Bored to Be Wild: How Boredom Is Related to Pre-Service Teachers’ Intention to Persist in Their Studies

Abstract

Boredom is an emotion that often arises in an educational context. Past research suggests that boredom depends on specific cognitive appraisals, such as how people can control the task and how much they value it. Research further suggests that boredom is related to negative academic outcomes such as lower grades and a higher risk of dropping out. Here, we tested a mediation model on 324 pre-service teachers during the first lockdown of 2020 in Switzerland to assess (1) how control and value predicted boredom, and (2) how boredom was related to the intention to persist at university. We hypothesized that (1) the more participants felt lacking in control and low in value, the higher their boredom and (2) the more intense their boredom, the lower their intention to persist. We further hypothesized that both control and value would be positively related to the intention to persist, and this link may be mediated by boredom. Our results provide partial support for our mediation model as we found a significant indirect link between control and intention to persist through boredom. More specifically, the more participants lost control over their studies, the more they felt bored, which in turn was negatively related to their intention to persist.

Bored of sports? Investigating the interactive role of engagement and value as predictors of boredom in athletic training.

“…Indeed, boredom has emerged as a powerful motivator for human (and even nonhuman) behavior. For example, boredom has been linked to engaging in sadistic behavior (Pfattheicher et al, 2021), infringing on guidelines during a pandemic (Wolff et al, 2020), self-administering electric shocks (Wilson et al, 2014), and participating in maladaptive academic behavior (Audrin & Hascoët, 2021). Current models explain when and why boredom might occur and integrate the important distinction between boredom as a transient cognitive–affective experience and boredom proneness as a relatively stable individual disposition.…”

Bored of sports? Investigating the interactive role of engagement and value as predictors of boredom in athletic training

“…Indeed, boredom has emerged as a powerful motivator for human (and even non-human) behavior. For example, boredom has been linked to engaging in sadistic behavior (Pfattheicher et al, 2021), infringing on guidelines during a pandemic , self-administering electric shocks (Wilson et al, 2014), and participating in maladaptive academic behavior (Audrin & Hascoët, 2021). Current models explain when and why boredom might occur and integrate the important distinction between boredom as a transient cognitive-affective experience and boredom proneness as a relatively stable individual disposition.…”