Assessment of Parental Phubbing and Adolescent Academic Procrastination: A Descriptive Survey of Secondary School Parents

Resumen

Adolescent academic procrastination remains a persistent concern in Nigerian secondary schools, yet most explanations focus on school-level or student-level factors while overlooking parents' own smartphone behaviour in the home. This study assessed parental phubbing and perceived adolescent academic procrastination among 100 parents of secondary school students Uyo Local Government Area, Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria, using a cross-sectional descriptive survey design. A structured questionnaire adapted from the Parental Phubbing Scale and the Academic Procrastination Scale was administered to parents selected through multi-stage stratified and convenience sampling across five public and five private schools. Results showed a moderate overall level of parental phubbing (M = 2.80, SD = 0.78) and moderate perceived procrastination (M = 2.34, SD = 0.49). Parental phubbing did not differ significantly by educational qualification, F(4, 95) = 1.82, p = .131, but differed significantly by average daily phone-use hours, F(3, 96) = 52.91, p < .001. Perceived procrastination did not differ significantly by school type, t(98) = -1.77, p = .080. Findings support technoference-based explanations of family-level contributors to adolescent procrastination and suggest that parental screen-time regulation may be a worthwhile target for home-based interventions.