Students are regarded as the major components of manpower, with a key role in the development of every country. Given the significant role of students in developing societies, naturally studying the effective factors in the growth of psychological needs and providing psychological and physical health care for this group of individuals is crucial (Trammell et al., 2021; Beckstein et al., 2021). The concept of life satisfaction has devoted a great deal of attention. It is a key indicator and cognitive component of mental wellbeing and health, which allows individuals to measure their judgment about life. Usually, individuals assess their personal life situations with respect to a set of unique criteria. By making a comparison between the past and present, it can be found that despite the fact that trying to survive was the key challenge of mental wellbeing and health in the past, now paying attention to life satisfaction is another significant challenge of mental health (Eghbali and Azimi, 2022). As one of the inner wellbeing components, life satisfaction includes individual attitude, her/his general assessment of her/his personal life as a whole, or a number of life dimensions like educational exp-erience and family life (Shams al-Dini et al., 2021; Osmani et al., 2020). Life satisfaction has been reported to be low among students, so that 62.7% of respondents had moderate life satisfaction, and just 37.2%  had high-level life satisfaction (Motevaliyan et al., 2019; Hussen et al., 2023). 

According to the literature, some factors may affect the life satisfaction of students, including academic structures, performance, and procrastination. The majority of students have trouble with academic procrastination, which is a usual phenomenon in academic environments so that approximately 40-95% of academic environments deal with it (Gharaviri et al., 2022; Karimi et al., 2022). The decision-making styles are also another factor that may affect life satisfaction. This factor is defined as a process in which a person chooses the best alternative from several options in following a certain purpose. In other words, it can be referred to as a learned and habitual pattern individuals use for making decisions under different conditions. Thus, it may be inferred that individuals benefit from effective or ineffective decision-making styles with respect to a variety of conditions. In an effective decision-making style, a person wants to identify all accessible options and solutions and begins to assess the results and comp-letely analyze the existing information to achieve thoughtful and logical solutions (Goudarzi et al., 2018). In ineffective decision-making styles, a person makes emotional decisions without prior planning and thinking only with respect to others opinions and thoughts and attempts to stay away from the situations ahead by escaping and putting back their respon-sibilities (Esmaeil Beigi, 2022). Scott and Bruce identified five decision-making styles in this regard: rational, intuitive, dependent, avoidant, and spontane-ous. For example, the dependent decision-making style is characterized by the decision-makers intellectual independence and search for guidance and support from others when making crucial decisions. The avoidant decision-making style is characterized by a tendency to postpone decision-making whenever pos-sible and to make last-minute decisions. To avoid making important decisions until the pressure is on is typical for the avoidant style, possibly because think-ing about them leads to feelings of uneasiness. In other words, in the avoidant decision-making style, the person denies the necessity of making decisions or hopes that all the required conditions for making decisions will be provided spontaneously or resort to the procrastinating decision-making technique (Raziei et al., 2022; Uddin et al., 2022).

Consequently, individuals must apply the correct and rational decision-making style to affect their surround-dings best; otherwise, they will be confused, nega-tively affecting their lives. Given the fact that the students are acknowledged as future makers in any society, paying attention to their mental wellbeing and health significantly affects the mental wellbeing and health of the whole society, as the higher the mental wellbeing and health of individuals, the better their thinking and mental ability (Zandi et al., 2019). Accordingly, the present study attempts to explain the role of academic procrastination and decision-making styles in predicting life satisfaction.

Society, Sample, and Sampling

The research design was of descriptive-cross-sectional correlational type. The statistical population included all female students studying for the masters degree in Karaj; out of them, 114 students were selected as subjects using a sampling technique and sample size determination formula (N ≥ 50+8m). According to ethical principles, the students were provided with a brief and comprehensive explanation of the research objectives, and then they volunteered to complete the questionnaires. The participants were assured that they would not be asked for personal or family information and may discontinue participating in the study at any point if they did not want to. The following ques-tionnaires were used for data collection: A- The Satisfaction With Life Scale (Diener et al., 1989): this self-report questionnaire was developed to measure the judgmental component of subjective wellbeing for all age groups. This questionnaire uses a seven-point Likert scale with 1 being ‘strongly disagree to 7 being strongly agree. The questionnaire included 48 questions at first, but following factor analysis, that number was lowered to 10. Finally, there were only five questions left because of semantic overlap. Diener et al. (1989) reported a reliability of 0.79 for this questionnaire using Cronbachs alpha coefficient. The Satisfaction With Life Scale has correlations of 0.73 and 0.67 with the Oxford Happiness Inventory (OHI) and Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), respectively. In another work by Diener et al. (2003), the reliability of the Satisfaction With Life Scale was calculated to be 0.87 with a test-retest reliability of 0.82 after two months of implementation. In another study, the reliability of the questionnaire using Cronbachs alpha coefficient was reported to be 0.85 (Brunes et al.,  2019). Also, the reliability of the questionnaire using Cronbachs alpha coefficient and its discri-minant validity with the Bell Adjustment Inventory (1960) were reported to be 0.89 and 0.69 (Jalali, Aghaei, & Shamsipour). The reliability of the ques-tionnaire was calculated using Cronbachs alpha coefficient to be 0.78 (Mazloumzadeh et al., 2021). This study estimated the reliability of the question-naire using Cronbachs alpha coefficient to be 0.79.  

