Flexibility to Change the Solution: An Indicator of Problem Solving That Predicted 9th Grade Students’ Academic Achievement during Distance Learning, in Parallel to Reasoning Abilities and Parental Education

The mediating role of cognitive test anxiety on the relationship between academic procrastination and subjective wellbeing and academic performance

Background

Promoting wellness as a predictor of sustainable development empowers schools to model healthy behavior. The multiple interactions in real and virtual environments that today's youth are subjected to force schools to explore effective educational strategies to provide a quality education for students and their families.

Purpose

This study examines the relationship between academic procrastination, assessment anxiety, subjective wellbeing, and academic performance.

Methods

A convenience sample of 322 undergraduate students () was used, and questionnaires were administered to students measuring academic procrastination, cognitive test anxiety, and subjective wellbeing. For the same target group, the level of academic performance was identified using personal reports. The questionnaires were administered between May and June 2023 in an online format. For the data analysis, we applied correlational analysis and path analysis using.

Results

Both test anxiety and academic procrastination negatively correlate with performance and subjective wellbeing, leading to decreased performance and subjective wellbeing. Procrastination correlates positively with test anxiety. Cognitive test anxiety partially mediated the relationship between academic procrastination and subjective wellbeing and fully mediated the relationship between academic procrastination and academic performance. Thus, high procrastination leads to decreased performance and subjective wellbeing both directly and indirectly through increased test anxiety, leading to decreased performance and subjective wellbeing.

Significance/discussions

As a result of theoretical and practical investigations, it emerges that joint action of educational actors is required in the generation of effective educational strategies for the prevention and control of procrastination and evaluation anxiety, given the fact that both a high level of procrastination as well as assessment anxiety led to the decrease of students' wellbeing, to the registration of low academic performances. In the long term, disruptive behavior (procrastination and anxious behavior) could generate low social and professional performance, which is a research question for a future longitudinal study.

Creativity as a Positive Factor in the Adolescence Stage: Relations with Academic Performance, Stress and Self-Esteem

Creativity is a construct that aids in conflict resolution. Through the development of creative skills in adolescence, young people can carry out a series of strategies to make decisions or respond to a problem. The possession of creative skills helps students' personal wellbeing. The aim of this research is to analyze the relationships established between creativity and other individual variables such as academic performance, self-esteem and stress in adolescent students. The following descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out with a total sample of 743 adolescent students, between 14 and 19 years of age, from different educational centers in the province of Almería (Spain). The results obtained indicate a positive correlation between creativity and self-esteem and significant differences in the level of creativity among students who have repeated an academic year. Regression analyses indicate that both stress and creativity are two predictor variables of self-esteem. On the other hand, another of the findings obtained is that creativity acts as a mediating variable between self-esteem and repeating an academic year. It is discussed how creativity is a beneficial element in adolescence and, therefore, how its promotion can help the optimal development of adolescent students.