The Relationship between Internet Use and Academic Procrastination of EFL Learners across Years of Study

The present study aimed at exploring the relationship between Internet use and academic procrastination of a group of EFL learners across years of study (freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors). The study was conducted in two phases. First, a pilot study was conducted among 30 representative university students in order to check the reliability and validity of the main instrument utilized, i.e. a questionnaire. After that, the piloted questionnaire was distributed among 380 undergraduates studying at the University of Guilan, Kharazmi University, and Ferdowsi University. Results of Spearman Rank Order Test at the .01 level of significance revealed a medium positive relationship (rho= +.47) between Internet use and academic procrastination of the participating students. Furthermore, the results of Kruskal Wallis Test at the significance level of .05 indicated that there is a significant difference in both Internet use (sig=.029, p≤ .05) and academic procrastination (sig=.007, p≤ .05) of learners across different years of study, with freshmen being the pioneer in this respect. However, the results of another Kruskal Wallis Test run on data concerning areas of academic procrastination did not reveal any statistically significant difference among learners across years of study. The implications of the findings for EFL instructors and learners are discussed