B- Procrastination Assessment Scale for Students (Solomon & Rothblum, 1984) this self-report ques-tionnaire was developed to assess the prevalence and reasons for academic procrastination. This question-naire includes 27 questions, 21 of which relate to three subscales, including homework preparation, exam preparation, and preparing end-of-semester reports. The next six questions assess the two features of being upset about procrastinating and wanting to change this behavior. This questionnaire uses a five-point Likert scale, with 1 being ‘never to 5 being ‘always (Niko-okar et al., 2021). Solomon and Rothblum, (1984) reported a reliability of 0.64 for this questionnaire using Cronbachs alpha coefficient with a validity of 0.84 using internal consistency. Jokar and Delavar-pour, (2007) achieved the reliability and validity for this questionnaire to be 0.91 and 0.81, respectively (Nikookar et al., 2021). In another study, the reliability of this questionnaire using Cronbachs alpha coeffi-cient was reported to be 0.71 at the level of academic procrastination score. This study estimated the reliability of the whole questionnaire using Cronbachs alpha coefficient to be 0.79 and its subscales ranging from 0.71 to 0.75. P- General Decision-Making Styles Questionnaire (Scott & Bruce, 1995): this self-report questionnaire was developed to assess five decision-making styles: rational, intuitive, dependent, avoidant, and spontaneous, with 25 questions. This question-naire uses a five-point Likert scale with 1 being ‘strongly disagree to 5 being ‘strongly agree. Scott and Bruce, (1995) examined the validity of this five-factor questionnaire using the statistical explo-ratory factor analysis technique. In total, these factors (rational, intuitive, dependent, avoidant, and sponta-neous) accounted for 51% of the variance, and the internal consistency reliability per subscale was estimated using Cronbachs alpha coefficient between 0.70 and 0.78. In a study, the reliability of this ques-tionnaire for five factors (decision-making styles) was estimated using Cronbachs alpha coefficient between 0.68 and 0.75 (Henåker, 2022). In another work, the validity and reliability of this five-factor questionnaire were reported to be 0.84 and 0.72, respectively (Attyat et al., 2022). Also, the validity of the five-factor questionnaire was examined using a confirmatory factor analysis procedure, and its five-factor cons-truction was confirmed (Raziei et al., 2021). They estimated the internal consistency reliability for all five factors using Cronbachs alpha coefficient between 0.73 and 0.79. In another work, the reliability of this five-factor questionnaire was estimated using Cronbachs alpha coefficient between 0.69 and 0.74 (Saadati Shamir & Changizi, 2018). The reliability of this five-factor questionnaire was calculated using Cronbachs alpha coefficient for intuitive decision-making style to be 0.71, dependent decision-making style to be 0.74, rational decision-making style to be 0.72, avoidant decision-making style to be 0.74, and spontaneous decision-making style to be 0.77 (Salimi et al.,). The present work estimated the reliability of this five-factor questionnaire using Cronbachs alpha coefficient for avoidant decision-making style to be 0.69, dependent decision-making style to be 0.70, intuitive decision-making style to be 0.70, rational decision-making style to be 0.72, and spontaneous decision-making style to be 0.73. Data analysis was performed using descriptive statistics, Pearson corre-lation coefficient (r), stepwise multivariate regression, considering the regression assumptions (e.g., Kolmo-gorov-Smirnov test, Durbin-Watson test, variance inflation factor, and variance tolerance factor) using SPSS-V26 by setting p-value at 0.05.

According to demographic information, the subjects were divided into two age groups: 70% (79 subjects) fall into the age range of 28-32 years, and 30% (35 subjects) fall into the age range of 33 years and older. Besides, 59% (67 subjects) were single, and 41% (47 subjects) were married, with 57% (65 subjects) as 

employed (self-employed/government job) and 43% 

(49 subjects) as unemployed/students. The descriptive statistics of variables in research and corresponding elements were given in Table 1. As shown in the table, the maximum (22.13) and minimum (19.46) scores relate to homework preparation and exam preparation, respectively.

Table 1: Mean and standard deviation of variables in research in female students.

