Educational Psychology

An International Journal of Experimental Educational Psychology

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The role of personality in motivational regulation

and academic procrastination

Tajana Ljubin-Golub, Ema Petričević & Daria Rovan

To cite this article: Tajana Ljubin-Golub, Ema Petričević & Daria Rovan (2019): The role of
personality in motivational regulation and academic procrastination, Educational Psychology, DOI:
10.1080/01443410.2018.1537479

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EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
https://doi.org/10.1080/01443410.2018.1537479

The role of personality in motivational regulation and

academic procrastination
Tajana Ljubin-Golub , Ema Petri
cevic and Daria Rovan
Faculty of Teacher Education, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

This study explores the role of the motivational self-regulation in Received 10 October 2017
academic procrastination under the personality framework. Accepted 14 October 2018
Therefore, the aims of the study were to investigate: (a) the role
of personality dimensions in the self-regulation of motivation; (b) KEYWORDS
the role of self-regulation of motivation in procrastination; and (c) Personality; motivation;
motivational regulation;
the mediating role of the self-regulation of motivation. The partic- self-regulation;
ipants were 274 university students (M ¼ 21 years). The Big Five procrastination
traits explained from 6% to 17% variance of the individual motiv-
ational regulation strategies (MRSs). Both personality (conscien-
tiousness) and the MRS (environmental control) were significant
predictors of academic procrastination. Conscientiousness, agree-
ableness, and intellect showed an indirect effect on reducing aca-
demic procrastination, mediated through the strategy of
environmental control, thus additionally suggesting the important
role of this motivational strategy. Since this strategy can be
taught, these findings have a strong practical value.

Introduction
In the current understanding of student’s academic engagement and performance,
models of self-regulated learning provide an explanation for how students take an
active and reflective role in their own learning (Puustinen & Pulkkinen, 2001). They can
also provide further comprehension of the mechanisms of self-regulation underlying
detrimental students’ behaviours like academic procrastination which may be regarded
as a failure in self-regulation (Park & Sperling, 2012; Steel, 2007). The central process
of self-regulated learning is self-regulation of motivation (Wolters, 2011), and it may
be especially valuable to understand how the motivational self-regulation is related to
self-regulation deficits as shown by academic procrastination.
Currently, there is no comprehensive picture about the role of motivational self-
regulation in academic procrastination, and especially not under the personality frame-
work. Therefore, this study aims to deepen our understanding of the relationship
between personality, motivational self-regulation, and academic procrastination.

CONTACT Tajana Ljubin-Golub tajana.ljubingolub@ufzg.hr Faculty of Teacher Education, University of Zagreb,

Zagreb 10000, Croatia
ß 2019 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives
License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in
any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.
2 T. LJUBIN-GOLUB ET AL.

We propose that Big Five personality traits may, in a meaningful way, explain individ-
ual variations in motivational regulations to some extent and that motivational regula-
tion may be one of the mechanisms that explain how personality translates into
undermining behaviour as indexed by academic procrastination. In addition, given
prior research linking academic procrastination both to personality and motivational
variables, we investigated whether motivational regulation will increment the Big Five
traits and emerge as a unique predictor of academic procrastination.

Self-regulation of motivation
Self-regulated learning is defined as an active and constructive process through which
students set learning goals, strive to monitor the goals, and regulate and control their
own cognition, motivation and behaviour, guided and constrained by their own objec-
tives and characteristics of the environment (Pintrich, 2004). A core part of self-regu-
lated learning is the self-regulation of motivation (Wolters, 2011), which is defined as
more or less conscious control of one’s own motivation, serving mainly to increase
effort and persistence (Wolters, 2003a). In order to self-regulate motivation, students
use various motivational regulation strategies (MRSs; Schwinger, von der Laden, &
Spinath, 2007; Wolters, 1998, 2003a) which may be conceptually related to different
motivational mechanisms and theories, as suggested previously (Schwinger &
Otterpohl, 2017; Wolters & Benzon, 2013). Two of these strategies are value enhance-
ment strategies, aiming at imaginative modification of a boring activity to make it
more exciting (the enhancement of the situational interest strategy), or increasing the
personal relevance of material (enhancement of the personal significance strategy).
The effectiveness of these two strategies can be theoretically linked to the expect-
ancy-value theory (Eccles & Wigfield, 1995), which posits that the more useful, more
important, or more interesting the learning materials are, the more likely students are
to engage in a task and to persist longer. Three motivational strategies are self-talk
strategies based on the achievement goal theory (e.g. Dweck & Leggett, 1988; Elliot,
1999), each regulating motivation with different kinds of self-talk, using different rea-
sons to pursue learning. These are the mastery self-talk strategy, which refers to moti-
vating oneself with the goal of extending competence and mastering the subject; the
performance-approach self-talk with the goal of achieving good performance; and the
performance-avoidance self-talk strategy, highlighting the goal to avoid failure as a
motivational force. The self-consequating strategy refers to rewarding oneself for per-
sistence in an activity and may be associated with the behavioural theory of learning
(Skinner, 1938), although, as pointed out by Wolters and Benzon (2013), the initiation
of this strategy is autonomous and driven by volition. The proximal goal setting strat-
egy consists of breaking a long-term goal into smaller subgoals which are more easily
achieved and may be theoretically understood under the goal-setting theory (Locke,
1996). Finally, students also reported using the environmental control strategy
(Schwinger et al., 2007) which includes choosing beneficial physical arrangements of
the working environment conducive to learning. This strategy may be associated with
planned behaviour aimed at a mind and behaviour setting and focusing attention on
the task ahead and is also driven by volition.
 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY 3

