Recent studies revealed that higher education students’ tendency towards academic procrastination behaviors is a threat to their academic achievement. This study aimed to examine the mediating role of achievement goal orientations on the association between academic procrastination behaviors and academic achievement. The research was carried out using the survey model. The participants of the study consisted of 484 higher education students at a university located in the eastern part of Turkey. The data of the study was collected via the demographic information form developed by the researcher, the Academic Procrastination Scale adapted in Turkish by Özer, Saçkes, and Tuckman (2013), and the 2x2 Achievement Goal Orientation Scale developed by Akın (2006). The academic achievements of the students were obtained from their grade point averages (GPA). The results revealed that academic procrastination negatively predicted academic achievement. In addition, it was found that it did not predict avoidance goal orientations while academic procrastination negatively predicted approach goal orientations. Hence, academic achievement was negatively predicted by avoidance goal orientations and positively predicted by approach goal orientations. Moreover, approach goal orientations have a mediating role in the association between academic procrastination behaviors and academic achievement. It was also concluded that it is important to encourage students to adopt approach goal orientations in order to decrease the negative effect of academic procrastination tendency on academic performance. These limitations are that the research consists of a cross-sectional structure and the structural equation modeling is based on the assumptions designed by the researchers. Considering the current limitations, some suggestions are presented for future research.

Academic procrastination, achievement goal orientations, academic achievement, mediating effect