The results from the one-sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov test were given in Table 2. As shown in the table, there is a normal score distribution for variables in research (p-value < 0.05). Further, according to the results from the skewness and kurtosis test for the normal score distribution, the value for skewness and kurtosis of variables in research is between 2 and -2. Thus, the distribution of all variables in research is normal. The independence of errors was examined using the Durbin-Watson test. The Durbin-Watson statistics were achieved between 1.5 and 2.5, indicating the absence of correlation between errors. 

The variance inflation and tolerance factors were estimated to examine the non-multicollinearity. There is a strong multicollinearity when the tolerance factor approaches zero, and the standard deviation of regres-sion coefficients tends to be large. Based on the values of the variance inflation factor, the indices are only close to 10, which indicates that there is no trouble in using linear regression. Hence, considering the absence of multicollinearity in predictor variables, it is possible to use the parametric tests of multivariate regression and Pearson correlation coefficient, which give reliable results.

Table 2: The results from Kolmogorov-Smirnov and skewness and kurtosis tests for the normality of the score distribution.

As shown in below Table 3, variables can signi-ficantly predict life satisfaction in subjects in four steps using a stepwise multivariate regression formula (p-value < 0.05). 

Table 3: Summary of the regression model of life satisfaction with respect to academic procrastination and decision-making styles.

In the first step, 10.7% of the changes in the life satisfaction of subjects can be clarified by academic procrastination (R2=0.107). In the second step, 26.3% of the changes in the life satisfaction of subjects can be clarified by academic procrastination and spontaneous decision-making style (R2=0.262204). In the third step, 31.5% of the changes in the life satisfaction of subjects can be clarified by academic procrastination and spontaneous and avoidant decision-making styles (R2=0.315). Finally, in the fourth step, 37.5% of the changes in the life satisfaction of subjects can be clari-fied by academic procrastination, spontaneous, avoi-dant, and rational decision-making styles (R2= 0.375). Here, intuitive and dependent decision-making styles were not considered in predicting life satisfaction.

Table 4: The results from one-way analysis of variance of life satisfaction regression with respect to academic procrastination and decision-making style.

As shown in Table 4, the F-statistics from model 1 to model 4 are133/791, 102/869, 136/034, and 106/959, respectively, which are statistically significant for α < 0.05 and demonstrate that three spontaneous, avoidant and rational decision-making styles and academic procrastination can predict well the changes in the degree of life satisfaction among subjects, indicating the usefulness of the suggested regression model. The multivariate regression coefficients of the life satis-faction measure of subjects with respect to predictor variables of three spontaneous, avoidant, and rational decision-making styles and academic procras-tination were given in Table 5.

Table 5: Multivariate regression coefficients of life satisfaction with respect to predictor variables.

As shown in Table 5, the multivariate regression coefficients of predictor variables demonstrate that three spontaneous, avoidant, and rational styles and academic procrastination can predict statistically significant changes in the degree of life satisfaction among subjects. Based on the results achieved in the fourth step, the rational decision-making style is more crucial than other variables in Table 5. The weight factor of the rational style (B=0.176, t=11.068, P<0.001) indicates that the rational style, together with other study variables, can predict life satisfaction among subjects with 99% confidence. The beta-weight (β) of the rational style will be 0.412 if the study sample is generalized to the population.

This study aimed to predict life satisfaction with respect to academic procrastination and decision-making styles among female students. A significant and negative relationship was observed between life satisfaction and academic procrastination in female students so that academic procrastination accounts for 11.2% of changes in life satisfaction among female students. Our results agree with those reported by (Chapan, 2011; Okal and Kubilai, 2016; Tamnnaifar and Mansouri Nik, 2014; Hatefnia et al., 2019). Academic procrastination is recognized as a bad behavioral habit that a large number of students deal with in their academic performance. It is specified by exam preparation, attending class sessions, and doing homework. Academic procrastination is one of the usual challenges among students so that according to research, the prevalence of problematic academic procrastination among students is relatively high. Students with academic procrastination experience severe anxiety and stress during the exam because they put back exam preparation until the exam night, which in turn will impose more psychological and emotional pressures on students in the future, which will gradually and with the passage of time cause a feeling of low competency and efficiency, excessive emo-tional fatigue, a feeling of academic failure, and ultimately life dissatisfaction. Academic procras-tination affects students self-esteem and is associated with high-level anxiety and depression. Students who put back their crucial and pre-planned tasks to another time without any rational reason experience psycho-logical problems, including low self-esteem, anxiety, guilt, depression, academic outcomes like low scores in educational courses, losing the deadline for a certain task, periodic opting out, cheating, and psychological pressures, leading to significant failures at school, university, home, or relationships. Another study found that decision-making styles account for 11.2% of changes in life satisfaction among female students. Our finding agrees with those reported by some researchers, for example, (Sari 2022; Javier et al., 2021; Moyano-Diaz, 2021; Khansari and Nilforo-ushan, 2020).

