Academic procrastination, study satisfaction, and dropout intentions: a longitudinal study of inter- and intra-individual reciprocal relations

Abstract Student dropout involves an intra-psychic process that is multi-causal. Important predictors of student dropout, specifically academic procrastination, study satisfaction, and dropout intentions, are assumed to be reciprocally related. Understanding which predictors of student dropout precede others, or are involved in vicious cycles, would help identify early intervention opportunities. Furthermore, this approach gives insights into the role of dropout intentions from the onset of the dropout process, rather than only as a last step before actual student dropout. However, results at the inter-individual level are limited, and those at the intra-individual level are missing. In the present study, we applied latent cross-lagged panel modeling and multiple-indicator random-intercept cross-lagged panel modeling to investigate the reciprocal relations between academic procrastination, study satisfaction, and dropout intentions at both the inter-individual and the intra-individual level. For both models, we analyzed data from N = 1,409 ( n = 837 women) undergraduate students enrolled in different majors from a longitudinal study with three measurement points across one semester. At the inter-individual level, we found that having lower study satisfaction compared to other students was related to subsequently increased dropout intentions. At the intra-individual level, a lower than usual study satisfaction was related to subsequently increased dropout intentions and academic procrastination. In sum, study satisfaction seems to protect against increases in dropout intentions and academic procrastination, whereas academic procrastination and dropout intentions did not precede each other nor study satisfaction. Therefore, interventions targeting study satisfaction may help mitigate academic procrastination and dropout intentions over the long term.