The mediating and buffering effect of academic self-efficacy on the relationship between smartphone addiction and academic procrastination

To understand the relationship between smartphone addiction and academic procrastination and the mechanisms at work within this relationship, this study constructs a mediation model to examine the impact of college students' smartphone addiction on their academic procrastination and the mediation effect of academic self-efficacy. A total of 483 college students were surveyed using the Smartphone Addiction Scale—Short Version, College Academic Self-Efficacy Scale and Tuckman Academic Procrastination Scale. Correlation analysis showed that smartphone addiction was positively related to academic procrastination while being negatively related to academic self-efficacy. At the same time, academic self-efficacy and academic procrastination were negatively related. Further, mediation analysis using the PROCESS plugin in SPSS showed that smartphone addiction has a direct predictive effect on students’ academic procrastination and an indirect predictive effect via academic self-efficacy after controlling for age, gender, and academic year. Specifically, academic self-efficacy was found to be a partial mediator and play a buffering role between smartphone addiction and academic procrastination.