Clearly, decisions and decision-making are the foun-dation of actions and interactions, and the actions of all human beings, especially students, are correlated with decision-making, and this is why it can be said that there is a close relationship between happiness and life satisfaction. This can be considered a turning point from which the directions and next stages of scientific, social, and personal works and activities will practically begin. It is noteworthy that taking advantage of capabilities, creativities, skills, know-ledge, coherent vision, special intelligence, and talents is necessary to make effective decisions in the current complicated and challenging world. If the role of specialized factors and individuals perceptions are considered, the decision-making process can be guided in such a way that by applying effectiveness factors, it is possible to achieve favorable outcomes through strategic decisions, and necessary preparations should be made for unfavorable outcomes. The quality of schemes and programs, the effectiveness and effici-ency of strategies, and the quality of the results from their application all depend on the quality of the decisions made by a person. The rational decision-making style is defined in such a way that a person always makes the best possible decisions that maximize the possibility of achieving his objectives. 

The rational decision-making style has a positive relationship with life satisfaction. In this style, the person is aware of all the solutions and knows what result each decision leads to. They can prioritize and categorize decision-making outcomes according to their benefits to maximize achieving objectives by employing an optimal strategy. Therefore, individuals in this style determine and evaluate all possible solutions and choose the best solution by determining the outcomes of each one. Thus, such a person experi-ences a more successful personal and academic life and, subsequently, high life satisfaction. Since such a person searched for information before taking action, included many factors in his/her decision, and made a deliberate and purposeful decision, even if he/she did not achieve the desired results, her/his life satisfaction does not reduce because he/she did not act hastily. Also, Parker et al. believe that the dependent decision-making style shows the intellectual and practical dependency of the decision-makers and the search for guidance and support from others when making important decisions. The opinions of others play a key role in this decision-making type. Thus, in this style, the decision maker appeals to the opinions of others when making a decision, and the person himself has a passive role. Accordingly, it is not unlikely that such a person, even despite achieving desirable results, still cannot feel efficiency and satisfaction because he/she interprets success as external documents and sees herself/himself passive in achieving the results, then her/his life satisfaction is affected by judgment and behavior of others. However, the spontaneous decision -making style indicates that individuals make their important decisions under emergency conditions in the shortest possible time without previous intellectual support. In this style, a person makes decisions based on her/his experience and information, so using this style does not mean making crude and immature decisions. Hence, it can be claimed that since the person makes important decisions hastily along with inefficient information processing, he/she always experiences life dissatisfaction. Since this group of individuals have negative emotional and behavioral experiences, their life satisfaction also reduces under the influence of their emotions and moods. Also, Parker et al. believe that the avoidant decision-making style represents a person who puts back decision-making when facing difficulty and escaping the response to the problems occurred. In this style, the decision maker wants to escape making any decision and stay away from the decision-making situations as much as possible, in such a way that it may be argued that individuals are afraid of making decisions and are worried about their decision outcomes. It is evident that when a person makes decisions and acts obsessively with fear, the probability of making a wrong choice increases. According to a large number of cognitive-behavior approaches, acceptance and commitment problems, and anxiety and mood dis-orders increase in such people, and they always apply ineffective emotional and avoidant strategies to solve the problem, leading to an increase in undesirable experiences and, as a result, life dissatisfaction. The present research relates to the population of female students; thus, generalization of the results of the present study to other students, including students studying for bachelors degrees and doctoral degrees, as well as male students and school students, is limited. The research information was collected from individuals using three questionnaires, which may be associated with research bias, for example, subjects answers higher or lower than the actual situation. The research design was of descriptive-cross-sectional correlational type, so results should not be interpreted and concluded as a cause and effect, as in experi-mental research. It is recommended to perform similar studies on other groups of students (both university and school students). To avoid biases due to the nature of the data, in addition to self-reported data, data obtained from the evaluation of clinical experts, observations, and interviews should also be used. Further, it is also recommended to use other research methods than a descriptive-cross-sectional correla-tional type like causal-comparative research and quasi-experiment research (pretest-posttest design with a control group) in the future. Researchers can use our results for a more compre-hensive study of the study samples, and they can be applied to educational planning. Since the study statis-tical population included female students studying for the masters degree in District 7, Karaj, academic officials can use the results of this study to improve students life satisfaction and increase awareness about decision-making styles by holding educational workshops to prevent academic procrastination.

We are grateful to all the dear professors for providing their information regarding this research.

No conflicts of interest.