Control-value appraisals and the emergence of students' boredom: An in situ perspective within lessons

Abstract

Background: Despite a growing body of research demonstrating that control and value appraisals predict students' experiences of boredom, less attention has been paid to appraisals arising from specific learning situations and their consequences for students' emotional responses. Aims: In the present study, we disentangled students' individual differences from their momentary learning experiences to examine appraisal–boredom relations, including their reciprocal effects. Methods: We analysed experience-sampling data from N = 95 secondary school students who provided repeated ratings of their comprehension, interest, and boredom during eight lessons over two consecutive curricular weeks. The data were examined using multilevel structural equation modelling with cross-lagged relations for students' momentary experiences. Results and Conclusions: We found that higher interest was consistently associated with lower boredom. In contrast, comprehension showed a more complex pattern. Boredom due to overchallenge appeared to stem from stable individual differences, whereas boredom resulting from underchallenge emerged from students' momentary comprehension. Finally, analyses of reciprocal relations revealed that boredom experienced toward the end of a lesson predicted decreases in students' subsequent comprehension and interest, highlighting the potential for downwards spirals of disengagement within the classroom context.