An alternative teaching and learning methodology at university facing academic bored

Abstract

Introduction: Boredom at university has shown to interfere with teaching and learning. It is linked to variables such as task importance and complexity, or student’s autonomy, which are in turn related to the chosen teaching and learning methodology. The goal of this study is to test the effectiveness of a new methodology based on four principles -shared teaching, flipped classroom, human model of teaching and creative evaluation- on reducing boredom. Three studies were carried out during two academic years -2019/2020 and 2020/2021-, the latter consisting of a replica aimed to test if initial data can be maintained.

Method: Participants were third year psychology students from the Complutense University of Madrid from 4 groups of the afternoon shift (49 participated in the initial study, 56 in the main study and 73 in the replica), who expressed their views using two ad hoc designed evaluation instruments. Participants in the last two studies attended a total of 45 hours of the same course using the proposed methodology.

Results: Results show that students overall get bored in class with a notable reduction when the new methodology was used in both academic years.Conclusions: The replicated methodology fulfills its purpose. Nevertheless, more applications are convenient, enabling the study of the weight of each specific related variable in order to guarantee its correct application in other contexts.

Keywords: higher education, teaching methods, teaching, learning, boredom, active learning