Towards the Exploration of EFL Students’ Boredom Coping Strategies

Boredom is one of the most frequently experienced emotions in academic contexts, and research has demonstrated its detrimental effects on students’ academic achievements. Despite its significance, little attempt has been made to understand students’ boredom coping strategies in the English as a foreign language (EFL) learning context. Therefore, this research employed a multimodal design comprising video recordings of class sessions, motometer, and interviews to investigate the behaviors demonstrated by EFL students at universities while they were experiencing boredom in their EFL classes within the context of Iran. This study was undertaken with the participation of ۱۲ EFL students who were chosen through extreme case sampling. These participants were chosen from an Advanced English Grammar (AEG) course. The data collection was done over a period of two months and during seven classroom sessions. The multimodal analysis of the data conducted by MAXQDA software resulted in the identification of ۱۶ boredom coping strategies among Iranian EFL students, categorized at four levels of Nett et al.’s (۲۰۱۰) taxonomy of boredom coping strategies (i.e. cognitive approach, behavioral approach, cognitive avoidance, and behavioral avoidance). The findings of this study shed some insight into how EFL students and their teachers collaborate to find solutions and strategies for coping with boredom when attending EFL classes.

کلیدواژه ها:

Boredom ، boredom coping strategies ، EFL classes ، EFL students ، multimodal design