Objective: Academic procrastination is one of the major challenges in higher education settings that can be influenced by a variety of cognitive and motivational factors, leading to negative consequences for students’ academic progress and success. The present study aimed to predict academic procrastination based on social cognition and desirable difficulty, with the mediating role of academic performance, among students of Maragheh University.

Methods: The research method was descriptive-correlational, conducted within the framework of path analysis. The statistical population consisted of all undergraduate students of Maragheh University (N = 432). According to Krejcie and Morgan’s table, a sample of 205 students was selected through multistage cluster random sampling. Data were collected using the Desirable Difficulty Questionnaire (Klapsh et al., 2017), the Academic Procrastination Questionnaire (Solomon & Rothblum, 1984), and the Social Cognition Questionnaire (Nejati, Kamari, & Jafari, 2018). Data analysis was performed using AMOS version 25 through path analysis.

Results: The findings indicated that the proposed model had a good fit. The results revealed that social cognition and desirable difficulty, through the mediating role of academic performance, were able to predict students’ academic procrastination. Moreover, social cognition, desirable difficulty, and academic performance had a direct and negative effect on academic procrastination, whereas social cognition and desirable difficulty had a direct and positive effect on academic performance.

Conclusions: Accordingly, it can be concluded that enhancing social cognition, promoting desirable difficulty, and improving academic performance can play a significant role in reducing academic procrastination among students.