the mediating role of academic optimism in the relationship between academic self-regulation, academic self-efficacy, and academic passion in medical students exhibiting self-handicapping behaviors

Background: academic self-regulation, academic self-efficacy, and academic passion are crucial factors in medical students’ academic success. however, self-handicapping behaviors, such as procrastinating, making excuses, or setting unrealistic goals, can hinder these positive aspects of learning. this study explores how academic optimism mediates the relationships between self-regulation, self-efficacy, and passion in medical students prone to self-handicapping behaviors. methods: this research adopted a descriptive, correlational design to investigate the interrelationships between the variables in a structural equation modeling (sem) framework. the target population encompassed all undergraduate medical students with self-handicapping behaviors enrolled at jundishapur university of medical sciences in 2022. a purposive sampling strategy yielded a sample of 204 medical students who completed self-report questionnaires assessing the aforementioned constructs. sem analysis was conducted to test the hypothesized model, with bootstrapping procedures employed to evaluate indirect effects. results: academic self-regulation and optimism were directly associated with academic passion (p<0.001), while self-efficacy did not show a direct effect. both self-regulation and self-efficacy indirectly influenced passion in medical students with self-handicapping behaviors through academic optimism (p<0.01). conclusion: these findings highlight the importance of fostering not only academic self-regulation skills but also academic optimism among students with self-handicapping behaviors. interventions that promote positive academic expectations could be particularly beneficial in promoting academic passion even in the absence of a direct effect from self-efficacy.