The Relationship Between Academic Trait Boredom, Learning Approach and University Achievement

Abstract

This study explored factors that influence academic achievement and hence, future career prospects. The relationships between the factors, academic trait boredom, approach to learning and academic achievement were examined using data collected from university students at a small English university and from their student records. The initial statistical analysis revealed significant effects of gender on learning approach and two of the three academic trait boredom subscales. Female students proved to be less prone to academic trait boredom than their male counterparts. A model was then developed that showed how a student’s choice of learning approach was influenced by academic trait boredom and impinged on academic achievement. This modelling also confirmed that students who are more prone to academic trait boredom are also more likely to adopt a surface approach to learning rather than a deep or strategic one. The results of this investigation have implications for students, lecturers, course designers and learning support staff both here in this one location as well as elsewhere across the higher education sector.

Keywords::

• trait boredom
• learning approach
• achievement
• higher education

Conflicts of Interest

None.

Ethical Standards

The authors assert that all procedures contributing to this work comply with the ethical standards of the relevant national and institutional committees on human experimentation and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2008.

Notes

1 A one-way multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) is used to determine whether there are any differences between independent groups on more than one continuous dependent variable (Hair et al., 2010).

2 This means that the two variables have some commonality in their origins (Hair et al., 2010).

3 Jose (2013) defines the term ‘mediator variable’ and provides a detailed explanation of how such a variable operates.