Since the self-regulation of motivation is posited as a core process of self-regulated

learning (for a review see Wolters, 2011), an understanding of both its predictors and
correlates is important. Previous research suggested that extrinsic self-regulation strat-
egies (performance self-talk and self-consequating) had a direct, but weak, effect on
students’ grades (Wolters, 1998, 1999). More recent work has found that the effect of
the frequent use of motivational regulation strategies on higher academic success is
indirect through higher effort (Schwinger, Steinmayr, & Spinath, 2009; Schwinger &
Stiensmeier-Pelster, 2012). Using students’ self-reported effort as a criterion, a recent
study also found that the mastery self-talk strategy was the most effective strategy,
followed by the proximal goal setting and performance approach self-talk (Schwinger
& Otterpohl, 2017). Additionally, an analysis of different individual profiles of motiv-
ational regulation found that profiles emphasising the mastery and/or performance-
approach self-talk were most related to academic success (Schwinger, Steinmayr, &
Spinath, 2012). The use of motivational strategies is also found to be negatively
related to academic procrastination and positively to well-being (Grunschel,
Schwinger, Steinmayr, & Fries, 2016).

Self-regulation of motivation and personality

Self-regulated motivation, just like self-regulated learning is, in theory, contextual and
task specific (Zimmerman, 2008). Accordingly, students’ use of MRSs varies across dif-
ferent situations (Wolters, 1998). However, it may also be assumed that there are also
some stable individual differences in self-regulation across a class of learning situa-
tions. The currently proposed overall and dominant model for researching individual
differences in stable dispositions is the Big Five personality model, and these dimen-
sions repeatedly appear across cultures (McCrae & Allik, 2002). The Big Five dimensions
of personality are: agreeableness (e.g. forgiving, trusting, cooperative, friendly, con-
cerned with others’ needs), conscientiousness (e.g. persistent, disciplined, efficient),
extraversion (e.g. warm, sociable, active, talkative), neuroticism (e.g. worries a lot, poor
impulse control, emotional instability), and intellect/openness (e.g. curious about many
different things). Previous studies found that the Big Five personality model, and espe-
cially conscientiousness, overlaps with academic motivation conceived under the self-
determination theory, as shown by the 11–17% of variance in academic motivation
explained by the Big Five dimensions (Komarraju, Karau, & Schmeck, 2009). Several
studies (e.g. Bipp, Steinmayr, & Spinath, 2008; Zweig & Webster, 2004) also revealed
the significant relationships between personality and achievement goals, thus also
suggesting the role of personality in academic motivation. However, to the best of our
knowledge, there is no study investigating the role of personality dimensions in the
self-regulation of motivation. This was, therefore, the first aim of this study.

Self-regulation of motivation, personality, and academic procrastination

According to Steel (2007), academic procrastination involves delaying beginning or
completing an intended course of action despite the expectation of being worse off
for the delay. Academic procrastination (AP) can be considered a self-handicapping
4 T. LJUBIN-GOLUB ET AL.

strategy that occurs in an academic setting, referring to the postponement of aca-

demic goals to the point where optimal performance becomes highly unlikely, result-
ing in psychological distress (Ferrari, Johnson, & McCown, 1995; Steel, 2007) and lower
academic achievement (e.g. Schraw, Wadkins, & Olafson, 2007; Senecal, Koestner, &
Vallerand, 1995). It is highly related to some personality traits, mostly with a lack of
conscientiousness, but some relations were also found with neuroticism (Klingsieck,
2013; Schouwenburg & Lay, 1995; Steel, 2007). As suggested by several authors, AP
appears to contradict the characterisation of self-regulated, organised, and motivated
students and may be regarded as a failure in self-regulation (Park & Sperling, 2012;
Steel, 2007; Wolters, 2003b). Procrastination was found to be negatively correlated
with self-efficacy for self-regulated learning, which refers to students’ beliefs in their
capacity to implement academic self-regulated learning strategies (Klassen, Krawchuk,
& Rajani, 2008; Klassen et al., 2010). High procrastinators reported less use of learning
and regulatory strategies, including rehearsal, time and study environment manage-
ment, and effort regulation (Park & Sperling, 2012), and less metacognitive strategies
(Wolters, 2003b). With regard to motivational regulation, it was found that MRSs are
negatively associated with procrastination (Grunschel et al., 2016; Wolters & Benzon,
2013). Students who reported delaying their academic work tended to report the less
frequent use of five out of the six motivational regulation strategies (Wolters &
Benzon, 2013). Furthermore, Grunschel et al. (2016) found that the use of most of the
individual MRSs had positive indirect effects on students’ academic performance
through (lower) academic procrastination.
However, given the overlap between personality and procrastination
(Schouwenburg & Lay, 1995), as well as the overlap between personality and motiv-
ation (Komarraju et al., 2009), a study is needed to investigate the effects of motiv-
ational strategies on academic procrastination while controlling for personality
variables. Therefore, the second aim of this study was to investigate the relationship
between self-regulation of motivation and procrastination, while controlling for per-
sonality variables.
As a third aim of the study, we investigate the role of the self-regulation of motiv-
ation as a potential mediator of the effect of personality on procrastination. As noted
earlier, personality and especially high conscientiousness and high emotional stability
are shown to be associated with lower procrastination. However, the mechanism
through which personality exerts this influence is not yet clear. Based on studies
showing the link between personality and motivation (Komarraju et al., 2009), and the
link between MRSs and procrastination (Wolters & Benzon, 2013), we assume that one
of the possible mechanisms may be through higher motivational regulation. However,
there is no study investigating the mediational role of MRSs in the link between per-
sonality and academic procrastination.

