A Qualitative Study Of Boredom In Xavier University

College is a higher level of education which requires extensive learning and knowledge of a particular field of choice. Prior to beginning college, students have been subjected to at least ten years or more of primary and secondary education. During this time, students are taught and given basic knowledge of math, science, english, history, and the arts as a foundation on which to start with for college. Primary and secondary education is structured to fit seven or eight classes in a day, and a school day is typically seven or eight hours long. This gives each subject about an hour or less worth of exchange of information. Once students hit the tertiary level of college, however, students are expected to choose a field in which they would like

Millions of college students transfer simultaneously from one classroom to another every school day where they listen to lectures running 50-90 minutes (Khan, 2012). For some students, the may even experience more than that. In fact, upon looking at a schedule of a nursing student in Xavier University, there are lectures spanning three to four hours. A situation way beyond what other research studies have found about an average person’s attention span. Because of that short attention span, students can only retain 10-20 minutes of the three to four hour lecture. So, what’s the rest of the time filled with? Boredom. Boredom is the most common emotion linked to learning (Rosegard, 2013). Boredom has also been cited as a reason for students to drop out (Rosegard, 2013). In fact, studies have found that boredom and attention problems have negative impacts on overall learning and retention (Rosegard, 2013). The more a person is bored, the more the propensity of that person to make cognitive mistakes (Rosegard,

With that, by disintegrating the lecture’s hours into minutes, the researchers (from a study) found out the student’s need at least 3-5 minutes period of sitting followed by another 10-18 lecture proper (Khan, 2012). This is vital since other studies convey that over 50% of students in college have reported boredom to be the predominant emotion during lecture activities (Rosegard, 2013). That is why in order to know how to pay attention and concentrate, it is imperative to know what factors contribute and distract from it (Lamba, 2014). Studies have shown that the average person has the attention span of 10-20 minutes (Lamba, 2014) and generally, the student’s only comprehend 20-40 percent of the lecture and its main points when written in their notes, but reduces to 10 percent after 3 weeks of what was discussed (The do’s and don’t’s…, n.d.). While in some studies, the attention span of the student is around 10-15 minutes, it is expected that their focus may be gone when a lecture is discussed for 50 minutes straight (The do’s and don’t’s…,