<b>ONLINE SOCIAL SUPPORT, SELF-APPRAISAL STRATEGIES, COMPETITIVE ATTITUDE AND ACADEMIC PROCRASTINATION AMONG UNDERGRADUATES</b>

In socially isolated online learning environments, students often face increased academic procrastination and struggle. However, research on the underlying mechanisms of this phenomenon and support for online learners is lacking. This study integrates protection motivation theory and self-determination theory to examine the relationships between online social support, fear of failure, expectancy-value beliefs, personal development competitiveness attitude, and academic procrastination in online learning. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze a sample of 969 Chinese university students (age range 16 to 24, male = 614, female = 352, non-binary = 3). Results showed that fear of failure and expectancy-value beliefs serially mediate the association between online social support and academic procrastination. Additionally, the personal development competitiveness attitude moderates the impact of online social support on academic procrastination through fear of failure, expectancy-value beliefs, and their interaction. Overall, students with low online social support may fear academic challenges, find such challenges more threatening, underestimate their ability to overcome those challenges, and resort to procrastination. Conversely, a strong personal development competitiveness attitude can motivate students to be braver and use adaptive self-evaluation strategies to conquer fear, thus mitigating the effect of social isolation on procrastination. These findings highlight the unique nature of academic procrastination in socially isolated online learning environments and emphasize the importance of both situation and motivation. They provide insights for developing effective strategies to address procrastination in online learning.