Hypotheses
Seven distinct yet related hypotheses rooted in the conceptual framework that address
important research questions regarding the relationship of motivational regulation
with personality and academic procrastination were put forward. The Hypotheses 1–5
 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY 5

were related to the association of each personality dimension and motivational regula-
tion strategies. Hypothesis 6 was related to the incremental value of MRSs above per-
sonality in explaining academic procrastination, and Hypothesis 7 was related to the
mediational role of motivational regulation in the relationship between personality
and academic procrastination.
Based on the description of personality dimensions, specific relations between each
personality dimension and motivational regulation strategies may be expected. Higher
conscientiousness may be expected to associate with higher overall use of MRSs
because conscientious students are persistent and will, therefore, put more effort into
maintaining their motivation. More specifically, because they try to accomplish tasks,
are self-oriented perfectionists and try to do their best (Stoeber, Otto, & Dalbert,
2009), they may also use more self-talk to remind themselves to put additional effort
into learning in order to master the learning material and to get good grades.
Additionally, given that conscientious students are organised and like order, they may
have a greater tendency to arrange their learning environment and to eliminate dis-
tractions; because they are self-disciplined, goal oriented, and like planned behaviour,
they may be inclined to set goals and sub-goals. Therefore, we expected that con-
scientiousness is positively associated with the total use of motivational regulation
strategies, and especially with the frequent use of the strategies of mastery self-talk,
performance-approach self-talk, environmental control, and proximal goal setting
(Hypothesis 1).
Given that individuals with high intellect/openness are intellectually curious, prone
to adopt learning-goal orientation (Day, Radosevich, & Chasteen, 2003), and are more
likely to enjoy learning, we expected them to score highly on the use of MRSs, espe-
cially those related to regulation through enhancement of intrinsic motivation.
Therefore, we hypothesised that intellect would be positively associated with the total
use of MRSs, and with the enhancement of the personal significance and the mastery
self-talk strategies (Hypothesis 2).
Based on the fact that extraverts are inclined to greater excitation and an arousing
context, are more often goal pursuing and have high external motivation (Komarraju
et al., 2009), and have more social needs (Engeser & Langens, 2010), extraversion was
expected to be positively related to the overall use of MRSs, and especially with the
strategy of the enhancement of situational interest, performance-approach self-talk,
and self-consequating (Hypothesis 3).
Next, individuals with high levels of agreeableness demonstrate highly cooperative
behaviour and compliance with teacher instruction and therefore they make more
effort and stay focused on learning tasks (Vermetten, Lodewijks, & Vermunt, 2001). In
other words, they try to maintain their positive academic behaviour and to maintain
their academic motivation. Therefore, we hypothesised that agreeableness is positively
related to the overall use of MRSs (Hypothesis 4).
Finally, Bidjerano and Yun Dai (2007) suggested that neurotic students (the oppos-
ite of emotional stable) cope with their anxiety about failure by intensifying their
efforts. In other words, emotionally unstable students use more, and emotional stable
students use fewer MRSs. Therefore, we hypothesised that emotional stability is nega-
tively associated with the use of MRSs, and is especially strongly associated with the
6 T. LJUBIN-GOLUB ET AL.

performance-avoidance self-talk strategy because this strategy strives to avoid failure

(Hypothesis 5).
The second aim of the study was to investigate the relationship between motiv-
ational regulation strategies and procrastination, while controlling for personality varia-
bles. Based on the presumption that procrastination may represent a failure in self-
regulation and in line with the results of previous research (Park & Sperling, 2012;
Wolters & Benzon, 2013), we predicted that lower use of MRSs will increment the pre-
diction of academic procrastination, above and beyond personality variables
(Hypothesis 6).
With regard to the mediational role of MRSs, we were especially interested in
exploring which motivational regulation strategies (one or several) represent a mech-
anism of the effect that personality dimensions have on (decreasing) procrastination.
We predicted that lower conscientiousness would lead to lower use of MRSs, which in
turn would lead to higher academic procrastination (Hypothesis 7).

Materials and method

Participants and procedure
The convenience sample consisted of 274 undergraduate students in their first year of
study during the academic years 2012–2013 and 2013–2014, mostly female (71%),
enrolled in the large public university situated in Zagreb, the capital of Croatia. All stu-
dents were majoring in science education, most of them in mathematics (86%), and
the rest in geography (14%). The average age was 21 years (M ¼ 21.10; SD ¼ 2.18),
ranging from 19 to 35. Students completed a questionnaire during the regular psych-
ology course. Students participated in the research voluntarily and anonymously. The
questionnaire consisted of a wide array of scales assessing demographic, personality,
motivation, and procrastination variables.

Measures
Personality
Personality was assessed with the Croatian version of the International Personality
Item Pool 50 (IPIP 50; Goldberg, 1999; Mla
cic & Goldberg, 2007). IPIP 50 is a shorter
version of the Goldberg (1992) IPIP, in which each of the Big Five dimensions of per-
sonality (Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, and
Intellect) is assessed by 10 items, all using a five-point Likert scale, ranging from 1
(very inaccurate) to 5 (very accurate). A higher result indicates a more expressed
dimension. The questionnaire was previously demonstrated to have good psychomet-
ric characteristics (Mla
cic & Goldberg, 2007).

