Lisheng Li’s research while affiliated with Yunnan Normal University and other places

Boredom, as a commonly experienced negative, deactivating achievement emotion, is significantly correlated with the key indicators of academic and well-being outcomes. However, compared with enjoyment and anxiety, boredom in the field of English as a foreign language (EFL), especially the mediating mechanism of boredom on academic performance, still remains relatively unexplored. This study aimed to test whether academic engagement mediated the relationship between boredom and academic achievement in the EFL setting. Data were collected from 535 Chinese EFL secondary school students. Structural equation model (SEM) was used to analyze the data. The findings showed that boredom negatively predicted EFL achievement and academic engagement mediated the relation between boredom and EFL achievement. Limitations and implications are discussed.

This study validated the school psychological capital (PsyCap) scale in the Chinese context and examined the predictive effect of PsyCap resources on academic engagement and achievement emotions. Self-report data for PsyCap resources, student engagement, enjoyment, anxiety, and boredom toward English learning were collected from 1,000 sophomores. Item-level analyses and confirmatory factor analysis were used to verify the validity of the school PsyCap scale, and structural equation modeling was applied to reveal the predictive effect of school PsyCap resources on academic engagement and achievement emotions. Results showed that the school PsyCap scale retained superior psychometric properties. Besides, PsyCap resources were demonstrated to have a positive relationship to academic engagement and enjoyment, and a negative relationship to anxiety and boredom. The effectiveness of the school PsyCap scale was verified among Chinese college students, and besides the traditional predictors, school PsyCap is also critically important for students’ academic engagement and achievement emotions. Limitations and implications are discussed.