Academic boredom and the perceived course experiences of final year Education Studies students at university

Abstract

This work explores the relationships between academic boredom and the perceived course experiences of 179 final year Education Studies students attending a single university in England. Adopting a mixed-methods design, with data collection employing a combination of questionnaires and individual research interviews, findings suggest that all participants exhibited some measurable disposition towards academic boredom with traditional lectures and work leading to the completion of assignments the main sites and triggers for the actual onset of academic boredom itself. Amid overwhelmingly encouraging responses from course expectations to course demands, reflecting the successful promotion of deep ways of working, as well as a clear sense of satisfaction with their teaching and learning environment overall, cluster analysis reveals the presence of five structurally related groups of students with profiles which help identify those typically more engaged and effective learners from others. Path analysis reveals a series of complex inter-connections with academic boredom emerging as a strong and direct predictor of surface ways and organised effort as well as contributing indirectly towards degree outcome as a whole. The implications for boredom mitigation are considered.

Investigating the impact of status and context on workplace incivility.

“…In contrast, our findings suggests that where attendance is required (tutorial), boredom or perception of tutorial activities as unimportant could lead to other incivilities such as a lack of preparation and obvious indications of boredom (e.g. doodling, checking phone; Sharp et al, 2019).…”

“…Our qualitative data indicates boredom was an important causal factor across both contexts. Academic boredom has been shown to have an adverse impact on student motivation, engagement and learning (Sharp, Hemmings, Kay & Sharp, 2019), we build on this to suggest that boredom can also lead to student incivility. Boredom was linked to the perception that lectures were unimportant, a finding mirrored by Moore, Armstrong and Pearson (2008) who reported that students did not appear to feel an obligation to attend lectures.…”

Academic boredom, engagement and the achievement of undergraduate students at university: a review and synthesis of relevant literature

“…Individual research interviews undertaken later complemented and informed the quantitative findings. Summarising from within the last reported phase (Sharp et al, 2017b), almost all 179 participants involved (mean age 24.4 years) displayed some propensity towards academic boredom with lower levels of engagement reported in traditional lectures than in other forms of delivery (58.6% half of the time or less). In addition to a perceived excess and inappropriate use of PowerPoint, other factors triggering the actual onset of academic boredom itself included the personal attributes and qualities of the lecturer, the relevance of lecture material presented, coherency and pace, a lack of studenttutor interaction, student behaviour and the lecture-theatre environment.…”

Do reading boredom and reading boredom coping strategies predict reading comprehension performance? An empirical investigation of Saudi EFL learners

“…The concept of boredom has been studied in several fields including education (Sharp et al, 2019), psychology (Westgate & Wilson, 2018), language learning (Zawodniak, Kruk, & Chumas, 2017), and thus been conceptualized as an academic boredom (Acee et al, 2010), relational boredom (Harasymchuk & Fehr, 2010), and workplace boredom (Fisher, 1993). Due to the keen interest in the concept of boredom, researchers presented various definitions.…”