One glance, and any teacher knows the score: That student, halfway down the row, staring blankly at his tapping pen, fidgeting, sneaking glances at the wall clock roughly every 30 seconds, is practically screaming, 鈥淚鈥檓 bored!鈥�
While boredom is a perennial student complaint, emerging research shows it is more than students鈥� not feeling entertained, but rather a 鈥渇lavor of stress鈥� that can interfere with their ability to learn and even their health. An international group of researchers argues this month in Perspectives on Psychological Science that the experience of boredom directly connects to a student鈥檚 inability to focus attention.
鈥淚 think teachers should always try to be relevant and interesting, but beyond that, there are other places to look,鈥� said John D. Eastwood, an associate professor of psychology at York University in Toronto, Canada, and the lead author of the study. 鈥淏y definition, to be in the state of boredom is to say the world sucks out there in some way. But often that鈥檚 not the case; often it鈥檚 an interior problem, and [students] are looking in the wrong place to solve the problem.鈥�
Boredom is one of the most consistent experiences of school and one that can be frustrating and disheartening for teachers. According to findings in the High School Survey of Student Engagement, conducted by the Indiana University Bloomington, boredom is nearly universal among American students. Of a representative sample of more than 275,000 high school students surveyed in 27 states from 2006 to 2009, 65 percent reported being bored in class at least once a day.
Lack of Focus
Under Mr. Eastman and his colleagues鈥� definition, a student who is bored cannot focus attention to engage in the class activity鈥攁nd blames that inability to focus on the outside environment. A dry lecture style or an uninteresting topic might trigger boredom, Mr. Eastman said, but so can other issues that interfere with a student鈥檚 attention and working memory.
When students feel bored, research shows they are aware of their own difficulty paying attention. A student may attribute the experience to not being interested in the material or the lecture style. But new studies show that any stress or distraction that takes up working memory鈥攆rom emotional trauma to attention deficit hyperactivity disorders鈥攁ll could be contributing to the problem.
For example, students with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder are more likely to report feeling bored than students with normal attention. Students tackling material that is too difficult for them鈥攁nd thus taking up more working memory鈥攁lso are more likely to report it is 鈥渂oring鈥� rather than simply frustrating, Mr. Eastman and other researchers found.
鈥淲hen people are in a negative emotional state, discouraged, or down, we know that causes attention problems,鈥� Mr. Eastman said. 鈥淲e know when people are stressed it makes it harder to focus and pay attention at a very basic, fundamental level.鈥�
Like any type of stress, boredom hampers the prefrontal cortex, the brain area positioned just behind that student鈥檚 furrowed brow that allows a student to reason and hold different facts in working memory.
Disrupting the brain鈥檚 executive function also allows its emotional center, the amygdala, to take over, which might explain why bored students are more likely to feel tired, anxious, or depressed, and why they sometimes respond by either 鈥渁cting out or zoning out,鈥� according to Judy Willis, a neurologist and teacher educator from Santa Barbara, Calif., who was not part of the report.
In fact, boredom and other types of stress appear to feed on each other. Students who are stressed due to emotional trauma, for example, are more likely to disengage and feel bored, which adds to their stress.
Likewise, everyday stresses, like a noisy classroom, can sap students鈥� attention and contribute to their boredom.
In a separate study, Clark University psychologists Robin Damrad-Frye and James D. Laird asked students in 1989 to listen to material while a television played in the next room鈥攅ither silently, at full volume, or low enough to be heard but not noticed. Students were still distracted by the television even when played at the lowest setting, and they misinterpreted their inability to focus as boredom.
Physically, a bored student will go through cycles of higher and lower energy; he or she might fall asleep during a down period, then squirm or doodle in an attempt to 鈥渨ake up鈥� and pay attention. Teachers often try to stop the fidgeting, but a 2009 study suggests doodling can help focus attention. In that study, researchers from the University of Plymouth, England, asked adults to listen to a monotonous voice recording that identified guests coming to an event. Participants who were allowed to shade in shapes while listening were better at identifying the guests; later, they recalled 29 percent more information on a surprise memory test.
鈥楻eappraising鈥� Dull Tasks
Reducing boredom and its underlying stress can reduce misbehavior and increase focus鈥攊n both the bored child and in surrounding students, Ms. Willis said.
Effective ways to reduce boredom can be counterintuitive to students looking for a quick fix, though. 鈥淚 think if someone is bored, the worst thing you can do is respond to it by overstimulating,鈥� Mr. Eastman said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 like quicksand; if you just thrash around, you鈥檙e even more stuck.鈥�
Ulrike E. Nett, a student motivation researcher at the University of Konstanz, Germany, studied the coping strategies of 976 students in grades 5-10 who were given a mathematics problem selected to be potentially boring and difficult. Some 鈥渁voided鈥� the task, either by studying a different subject or by talking with friends. Others criticized it and asked for more interesting material or assignments. Still others 鈥渞eappraised鈥� the situation for themselves, considering ways it could be relevant to them and how to combat their own boredom.
For the student, 鈥渋t鈥檚 important to learn, when I feel bored, that鈥檚 an opportunity for me to become aware of my disengagement and address it,鈥� said Mr. Eastman, who was not part of Ms. Nett鈥檚 study.
The last group of students had higher academic achievement in the task and reported both more enjoyment and less anxiety. Moreover, Ms. Nett found that students who were able to identify and reappraise their own feelings of boredom had fewer bored episodes over time.
鈥淎lthough teachers try to create interesting lessons, they must be aware that despite their best intentions, some students may still perceive interesting lessons as boring,鈥� Ms. Nett concluded. 鈥淲hat is imperative to underscore at this point is that both teachers and students must take some responsibility for boredom, and both must be involved in finding an adequate way to reduce this emotion in their classrooms.鈥�
