BackgroundBoredom is a common complaint among students. Boredom was previously found to be negatively associated with academic outcomes, such as academic motivation, strategies, and achievement. It is of interest to understand students’ in‐class boredom, especially factors that might exacerbate it.AimsThe current study examines the influence of teacher's boredom on students’ in‐class boredom and learning experience. It aims to understand the relationship between teacher boredom, students’ perceived teacher boredom, student boredom, and student learning motivation.SampleA total of 437 students (54.8% female, MAge = 14.5 years, SD = 1.6) and 17 of their teachers (29.4% female, 76.5% 40 years old or below) participated in the study.MethodsWe conducted an experience sampling study, in which participants completed a 2‐week diary. Data were analysed using multilevel modelling.Results and ConclusionsResults from multilevel modelling of 2,675 post‐class evaluations indicated that teacher boredom was negatively associated with students’ motivation. However, the relationship between teacher boredom and students’ perceived teacher boredom was not significant, suggesting that students did not accurately perceive whether their teacher was bored. Results from indirect effect analysis further revealed that students’ perception of teacher boredom predicted student learning motivation through student boredom. In other words, perceiving teachers being bored promoted students’ own feeling of boredom, which in turn reduced their learning motivation. Together, these results indicate that when a teacher is bored in class, or when students perceive that their teacher is bored, students would have lower learning motivation.

The present study examined the impact of sleep, stress, and negative activating emotions of high-school teachers on their students' affective experience, academic motivation, and in-class satisfaction. It is hypothesized that teachers' sleep quality and stress have a positive influence on their own nervousness and irritability. With reference to the emotional crossover theory, teachers' nervousness and irritability are hypothesized to intensify students' nervousness and irritability and subsequently dampen their academic motivation and inclass satisfaction. Experience-sampling data were collected from 17 teachers and 437 students from two local high schools in Hong Kong across a 10-school-day period. Multilevel path analysis results revealed that teachers' stress was significantly associated with teachers' nervousness and irritability. Teachers' nervousness, rather than irritability, was subsequently associated with higher levels of nervousness and irritability among students, which, in turn, impaired their in-class satisfaction. There was also a significant negative association between students' irritability and their academic motivation. Results further showed that teachers' stress arising from poor sleep quality was a significant antecedent of the teacher-student emotional crossover, subsequently affecting students' academic motivation and in-class satisfaction. The findings highlight the detrimental effects of teachers' poor sleep and the resulting stress on students' academic and affective experience. Discussion focuses on how to improve teachers' sleep and manage their stress so as to enhance students' in-class emotions and academic motivation.