Perceived teacher feedbacks, personal achievement goals, and academic self-efficacy on boredom: The mediation effect and conditional indirect effect

The study, grounded on the control-value theory of academic emotion, examined how the contextual factors (i.e., the perceived teacher feedbacks) and personal (i.e., the personal achievement goals and academic self-efficacy) factor have impact on boredom. Accordingly, the objectives of the present study are twofold: firstly, to construct four mediation models for investigating the relationship among the perceived teacher feedbacks, personal achievement goals, and boredom (i.e., “the perceived self-reference feedbacks → mastery-approach goal → boredom”, “the perceived self-reference feedbacks → mastery-avoidance goal → boredom”, “the perceived normative-reference feedbacks → performance-approach goal → boredom”, and “the perceived normative-reference feedbacks → performance-avoidance goal → boredom”); secondly, to test whether the above mediation relations can be moderated by the academic self-efficacy. Methodologically, a math survey was conducted with 1105 participants of 7th grade students in Taiwan, and the researcher analyzed the collected data using the technique of structural equation modeling (SEM) to test both the mediation effect and conditional indirect effect. The results showed that the two mediation models of “the perceived self-reference feedback → mastery-approach goal → boredom” and “the perceived normative-reference feedback → performance-avoidance goal → boredom” were supported by the observed data, which adequately captures the relationship among the perceived teacher feedbacks, personal achievement goals, and boredom. Specifically, mastery-approach goal fully mediates the prediction of the perceived self-reference feedback on boredom, and performance-avoidance goal fully mediates the prediction of the perceived normative-reference feedback on boredom. Also, it was found that the academic self-efficacy well moderates the negative indirect effect of “the perceived self-reference feedback → mastery-approach goal → boredom.” In other words, when the level of individual’s academic self-efficacy is gradually increasing, the inhibition effect that the perceived self-reference feedbacks with individuals’ adoption of mastery-approach goals pose on boredom increases. Based on the findings, relevant recommendations were proposed for further research, teaching practices, and junior high school counseling.