关键词: 羞怯, 学业拖延, 教师期望知觉, 自我价值感, 初中生

Abstract: The student’s academic procrastination will bring many negative effects to the individual, such as affecting the student's academic performance, subjective well-being, and life satisfaction. Exploring the influencing factors of academic procrastination has important theoretical and practical significance. According to the three-level variable relationship path in the educational context proposed by Matthews et al., personality traits may be the fundamental factor affecting academic procrastination. Shyness is an important personality trait. Studies have shown that shyness has a wide range of negative effects on students’ academic performance, such as negative prediction of students’ academic adaptation and learning adaptation. Then, shyness may also have an impact on academic procrastination. Similarly, the three-level variable relationship path points out that self-characteristics are important intermediate variables. The theory of self-worth believes that individuals may adopt a procrastination method in order to maintain their sense of self-worth. Studies have shown that self-worth can affect academic procrastination, and shy people may have lower self-worth due to their own characteristics. In other words, self-worth plays a mediating role between shyness and academic procrastination. Studies have shown that teacher expectations have an important impact on the individual’s sense of self-worth, and the transmission of teacher expectations is reflected in the teacher expectation perception. The teacher expectation perception may be an important source of personal self-worth. Shyness may lead to a lower perception of teacher expectations, and a lower perception of teacher expectations may further reduce their sense of self-worth, and these aggravate the individual’s academic procrastination. In other words, teacher expectation perception and self-worth play a chain-like intermediary role between shyness and academic procrastination. In addition, studies have shown that perception of teacher expectations may also play a mediating role between shyness and academic procrastination alone.
The purpose of this study is to explore the impact and mechanism of shyness on academic procrastination. The study adopted a cluster random sampling method, using shyness questionnaires, academic procrastination questionnaires, teacher expectations and perception questionnaires, and self-worth scale to survey 920 junior high school students (461 boys and 459 girls) from two middle schools. All questionnaires in this study showed good reliability.
The results show that: (1) Shyness, teacher expectation perception, self-worth, and academic procrastination are significantly correlated with each other. Shyness is significantly positively correlated with academic procrastination, and is significantly negatively correlated with teacher expectation perception and self-worth. Teacher expectation perception has a significant positive correlation with self-worth, and a significant negative correlation with academic procrastination. Self-worth and academic procrastination are significantly negative related. (2) Teacher expectation perception and self-worth can not only play a separate mediating role between shyness and academic procrastination, but can also play a chain mediating role of them.
These findings have important theoretical and practical value, and to some extent, they reveal the possible reasons for the academic procrastination of junior high school students. The research results not only expand the research in the field of academic procrastination, but also help students reduce academic procrastination. In addition, the research results can also provide certain reference and enlightenment for educational practice. For example, full attention should be paid to students’ academic procrastination, especially to shy individuals. At the same time, it is possible to make full use of the teacher’s expectation effect to reduce individual’s academic procrastination. Finally, enhancing the individual’s sense of self-worth is a powerful and effective way to reduce students’ academic procrastination. Especially in the junior high school stage when young people’s self-awareness is developing rapidly, educators should pay attention to the students’ internal development, consolidate their self-confidence, and enhance their sense of self-worth, so as to prevent or reduce the academic procrastination.

Key words: shyness, academic procrastination, teacher expectation perception, self-worth, junior high school students