Emotion regulation—the ability to manage and respond effectively to emotional experiences—plays a crucial role in academic behavior. Academic procrastination, a common challenge among students, often arises from difficulties in regulating emotions, leading to increased stress and reduced academic performance. This study aimed to examine the relationship between emotion regulation and academic procrastination among college students. Specifically, it investigated how different components of emotion regulation—acceptance of emotional responses, goal-directed behavior, impulse control, emotional awareness, emotion regulation strategies, and emotional clarity—vary according to students’ demographic profiles and how they relate to levels of academic procrastination. A descriptive-correlational research design was employed, administering standardized instruments—the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) and the Adapted Tuckman Procrastination Scale (ATPS)—to 558 first- and second-year college students across four departments. The results revealed a significant correlation between difficulties in emotion regulation and higher levels of academic procrastination. Students with lower emotional clarity, weaker impulse control, and poorer goal-directed behavior demonstrated greater tendencies to procrastinate. These findings suggest that difficulties in emotion regulation directly influence academic procrastination, with greater challenges in emotion regulation corresponding to higher procrastination levels. The study highlights the importance of developing emotion regulation skills as a strategy to reduce academic procrastination and improve overall academic performance. Interventions aimed at enhancing emotional awareness, impulse control, and goal-directed behavior may be particularly effective in supporting students’ academic success.
Abdulraheem et al. (Sun,) studied this question.