Students' level of boredom,boredom coping strategies,epistemic curiosity,and graded performance

The authors examined the relationships among students' levels of boredom, boredom coping strategies, epistemic curiosity, and graded performance regarding mathematics lessons, with the intention to explore the mediating roles of boredom coping strategies and epistemic curiosity in the relationship between the level of boredom and graded performance. A total of 557 students from a small city located in the Western Black Sea region of Turkey voluntarily participated in the study. Of them, 211 enrolled in an Anatolian high school and 346 enrolled in a science high school. Results showed that the level of boredom, boredom coping strategies, epistemic curiosity, and graded performance were significantly related to each other. Results also showed that deprivation-type epistemic curiosity and interest-type epistemic curiosity played significant mediating roles in the relationship between the level of boredom and graded performance. Notably, the mediating roles of interest-type epistemic curiosity and deprivation-type epistemic curiosity differed across gender groups.     

Academic self-concept and emotion relations: Domain specificity and age effects

The present study investigated the relations between academic self-concepts and the emotions of enjoyment, pride, anxiety, anger, and boredom as experienced in mathematics, physics, German, and English classes (N = 1710; grades 8 and 11). In line with our hypotheses derived from appraisal-based emotion theories and self-efficacy research, within-domain relations between self-concepts and emotions were relatively strong and notably stronger within quantitative domains (mathematics and physics) than verbal domains (German and English). Also consistent with our hypotheses, stronger relations between self-concepts and emotions were observed among older students. Self-concept and emotion relations further differed as a function of the specific emotion assessed, with pride showing the strongest and boredom the weakest relations with academic self-concepts in the four domains assessed. Methodological and educational implications as well as directions for future research are discussed.     

The power of emotions: Can enjoyment and boredom explain the impact of individual preconditions and teaching methods on interest and performance in mathematics?

We investigated students’ emotions as intervening variables between teaching methods, motivational and performance prerequisites, and outcomes. 144 students from German schools were assigned to two conditions. In one condition, students were prompted to develop multiple solutions for modelling problems that were missing information. In the other condition, students had to find one solution for modelling problems that were not missing information. Students’ interest and performance were measured before and after the 5-lesson teaching unit, and students’ enjoyment and boredom were measured during the teaching unit. The path analyses revealed: (1) Students who developed more solutions enjoyed their mathematics lessons more and were less bored than students in the other condition; (2) Enjoyment affected students’ interest and performance at posttest and mediated the effects of prompting them to find multiple solutions on interest at posttest; (3) Students’ enjoyment during learning mediated the effects of prior interest on interest at posttest.     

Students’ emotions of enjoyment and boredom and their use of cognitive learning strategies – How do they affect one another?

To better understand the relationship between enjoyment and boredom and students' use of cognitive learning strategies, we analyzed both directions of effects between these constructs as described in the control-value theory of achievement emotions (Pekrun, 2006; 2018). Our study used a sequential design in which students' (N = 338 4th grade students) effective use of cognitive learning strategies was measured in real learning situations, allowing insights into the temporal order of effects and discrimination between intra- and interindividual effects (N = 8020 assessments within students). An increased intraindividual level of enjoyment positively predicted subsequent effective use of learning strategies, whereas effective use of learning strategies did not predict students’ subsequent enjoyment on the intraindividual level. Interindividual differences in enjoyment and effective use of cognitive learning strategies were unrelated, whereas negative relations were found for boredom and effective strategy use. On the intraindividual level, boredom and effective strategy use were unrelated.     

The development of achievement emotions and coping/emotion regulation from primary to secondary school

This study reports on the development of achievement emotions and coping/emotion regulation in primary to secondary school-aged children and adolescents. Based on two longitudinal cohorts (Grades 2–5; Grades 4–7), latent growth models were used to analyze the development of achievement emotions and coping strategies separately as well as simultaneously. The results show that enjoyment decreases across grades, whereas boredom increases, with substantial changes between Grade 5 and Grade 7. Consistently, the development of enjoyment is positively associated with the development of problem-focused coping and palliative emotion regulation, whereas the development of boredom is positively associated with the development of avoidant coping and anger-related emotion regulation. Moreover, the relation between problem-focused coping and boredom, as well as between avoidant coping and enjoyment, depends on the age group. The results are discussed regarding the organization of learning environments in classes to prevent unfavorable developmental patterns of achievement emotions.     

Exploring the antecedents of boredom: Do teachers know why students are bored?

In the current study, researchers explored if teachers can identify antecedents of students' boredom. First, an open-ended questionnaire was administered to 111 9th-grade students to explore their self-reported causes of boredom. Next, semi-structured interviews with 117 9th-grade teachers were used to examine the factors that teachers think make their students bored. Also, quantitative questions gauged teachers' agreement with students' responses. Our results revealed a high congruency as teachers identified most of the antecedents of boredom named by students. One notable incongruity, however, was that teachers did not mention themselves as antecedents of boredom unless they were explicitly asked about it.     

A sequence of learning processes in an intelligent tutoring system from topic-related appraisals to learning gains

Although intelligent tutoring systems (ITSs) are increasingly used, it is unclear which psychological processes precede students' learning gains. Using a pre- and posttest design, the present study examined a sequence of psychological processes informed by control value theory. We investigated (a) whether secondary school students' topic-related cognitive appraisals (value and control) affected their task-related affective (enjoyment and boredom) and cognitive (engagement and performance) outcomes while using the ITS and (b) whether task-related outcomes affected learning. Path analyses showed that students’ topic-related interest, but not perceived utility, personal importance or self-efficacy, was associated with task-related enjoyment. In turn, enjoyment showed reciprocal effects on and of engagement and ongoing task performance, which predicted final performance and, ultimately, learning gains. The influence of boredom, in contrast, was minimal along this sequence. More generally, the findings highlight the difficulty of establishing a clear pattern of sequential causation derived from control value theory for the current ITS context, with evidence demonstrating the systematic influence of confounders accounting for the predicted relations among components. Despite these limitations, we identified key psychological processes involving the contribution of affective and cognitive processes to learning in the ITS context.     

Measuring emotions in students’ learning and performance: The Achievement Emotions Questionnaire (AEQ)

Aside from test anxiety scales, measurement instruments assessing students’ achievement emotions are largely lacking. This article reports on the construction, reliability, internal validity, and external validity of the Achievement Emotions Questionnaire (AEQ) which is designed to assess various achievement emotions experienced by students in academic settings. The instrument contains 24 scales measuring enjoyment, hope, pride, relief, anger, anxiety, shame, hopelessness, and boredom during class, while studying, and when taking tests and exams. Scale construction used a rational-empirical strategy based on Pekrun’s (2006) control-value theory of achievement emotions and prior exploratory research. The instrument was tested in a study using a sample of university students (N = 389). Findings indicate that the scales are reliable, internally valid as demonstrated by confirmatory factor analysis, and externally valid in terms of relationships with students’ control-value appraisals, learning, and academic performance. The results provide further support for the control-value theory and help to elucidate the structure and role of emotions in educational settings. Directions for future research and implications for educational practice are discussed.     

Nothing to See or Fear: Light War and the Boring Visual Rhetoric of U.S. Drone Imagery

This essay theorizes a transformation in twenty-first-century war rhetoric in which obstructions in public sensation insulate war from opposition. In contrast to overt persuasive appeals for the mass mobilization of society characteristic of “total war,” “light war” is a mode of violence that operates more freely by placing fewer demands on public reception, participation, and approval. Through an analysis of U.S. drone imagery between 2008 and 2011, I argue that light war cultivates social acquiescence to violence through boring visual rhetoric that subverts the capacity to sense the material consequences of war. In the process of theorizing the anesthetizing force of boring rhetoric, this essay assesses the prospects of peace and outlines future directions for rhetorical scholarship in a post-9/11 landscape.     

Coping with boredom in school: An experience sampling perspective

The present study explored students’ use of boredom-related coping strategies at trait and state levels. Two trait-based dimensions of coping relevant to boredom were considered, namely approach - versus avoidance-oriented and cognitively - versus behaviorally-oriented coping strategies. The two dimensions were assessed in a self-report questionnaire administered to 537 grade 11 students (55.3% female, M_age = 17.15 years). Additionally, 79 of these participants completed state-based boredom-related coping measures over a 2-week period using an experience sampling method. Analyses of the trait measures suggested that two contrasting, broad approaches characterized participants’ strategies for coping with boredom, namely a cognitive-approach orientation and a behavioral-avoidance orientation. In both the trait- and state-based analyses, the cognitive-approach orientation was associated with lower levels of boredom. Implications for interventions promoting the use of cognitive-approach strategies for dealing with boredom in the classroom are discussed.