Academic procrastination of medical students: The role of Internet addiction

oleh: ALI HAYAT, JAVAD KOJURI, MITRA AMINI

Format: Article
Diterbitkan: Shiraz University of Medical Sciences 2020-04-01

Deskripsi

Introduction: The internet is an essential and widely used tool<br />for college students; however, high internet dependency can have<br />negative consequences for students, especially regarding academic<br />careers. Such students may tend to postpone their academic tasks.<br />Hence, the current study examines the effect of Internet addiction<br />on academic procrastination among medical students.<br />Methods: We applied a cross-sectional correlational research<br />design. 233 medical students of Shiraz University of Medical<br />Sciences were selected through convenience sampling and<br />participated in this study. To collect the data, we used two valid<br />and reliable questionnaires. The first was Young’s Internet<br />addiction questionnaire (IAT-20), which consists of 20 items<br />based on a 5-point Likert-type scale. The second was Solomon<br />and Rothblum academic procrastination questionnaire, which<br />consists of 18 items based on a 5 point Likert-type scale. We used<br />Pearson correlation, independent T-test, and One-Way ANOVA to<br />analyze the data in SPSS version 22, and considered a significance<br />level of P<0.05.<br /> Results: Results showed that 57.1% of the respondents were<br />females, and the remaining were males. Findings indicated that<br />8 (3.43%) of the participants were classified as severe internetaddicted,<br />and 28.85% of them had a high level of academic<br />procrastination. The results indicated that there was a positive and<br />significant correlation between Internet addiction and academic<br />procrastination (r=0.39, with P<0.01). Also, there was a positive<br />correlation between academic procrastination dimensions (writing<br />a term paper, studying for an exam, keeping up with weekly<br />reading assignments, performing administrative tasks, attending<br />meetings and performing academic tasks in general) and Internet<br />addiction (r=0.22, r=0.32, r=0.21, r=0.29, r=0.33, and r=0.23,<br />respectively, with P<0.01). Finally, the results revealed that male<br />students and those living in the dormitory had a higher level of<br />Internet addiction and procrastination compared to female ones<br />and those living at home (P<0.01).<br />Conclusion: The findings of the current research reveal that a<br />considerable number of students have levels of Internet addiction<br />and procrastination; the study highlights that students with high<br />levels of Internet addiction are more likely to be at an increased risk<br />of negative outcomes such as insufficiently controlled Internet use.