Motivational regulation strategies

MRSs were assessed with the 30-item Motivational Regulation Questionnaire (MRQ,
Schwinger et al., 2007) which is an extended version of Wolters’s (1998, 1999) ques-
tionnaire. The MRQ yields a total score and scores on eight subscales operationalising
 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY 7

eight motivational strategies: (1) Enhancement of situational interest, (2) Enhancement

of personal significance, (3) Mastery self-talk, (4) Performance-approach self-talk, (5)
Performance-avoidance self-talk, (6) Environmental control, (7) Self-consequating, and
(8) Proximal goal setting. Each MRQ item is rated on a five-point Likert scale, which
ranged from 1 (very rarely/never) to 5 (very often/always). Previous research showed
adequate psychometric characteristics of the MRQ (Schwinger et al., 2007, 2009). For
the purpose of this study, the MRQ was translated into Croatian using a standard
back-translation procedure. Internal validity was explored through an exploratory
factor analysis with a principal component analysis. The results showed that an eight-
factor model accounted for 59.07% of the variance, with all items having loadings on
the expected factors. Cronbach alpha coefficients for MRQ subscales ranged from 0.66
to 0.86, similar to German version in which it ranged from 0.68 to 0.86 (Schwinger
et al., 2009).

Academic procrastination
Academic procrastination was measured using a 3-item scale constructed to assess
students’ tendency to postpone completing their study obligations (e.g. ‘I postpone
most of my student obligations until the last moment’). All items were rated on a five-
point Likert type scale, ranging from 1 (does not refer to me at all) to 5 (refers to me
very often/always). The scale demonstrated a clear one-factor structure with item load-
ings of 0.95, 0.97, and 0.97, respectively.
All measures demonstrated acceptable or even high Cronbach alpha reliability
(Nunnally & Bernstein, 1994) (see Table 1).

Data analysis
First, we present descriptive statistics and zero-order correlations (Pearson’s coeffi-
cients) for all the variables. We performed a preliminary analysis in order to determine
whether the association between personality and motivational strategies varies across
gender. In these hierarchical linear regression models with each MRS as criteria, gen-
der and Big Five personality variables were entered at Step 1, and the five
Gender  Personality interactions were entered at Step 2. An increase in R2 at the
second step was not significant for any of the strategies, indicating that gender did
not interact with personality in predicting motivational strategies. Therefore, we did
the main analyses of male and female students together.
In order to investigate the relationship between the Big Five dimensions and each
MRS, nine multiple regression analyses were performed, with the Big Five variables
entered together as predictors and each of the MRS (plus the overall MRSs) score used
as criteria. To assess the incremental value of MRSs in academic procrastination, we
used a multiple regression analysis with the Big Five variables controlled for in the first
step of the analysis. To investigate whether motivation regulation has a mediation role
in the relationship between personality and academic procrastination, we performed
five mediation analyses by means of PROCESS macro (Hayes, 2012), with each of the
Big Five dimensions used as predictors, eight MRSs entered as parallel mediators (mul-
tiple mediator model, MMM), and academic procrastination as a criterion. Since the
 8

Table 1. Means, standard deviations, and correlations between the Big Five personality traits, motivational regulation strategies and academic procrastin-
ation (n = 274).
Scale, variables
(number of items) 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.
1. IPIP extraversion (10) (.86) .05 .02 .21** .31** .18** .28** .16* .09 −.06 .10 .12* .19** .20** −.08
2. IPIP agreeableness (10) (.83) .37** −.11 .15* .19** .20** .26** .26** .03 .36** .29** .29** .35** −.14*
3. IPIP conscientiousness (10) – (.81) .19** .09 .09 .09 .26** .17** −.08 .30** .12 .25** .22** −.46**
T. LJUBIN-GOLUB ET AL.

4. IPIP emotional stability (10) – (.87) .10 −.05 .04 −.06 −.21** −.27** −.01 −.14* −.05 −.15* −.11
5. IPIP intellect (10) – – (.81) .21** .34** .21** .03 −.02 .14* .16** .22** .24** −.14*
6. MRQ enhancement of – – (.86) .58** .46** .31** .17** .21** .36** .40** .67** −.11
situational interest (5)
7. MRQ enhancement of – – – (.79) .42** .27** .11 .15* .24** .35** .59** −.12
personal significance (3)
8. MRQ mastery self-talk (4) – – – – (.81) .61** .28** .43** .46** .58** .81** −.25**
9. MRQ performance – – – – – (.86) .37** .35** .34** .44** .71** −.15*
-approach self-talk (5)
10. MRQ performance – – – – – – (.82) .11 .15* .14* .47** .01
-avoidance self-talk (3)
11. MRQ environmental control (3) – – – – – – – (.66) .41** .43** .57** −.32**
12. MRQ self-consequating (4) – – – – – – – – (.85) .50** .66** −.17**
13. MRQ proximal goal setting (3) – – – – – – – – – (.70) .73** −.27**
14. MRQ overall use of MRS (30) – – – – – – – – – – (.92) −.26**
15. Academic procrastination (3) – – – – – – – – – – – (.96)
Mean 3.37 3.89 3.60 3.23 3.62 2.82 3.43 3.19 3.45 2.34 3.55 3.77 3.53 3.25 3.26
SD .66 .55 .61 .68 .54 .84 .81 .82 .84 .93 .74 .82 .77 .55 1.09
Range 1.5−4.9 1.6−5 1.6−4.8 1.5−5 2.2−5 1−4.8 1−5 1−5 1−5 1−5 1.33−5 1−5 1−5 1.40− 1−5
4.70
Skewness −.23 −1.03 −.59 .21 −.03 −.09 −.18 −.12 −.36 .54 −.15 −.62 −.30 −.31 −.14
Kurtosis −.19 1.93 .16 −.04 −.27 −.47 −.29 −.13 −.18 −.12 −.21 .42 .06 .85 −.72
Note. IPIP = International Personality Item Pool 50; MRQ = Motivational Regulation Questionnaire. Internal reliability coefficients (α) appear in parentheses along the main diagonal.
*p < .05, **p < .01 (two-tailed tests). Maximal range of response scale: 1–5.
 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY 9

