Comparing the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy with cognitive-behavioral therapy in reducing academic procrastination in students dependent on mobile phones

Abstract

The phenomenon of academic procrastination is one of the common problems among students that has a great negative impact on academic and psychological performance. The aim of the present study is to compare the effect of acceptance and commitment therapy and cognitive-behavioral therapy in reducing academic procrastination in mobile phone-dependent students. This study was conducted with a quasi-experimental design and used a pre-test-intervention-post-test design and a two-month follow-up. For this purpose, 45 mobile phone-dependent students who made little educational use of their smartphones and met the inclusion criteria were selected and randomly divided into three groups: acceptance and commitment therapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy, and control groups (15 people in each group). Miklowski and Silzo's (2015) Academic Procrastination Scale was used to collect data, and the results were analyzed using repeated-measures analysis of covariance and Bonferroni post hoc test. The results showed that both treatment methods, acceptance and commitment therapy and cognitive-behavioral therapy, had a significant effect on reducing academic procrastination compared to the control group (F = 61.573). On the other hand, the results of the follow-up test for academic procrastination showed that despite the effectiveness of the two treatment methods (P<0.05), there was no significant difference between them. In the context of subscales, both treatments were effective in improving initiation compared to the control group, but no difference was observed between them. In time management, acceptance and commitment therapy performed better than cognitive-behavioral therapy. Also, both treatments were effective in reducing laziness, but acceptance and commitment therapy was more effective, which was not statistically significant. Based on the results of this study, it is suggested that university treatment and counseling programs use a combination of acceptance and commitment therapy and cognitive-behavioral therapy to reduce academic procrastination in mobile phone-dependent students, as these interventions can help reduce academic procrastination and improve students' academic performance.