A process tracing study of the dynamic patterns of boredom in an online L3 course of German during COVID‐19 pandemic
Elham Yazdanmehr, Majid Elahi Shirvan, Khatereh Saghafi
Abstract
Abstract Motivated by the present dominance of online education worldwide during the COVID‐19 pandemic, the present study employed a process‐tracing approach to explore the causal mechanisms of boredom in an online L3 learning. The present case study was done on an adult learner of German and analyzed her accounts of experiencing boredom throughout a whole semester, 13 sessions in length. The trajectory of boredom throughout the course showed that the beginning of the course was the most boring though the learner continued to experience boredom until the end of the semester. Among the theoretical explanations of boredom, under‐stimulation, low perceived control over tasks and attention deficit were found to be the most dominant until the end of the course. Among the nontheoretical explanations of boredom, user‐unfriendly requirements of online learning prevailed mostly in the beginning of the course until the middle but they were found to be less influential in the end of the course. The process tracing approach showed to be effective in unpacking the black box of the causal mechanisms involved in the boredom experienced in the online L3 learning. Suggestions were made on how to make an online language course less boring and more communicative, which seems essential today due to the unrivaled use of online education during the pandemic.