(1) Background: The influence of academic boredom and intrinsic motivation on students’ learning and achievements is receiving more attention from scholars. Nevertheless, studies on how intervention decreases academic boredom and promotes intrinsic motivation during study remain unexplored. (2) Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate whether positive education intervention based on the PERMA model would help Chinese college students with learning-related academic boredom, class-related academic boredom, and intrinsic motivation. (3) Methods: This study is quasi-experimental research with a control group including pre-test and post-test. The study was conducted with 173 students, including 86 (n1 = 86) experimental and 87 (n2 = 87) control group students. (4) Results: Results revealed that students in the intervention condition reported significant reductions in learning-related academic boredom and class-related academic boredom, and significant increases in intrinsic motivation in comparison to their counterparts in the control group. (5) Conclusions: These findings indicate that positive education intervention for college students is a promising approach to reducing academic boredom and increasing intrinsic motivation among Chinese college students.
Academic boredom is negatively related to students’ academic outcomes like intrinsic motivation. Positive education is dedicated to improving both students’ academic outcomes and wellbeing. In this study, China’s “6+2” positive education model was adopted to develop an intervention program that aimed to reduce academic boredom and improve positive emotions, thought-action repertoires, and intrinsic motivation. Theoretically, this emotion-oriented treatment is expected to cultivate positive emotions to broaden students’ attention scope, widen their thought and action repertoires, facilitate intrinsic motivation and build up enduring psychological resources that help them better cope with negative emotions like academic boredom and trigger upward spirals toward emotional wellbeing. This proposed model fills a research gap in existing interventions and provides new theoretical knowledge in terms of reducing academic boredom and improving academic success as well as wellbeing among Chinese college students. The theoretical framework of this study consisted of the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions, basic psychological needs theory, and the control-value theory of academic emotions.
Received: 11 August 2021 / Accepted: 3 October 2021 / Published: 5 November 2021
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