Abstract
The link between depression, anxiety, and loneliness has been well established in the literature. Yet, the performance consequences of these negative mental health outcomes and the role of coping behaviors, as well as behavioral consequences such as procrastination as mediators have received far less research attention. Due to the COVID-19 social isolation restrictions, people are at risk of falling into a negative mental health spiral that can also affect their performance over time. The purpose of this longitudinal study among 881 first-year bachelor students is to explore the mechanisms by which loneliness, coping strategies in the context of COVID-19, mental health outcomes and procrastination sequentially mediate the relationship depression and anxiety on the one hand, and academic performance on the other hand. We measured mental health variables several times during the COVID-19 crisis and assessed how this translates into academic performance at the end of the academic year. By performing exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, three high-order factors for the coping strategies in the context of the COVID-19 crisis were identified, namely maladaptive coping, adaptive coping, and supportive coping. Structural equation modeling was used to test the sequential mediational model. The results showed that maladaptive coping strategies employed at T2 during the lockdown, but not adaptive or supportive coping partially mediate the trajectories of depression (T1) and anxiety (T1). Loneliness (T2) partially mediated the trajectory of depression and anxiety (T1), and procrastination fully mediated the impact of depression (T3) on academic performance (T4). These results help understand the mechanisms that influence mental health and academic performance outcomes in response to the COVID-19 crisis. Based on the study outcomes, educational researchers can test strategies to reduce the adverse effects of stressful situations in learning environments by targeting maladaptive coping behaviors and procrastination.
Highlights
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries have taken restrictive measures and have implemented lockdowns in an effort to contain the spread of the virus
As coping strategies have been found to vary in their usefulness and how they associate with one another depending on the context (Krägeloh, 2011), this is to the best of our knowledge the first study to assess how the pandemic has influenced their aggregation in this new context and their integration into a more comprehensive model including mental health and academic performance outcomes
In the current study we showed that maladaptive coping strategies and loneliness play a significant role in the trajectory of mental health outcomes, and how these outcomes impact on academic outcomes through the mediation of procrastination in undergraduate management students during the COVID-19 pandemic
Summary
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries have taken restrictive measures and have implemented lockdowns in an effort to contain the spread of the virus The pandemic and these restrictions have changed living conditions across countries and age groups, affecting social life and increasing mental health issues (Kumar and Nayar, 2020), which may even have caused people to experience grief over the loss of their normal lives (de Jong et al, 2020). A large longitudinal study among 157,213 Americans (Yarrington et al, 2021) tracked the mental health outcomes during 5 months, from before the stay-at-home orders, up to two and a half months (on average) after the ease of the restrictions They found a difference on the trajectories of anxiety and depression; where anxiety levels decreased, surprisingly, depression continued increasing after relaxing the stay-at-home orders. Greater insights into the different coping strategies that students apply in the context of the COVID-19 crisis and the relation between those coping strategies and students’ mental health could help mental-health care professionals to offer a more tailored support to students
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