University Students’ Wellbeing and Academic Procrastination: The Role...

Self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985) maintains that the basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness are antecedents of intrinsic motivation, which in turn is related to many behavioral and affective outcome variables, such as achievement, persistence, positive emotions and well-being (Guay, Ratelle, & Chanal, 2008). In this study we investigated students’ perceptions of relatedness with faculty (RF) and with peers (RP) as predictors of intrinsic motivation, academic procrastination and well-being. Responses from N = 301 undergraduate university students indicated that RF and RP were associated with all outcome measures. We tested a mediation model in which perceived RF and RP predict intrinsic motivation, which consecutively predict academic procrastination and well-being. Results indicate that RF and RP independently predict university students’ intrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivation was a significant predictor for all outcome measures. Specifically, intrinsic motivation fully mediated the association between RF and all outcome variables.The association between RP and academic procrastination was also fully mediated by intrinsic motivation. However, intrinsic motivation mediated the association between RP and well-being only partially. Our results corroborate the utility of a multi dimensional approach to the basic need social relatedness that considers the independent as well as interactive contributions of faculty and peers to university students’ intrinsic motivation and related outcomes.