focus of this research was on exploring mediational mechanisms, we chose PROCESS

procedure (Hayes, 2012). While structural equation modeling has apparent benefits,
especially for estimating model fit, for research designs such as this, the results
obtained by PROCESS procedure and SEM are largely identical (see Hayes, Montoya, &
Rockwood, 2017). The MMM was used since it enables us to understand not only
whether there is an indirect effect, but also which MRS accounts for the relationship
between a certain personality trait and AP. The macro uses the resampling method of
bootstrapping, which gives an estimate of the indirect effect by resampling the data-
set k times (we used 1.000). An indirect effect is considered statistically significant if its
95% confidence interval (CI) does not include zero.

Results
Descriptive statistics and correlation analysis
Descriptive statistics and the correlation matrix are reported in Table 1. Motivational
regulation strategies were mostly low-to-moderate intercorrelated, with the exception
of two non-significant correlations. A higher level of academic procrastination was
associated with lower levels of agreeableness, conscientiousness, and intellect, and
five out of eight motivational regulation strategies.

Regression analyses
The results of the regression analyses aimed at testing Hypotheses 1 to 5 are pre-
sented in Table 2. Overall, Big Five personality factors together explained 21% of the
variance in the total use of MRSs (R ¼ 0.47, F(5, 268) ¼ 15.43, p < .001). Personality traits
taken together explained from 6% (the performance-avoidance self-talk strategy) to
16% (enhancement of the personal significance and environmental control strategies)
of the variance in the individual use of specific MRSs. Only the performance-avoidance
self-talk strategy was explained by one personality variable (low emotional stability,
aka neuroticism), while all other strategies were explained by several personality
dimensions. Extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and intellect all have sig-
nificant b predictors in a positive direction, while for emotional stability all significant
b coefficients were in a negative direction.
In support of Hypothesis 1, conscientiousness was found to be positively associated
with the total use of MRSs (b ¼ 0.15, p < .05), and with the strategies of mastery self-
talk (b ¼ 0.22, p < .01), performance-approach self-talk (b ¼ 0.15, p < .05), environmental
control (b ¼ 0.20, p < .01), and proximal goal setting (b ¼ 0.19, p < .01). Support was
obtained also for Hypothesis 2. Intellect was positively associated with the total use of
MRSs (b = 0.16, p < .01), and with the use of the enhancement of personal significance
strategy (b ¼ 0.26, p < .01) and the strategy of mastery self-talk (b ¼ 0.15, p < .05).
In support of Hypothesis 3, extraversion was found to be positively associated with
the overall use of MRSs (b ¼ 0.18, p < .01), the strategy of the enhancement of situ-
ational interest (b ¼ 0.15, p < .05), and the strategy of performance-approach self-talk
(b ¼ 0.14, p < .05), while, contrary to Hypothesis 3, it was not associated with the strat-
egy of self-consequating (b ¼ 0.11, p > .05). Thus, Hypothesis 3 was partially supported.
10 T. LJUBIN-GOLUB ET AL.

Table 2. Multiple regression analyses with the Big Five traits regressed on each of the eight
motivational regulation strategies (n = 274).
Factor: Motivational regulation strategy Predictor β R² Adjusted R²
Enhancement of situational interest Extraversion .15*
Agreeableness .13* .09** .08**
Intellect .15*
Enhancement of personal significance Extraversion .20**
Agreeableness .15* .18** .16**
Intellect .26**
Mastery self-talk Extraversion .13*
Agreeableness .13* .15** .13**
Conscientiousness .22**
Emotional stability −.13*
Intellect .15*
Performance-approach self-talk Extraversion .14*
Agreeableness .17** .13** .12**
Conscientiousness .15*
Emotional stability −.25**
Performance-avoidance self-talk Emotional stability −.26** .07** .06**
Environmental control Agreeableness .26** .17** .16**
Conscientiousness .20**
Self-consequating Agreeableness .23** .13** .11**
Emotional stability −.16**
Proximal goal setting Extraversion .16**
Agreeableness .17** .16** .15**
Conscientiousness .19**
Intellect .13*
Total use of motivational strategies Extraversion .18**
Agreeableness .24** .22** .21**
Conscientiousness .15*
Emotional stability −.21**
Intellect .16**
Note. *p < .05, **p < .01. Nonsignificant beta coefficients are not shown for the sake of simplicity.

