What to do when feeling bored? : Students' strategies for coping with boredom

The goal of this study was to explore different strategies for coping with boredom. A questionnaire was developed targeting two dimensions of coping. namely approach versus avoidance oriented coping and cogn itive versus behavioral oriented coping. First. based on the responses of976 students (51 % fema le) from grades 5 to 10. the structure of the coping with boredom scales was verified by confirmatOlY factor ana lysis. In a second step. 3 different boredom coping groups were identified by latent profile analysis. These three groups were named Reappraisers. Criticizers, and Evaders. Third. differences between these groups concern ing their frequency of experienci ng boredom, their academic achievement, and other emotiona l, motivational, and cognitive aspects of academic ach ievement situations were analyzed. Relative to the other 2 groups, Reappraisers preferred cognitive approach strategies, were less frequently bored, and experienced the most positive pattern of emotional, motivational, and cognitive outcomes. Finally, methodological and educational implications and directions for future research are discussed.1. What to do when feeling bored? Students' strategies for coping with boredom "Most people pray only out of boredom; others fall in love out of boredom, still others are virtuous or depraved ... ". This is what Georg Buechner's (1835/2004, p. 61) 'Lenz' concl udes to answer the question "What to do when feeling bored?" Although this description is from a very different time and context, it may still accurately describe the behavior of many bored students in our schools today. Some of them just hope that the lesson will end quickly, others chat and flirt with their classmates, others fight the boredom and try to be compliant to the teacher and attend to the lesson, and finally others interrupt the lesson and bother the teacher and their classmates. These examples highlight what each of us knows from our own experience: There are many ways to cope with boredom in the classroom. However, little systematic research has examined how strategies to cope with boredom are structured and classified (Vodanovich, 2003b). Other questions also remain unex plored including: Which strategies are most and least adaptive in terms of coping with classroom boredom? Do some strategies allow stude nts to stay engaged and learn something despite their boredom? The goal of the present study was to contribute to systematic theory driven development and evaluation of scales that assess different strategies that students use to cope with boredom in the classroom. Additionally, …