Teacher professional procrastination as a well-being and self-regulation challenge: development and validation of the Arabic teacher professional procrastination scale

$\textbf{Background/objective}$
Educator well-being and resilience are increasingly recognized as critical for sustainable teaching and professional effectiveness. Professional procrastination may undermine teachers' occupational functioning through difficulties in self-regulation, emotional coping, and motivation. This study aimed to develop and validate the Arabic Teacher Professional Procrastination Scale (TPPS) and examine its associations with factors relevant to educator well-being and resilience.

$\textbf{Methods}$
A cross-sectional study was conducted among 1375 Tunisian middle- and high-school teachers (mean age = 44.84 ± 6.78 years). The sample was randomly divided for exploratory factor analysis (n = 688) and confirmatory factor analysis (n = 687). Reliability, validity, measurement invariance, and temporal stability were assessed.

$\textbf{Results}$
Exploratory analyses supported a five-factor structure comprising instructional procrastination, professional self-regulation, emotional avoidance, professional motivation, and psychological consequences, explaining 83.76% of total variance. Confirmatory factor analysis demonstrated excellent model fit (CFI = 0.987, TLI = 0.985, RMSEA = 0.033). ... mehrThe TPPS showed excellent reliability (α = 0.95; ω = 0.96). Professional procrastination was positively associated with neuroticism, perfectionism, fear of failure, and dysfunctional decision-making, and negatively associated with conscientiousness, psychological resources, and time structure.

$\textbf{Conclusions}$ The Arabic TPPS is a valid and reliable instrument for assessing teacher professional procrastination. Findings highlight professional procrastination as a multidimensional challenge linked to educator well-being, self-regulation, and resilience-related resources.