Support was also obtained for Hypothesis 4. As predicted, agreeableness was found
to be positively associated with the total use of MRSs (b ¼ 0.24, p < .01), and with all
types of MRSs, except with the strategy performance-avoidance self-talk strategy.
The results were also in line with Hypothesis 5. Emotional stability was, as pre-
dicted, negatively associated with four out of eight strategies, with standardised b
coefficients ranging from 0.13 (mastery self-talk) to 0.26 (performance-avoidance
self-talk). Also, as predicted, emotional stability had the highest beta coefficient for
performance-avoidance self-talk. In fact, this strategy was explained only by emotional
stability, which accounted for 6% of the variance in performance-avoidance self-talk
(R ¼ 0.27, F(5, 268) ¼ 4.15, p < .01).
The results of the separate hierarchical regression analysis showed that the use of
MRSs was negatively associated with academic procrastination, even after controlling
for the Big Five variables, thus confirming Hypothesis 6 (see Table 3). The Big Five per-
sonality variables explained 21% of the individual variance in AP (DF(5, 268) ¼ 15.57,
p < .001), with conscientiousness being the only significant predictor (b ¼ 0.47,
p < .001). MRSs explained an additional 5% of the variance in AP (DF(8, 260) ¼ 2.22,
p ¼ .026). Taken together, personality variables and MRSs explained 24% of the vari-
ance in AP, F(13, 260) ¼ 7.58, p < .001), with conscientiousness and the environmental
 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY 11

Table 3. Results of the hierarchical regression analysis of academic procrastination (n = 274).

Step1 Step2
Step 1: Main effect of the Big Five personality traits
Extraversion −0.04 −0.01
Agreeableness 0.05 0.12
Conscientiousness −0.47** −0.41**
Emotional stability 0.00 −0.02
Intellect −0.09 −0.06
Step 2: Main effects of motivational regulation strategies
Enhancement of situational interest – 0.02
Enhancement of personal significance – −0.02
Mastery self-talk – −0.04
Performance-approach self-talk – 0.02
Performance-avoidance self-talk – 0.01
Environmental control – −0.18**
Self-consequating – −0.02
Proximal goal setting – −0.09
ΔR2 0.23** 0.05*
Adjusted R2 0.21** 0.24*
Note. The standardised regression coefficients are presented. *p < .05, **p < .01

control motivational regulation strategy being the only significant predictors of AP in

the final equation (b ¼ 0.41 and 0.18, respectively, both p < .01).

Mediation analysis
The results of multiple mediation analysis with MRSs as mediators in the link between
personality and academic procrastination supported Hypothesis 7. Indirect effects
emerged for conscientiousness on AP (b ¼ 0.04), 95% CI [0.0745, 0.0156], for
agreeableness on AP (b ¼ 0.08), 95% CI [0.1250, 0.0437] and for intellect on AP
(b ¼ 0.05), 95% CI [0.0862, 0.0081]. The strategy of environmental control was the
only significant mediator in all these relationships. Effect sizes for indirect effects of
environmental control, in the form of standardised indirect effects, were: 0.09 (95%
CI [0.1490, 0.0319]); 0.05 (CI [0.0990, 0.0077]), and 0.03 (CI [0.0835,
0.0059]) for agreeableness, conscientiousness, and intellect, respectively. These
effects sizes are considered to be small (Cohen, 1988; Lachowicz, Preacher, &
Kelley, 2018).
Since there was still a significant direct effect of conscientiousness on AP
(b ¼ 0.20, p < .05), the mediation of conscientiousness on AP through motivational
regulation was partial (see Table 4).

Discussions
This study was conducted to enhance our knowledge of the personality mechanisms
underlying self-regulation of motivation, and the assumed mediational and incremen-
tal role of the self-regulation of motivation in decreasing procrastination. First, it was
shown that the Big Five personality factors together explained 21% of the variance in
the overall use of MRSs (accounting for 6% to 16% of the variance in specific motiv-
ational strategies). Thus, the results suggest that besides the role of context as posited
in self-regulation theory (e.g. Zimmerman, 1998), personality is one of the important
mechanisms underlying the individual differences in the regulation of motivation. The
12 T. LJUBIN-GOLUB ET AL.

Table 4. Mediation analyses: summary of total, direct, and indirect effects in the relationship
between the Big Five traits and academic procrastination as criteria (n = 274).
Emotional
Extraversion Agreeableness Conscientiousness Stability Intellect
Predictors
Effect SE Effect SE Effect SE Effect SE Effect SE
Total effect −0.04 0.03 −0.08* 0.04 −0.25* 0.03 −0.05 0.03 −0.08* 0.04
Direct effect −0.01 0.03 −0.00 0.04 −0.20* 0.03 −0.05 0.03 −0.04 0.04
Indirect effect
Total −0.03* 0.02 −0.08* 0.02 −0.04* 0.01 −0.00 0.02 −0.05* 0.02
Enhancement of 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.00 −0.00 0.00 0.00 0.01
situational
interest
Enhancement of −0.00 0.01 −0.00 0.01 −0.00 0.00 −0.00 0.00 −0.00 0.02
personal
significance
Mastery self-talk −0.01 0.01 −0.02 0.02 −0.01 0.01 0.00 0.01 −0.02 0.01
Performance- 0.00 0.00 0.01 0.01 0.00 0.01 −0.00 0.01 0.00 0.00
approach
self-talk
Performance- −0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 −0.00 0.00 −0.01 0.01 −0.00 0.00
avoidance
self-talk
Environmental −0.01 0.01 −0.05* 0.02 −0.03* −0.01 0.00 0.01 −0.02* 0.01
control
Self- 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.01 −0.00 0.00 −0.00 0.01 0.00 0.01
consequating
Proximal −0.01 0.01 −0.02 0.02 −0.01 0.01 0.00 0.00 −0.02 0.01
goal setting
2 2 2 2 2
R = 0.14** R = 0.14** R = 0.26** R = 0.15** R = 0.14**
F(9, 264) = 4.69, F(9, 264) = 4.68, F(9, 264) = 10.34, F(9, 264) = 5.11, F(9, 264) = 4.80,
p < .01 p < .01 p < .01 p < .01 p < .01
Note. SE - Standard Error. *p < .05, **p < .01. R2 refers to the model with a specific Big Five trait and eight motiv-
ational regulation strategies entered as predictors, and academic procrastination as a criterion.

