-High School Form and Personal Information Form created by the researcher. In the analysis of the data, t Test for Independent Sampling, One Way Variance Analysis, Pearson Moments Multiplication Correlation Coefficient and Path Analysis were used. At the end of the study, it was found that there is significant difference in academic procrastination behaviours of adolescents according to class level, grade point average and daily internet use time but there is no significant difference in academic procrastination behaviours of adolescents according to gender, school type, parents' educational level and parents' monthly income level. According to findings, it was determined that the academic procrastination behaviours of adolescents are significantly related to Internet addiction levels moderately in a positive way and competence, relationship and autonomy needs which are subscales of the basic psychological needs weakly in a negative way. It was also found that the variables of Internet addiction and competence needs had significant direct effects on the academic procrastination behaviours among adolescents and the variables of relationship and autonomy needs had significant indirect effects on the academic procrastination behaviours among adolescents. Moreover it was determined that Internet addiction explained the basic psychological needs directly in a negatif way and academic procrastination behaviours among adolescents indirectly via the basic psychological needs. Results were discussed in the light of relevant literature and suggestions were made accordingly.