Boredom and Students’ Academic Achievement: An Analysis of Reciprocal Causation

• In Event: Boredom in Academic Settings

Abstract

Recent progress in educational studies on emotions has begun to draw researchers’ attention to the diversity of emotions experienced by students (Linnenbrink-Garcia & Pekrun, 2011; Schutz & Lanehart, 2002; Schutz & Pekrun, 2007). However, surprisingly few of these studies have included students’ boredom. Outside academia, boredom has been shown to relate to nicotine and alcohol consumption, drug use, excessive gambling, juvenile delinquency, dissatisfaction with life, and depression. It is reasonable to assume that boredom can have similarly strong effects in academic achievement settings. Boredom is among the most frequently experienced, and potentially most devastating, affective states occurring in the classroom (Larson & Richards, 1986; Pekrun et al., 2010).

The present research focused on the links between boredom and students’ academic achievement. A few correlational findings in past research suggest that boredom is negatively related to achievement. However, tests of the underlying causal relationships are lacking. Specifically, we do not know of any single study analyzing the reciprocal linkages between these two constructs. As such, it is open to question whether boredom is in fact functionally relevant by impacting performance rather than being a mere epiphenomenon of low achievement. Based on Pekrun’s (2006) control-value theory of achievement emotions, we hypothesized that boredom has negative effects on students’ performance, and that performance in turn negatively impacts students’ boredom (i.e., success alleviates boredom, whereas failure promotes boredom by signaling over-challenge).

We tested these hypotheses in two longitudinal studies. Both studies used the course-related boredom scales of the Achievement Emotions Questionnaire (AEQ; Pekrun et al., 2011) to assess boredom. In Study 1, the links between students’ (N = 836; 57% female) boredom experienced in a university course and their test performance in the course were examined. Using structural equation modeling and controlling for students’ gender, age, and prior achievement, we found that boredom had negative effects on subsequent performance, and that performance had negative effects on subsequent boredom. In Study 2 (N = 424; 66% female), this analysis was replicated and expanded by analyzing the relationships between students’ boredom and their test performance in a university course spanning an entire academic year. Over five measurement occasions, boredom had consistently negative effects on subsequent performance, and performance had consistently negative effects on boredom. Moreover, multi-group analyses for gender showed that these negative reciprocal effects were observed for both male and female students in both studies.

Taken together, the consistency of these findings across two studies, multiple assessments, as well as genders is impressive and provides strong evidence for the hypothesized links between boredom and students’ achievement. From a theoretical perspective, the findings corroborate the reciprocal effects model of emotions and performance that is part of the control-value theory of achievement emotions (Pekrun, 2006). From a practical perspective, the findings are of considerable importance as well. Specifically, this research documents that boredom is indeed detrimental for students’ performance rather than just being an epiphenomenon of low achievement, implying that researchers, teachers, administrators, and parents alike would be well advised to pay more attention to this emotion.

Authors

• Reinhard Pekrun, University of Essex

• Nathan C. Hall, McGill University

• Raymond P. Perry, University of Manitoba