higher motivational regulation, as indicated by the higher overall use of motivational

regulation strategies, was associated with the pattern of higher extraversion, agree-
ableness, conscientiousness, intellect, and neuroticism (low emotional stability).
The use of specific strategies was associated with personality variables in a mean-
ingful, hypothesised direction. Students with high extraversion reported higher use of
regulation by trying to make learning more pleasant (enhancement of the situational
interest strategy) and by reminding themselves of how important it is to get good
grades (the performance-approach self-talk strategy). Extraverted students also more
often used the regulation through enhancing intrinsic interest (the enhancement of
personal significance strategy) and by setting subgoals (proximal goal setting strategy),
probably due to their high-performance motivation (Judge & Ilies, 2002).
Conscientiousness was positively associated with the use of mastery self-talk, perform-
ance-approach self-talk, environmental control, and proximal goal setting strategies for
the regulation of motivation. Highly conscientious students more frequently pay
attention to how important it is to work intensely to learn the material for the sake of
mastery and to obtain good grades, more often eliminate distractions and use a step-
by-step approach to the workload. Students with high agreeableness try to sustain
their effort and regulate motivation with a higher use of all but one (performance-
avoidance self-talk) of the motivational regulation strategies, indicating the higher
 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY 13

engagement of these students, at least partly because of their cooperativeness and

willingness to meet demands. Intellect was found to be positively associated specific-
ally with motivational regulation strategies operating through the enhancement of
intrinsic motivation, i.e. enhancement of personal significance and mastery self-talk.
These results are in line with the findings that students with high intellect are inclined
to more autonomous regulation (Komarraju et al., 2009). However, intellect was also
related to the enhancement of the situational interest strategy. Students with high
intellect are also creative and probably use more imagination and maybe, therefore,
are prone to look for ways to bring more meaning and enjoyment to tasks. Neurotic
students in order to cope with their anxiety about failure, also put more effort into
keeping up their motivation as indexed by higher use of MRSs and especially used the
performance-avoidance self-talk strategy whose goal is to avoid failure, e.g. not to
make a fool of themselves or not to perform worse than others. The use of this motiv-
ational strategy is associated with negative and conflicting emotions, and is found to
be associated with lower well-being (Grunschel et al., 2016) and academic burnout
(Ljubin-Golub 2016), suggesting that the use of this strategy has an ambiguous or
even negative value in learning, especially in the long run.
The study also showed that motivational regulation has the mediational role in the
relationship between personality and academic procrastination. More specifically, con-
scientiousness, agreeableness, and intellect had an indirect effect on (reducing) pro-
crastination, through the higher use of the environmental control strategy. In other
words, students who are conscientious, agreeable and have a high intellect, because
of their personality characteristics, are more likely to choose and arrange an adequate
environment and context for their learning. This study broadens knowledge about the
role of personality in academic procrastination by showing that some personality traits
may have an indirect effect on procrastination.
Out of personality variables, consciousness was most strongly associated with aca-
demic procrastination, in line with previous studies (Steel, 2007). Consciousness had
both direct link with academic procrastination and an indirect link through the envir-
onmental control strategy. Since mediation was partial, some other processes, besides
environmental control, may also be relevant as potential mediating mechanisms in the
relationship between conscientiousness and AP. One of the possible candidates for
such a mechanism may be better time management skills since these skills are related
both to academic procrastination (Lay & Schouwenburg, 1993), and to conscientious-
ness (Liu, Rijmen, MacCann, & Roberts, 2009). Conscientious individuals are prone to
approach demanding tasks with planning and to work against deadlines in a timely
fashion (Liu et al., 2009), and these heightened time management skills, in turn, may
reduce the postponing of academic obligations.
The study showed that motivational regulation, through environmental control, also
had the unique role of incrementing the Big five traits in the explanation of academic
procrastination. The finding of a negative relationship between motivational regulation
and procrastination is in line with Wolters and Benzon (2013) and Grunschel et al.
(2016) studies. However, in Wolters and Benzon’s (2013) study, the strongest relation-
ship with procrastination had the strategy of mastery self-talk, and in Grunschel et al’s
(2016) study, it was the strategy of goal setting. In this study, the strategy of
14 T. LJUBIN-GOLUB ET AL.

environmental control explained an additional 5% of the variance in AP, besides the

effect of conscientiousness. The results suggest that this strategy has specific import-
ance in reducing academic procrastination, after controlling for personality.
Thus, this study found the central role of environmental control (arranging environ-
ment that facilitates learning, avoiding distractions) as a regulatory mechanism for aca-
demic success, as indexed by lower academic procrastination. This finding is in line
with the research showing that distracting oneself by multitasking (e.g. learning and
at the same time sending messages through cell phones) undermines the perceived
efficacy in learning (Ljubin-Golub & Milolo
za, 2010). In contrast, the study of
Schwinger and Otterpohl (2017) using self-reported effort as criteria, suggested that
the most effective strategy was mastery self-talk, followed by proximal goal setting
and performance self-talk. Besides using different criteria (academic procrastination vs.
effort), the sample in this study consisted of science education students, while the
sample in the study done by Schwinger and Otterpohl (2017) consisted of students
with various majors, with only 35% of them enrolled in science. It may well be that
students majoring in science are highly motivated by mastery goals and other intrinsic
forms of motivation and therefore have a higher level and reduced variance of the
mastery self-talk strategy, leading to the non-significant effect of mastery self-talk
strategy. Although we consider this interpretation plausible, it should be checked in
further research. However, this study clearly points to the fact that the relative import-
ance of an individual strategy may be different in some groups of students.
The environmental control strategy is considered unique, because the items empha-
sise preventing problems and not increasing students’ willingness to complete the
task, as suggested by Wolters and Benzon (2013). In light of the dispute about
whether this strategy might better be viewed as a strategy for the regulation of con-
text (Pintrich, 2004), or a strategy for the regulation of motivation (Wolters & Benzon,
2013), this study indicates that effective environmental structuring leads to decreased
academic procrastination, i.e. sustained effort in completing academic activities, and is
therefore more consistent with the view of environmental control as a proper motiv-
ational regulation strategy.
This study also provides some evidence for the reliability and validity of a Croatian
version of a Schwinger et al. (2007) instrument for assessing motivational regulation
strategies. Results of an exploratory factor analysis provided strong support for the
existence of the same eight different types of strategies as in the study conducted
with German samples. The results also support Wolter and Benzon’s (2013) suggestion
that college students are able to differentiate between concepts of importance and
interest which were in the earlier work of Wolters (1999), with younger students sub-
sumed under the strategy of interest enhancement.

Practical implications
The study has some important preliminary implications for educational practice. First,
efforts to increase students’ ability to regulate their study motivation may reduce pro-
crastination. One suggestion on how to increase students’ motivation regulation is to
teach students about a variety of motivational regulation strategies and by creating
 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY 15

learning environments that facilitate the use of different MRSs. This study also sug-
gests that teachers should be aware of the differences in students’ personality traits
and encourage them to choose MRSs in line with their personality-based preferences.
In addition, teachers should discourage the use of the performance-avoidance self-talk
strategy and give support to emotionally unstable students using this strategy, to
focus more on individual progress, rather than comparing themselves to others.
Second, this study points to the particular value of environmental control strategy for
reducing procrastination. Thus, it is especially important to teach students about the
value of this strategy. Environment management can be taught and modified since it is a
specific and not complex behaviour (e.g. Cleary & Zimmerman, 2004). Teachers can iden-
tify students with poor environment management control and encourage them to form
good environment control habits. Students may be first taught about the importance of
this strategy and then reinforced to maintain environmental control by eliminating dis-
tractions before and during learning (such as TV, cell phones, the internet, etc.), as well
as to choose a learning time when they can concentrate especially well.

Limitations and future directions

First, the sample comprised university students, with the majority of them majoring in
mathematics education. Our sample may well differ in the Big Five factors in compari-
son with the population norms because it has been shown that personality influences
the choice of study in higher education (Boone, van Olffen, & Roijakkers, 2004).
Further research is needed to determine whether the results may be generalised to
other student populations. Second, the study did not address students’ age, study
grade level, prior achievement, parent education level or socio-economic status, while
such variables may also be important for motivation (Froiland & Oros, 2014). Third, the
study is of a cross-sectional type and no causal effects are implied. Also, it is important
to note that we used a self-constructed scale for measuring academic procrastination.
We wanted our measure to be short, in line with Steel’s (2007) definition, and to tap
the extent to which students unnecessarily delay their academic activities, while most
of the procrastination scales measure general and not academic procrastination.
However, for that reason, caution is required when comparing our results to the
results of the other studies.
This study demonstrated the role of Big Five personality model in motivational
regulation. The role of some other personality variables may be also promising and
even more relevant to self-regulated learning, such as the motivational traits from the
Reiss personality profile of fundamental goals and motivation sensitivities (Havercamp
& Reiss, 2003). The traits from a lower order position in the hierarchy, such as perfec-
tionism, may also be interesting for further study, as antecedents and a steady inclin-
ation toward the use of specific motivational regulation strategies.

Conclusions
This study makes both theoretical and practical contributions. First, this study extends
self-regulated motivation research by showing that students’ individual differences in
16 T. LJUBIN-GOLUB ET AL.

personality are associated in a meaningful way with their self-regulation of motivation.

Second, the study shows the theoretically expected but under-researched, mediational
role of motivational regulation in the link between personality and procrastination.
Third, our findings suggest that the link between the self-regulation of motivation
(through environmental control) and academic procrastination exists even after con-
trolling for personality variables. Thus, this study shows that personality should be
taken into account when investigating motivation regulation, and it also shows the
unique and important value of the environmental control strategy for lowering aca-
demic procrastination. Besides this theoretical value, a practical value of the study is
that isolating a specific behaviour, such as environment management, for its relation-
ship to academic procrastination, may be useful.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID
Tajana Ljubin-Golub http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6396-0389
Ema Petri
cevic http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3711-2036
Daria Rovan http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6990-4388

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