Whatever you're reading this on, whether a book or device, take some time to follow this procedure now. Touch the upper left corner, touch the bottom right corner, touch the upper right, then touch the bottom left. Count one. Continue this, increasing the count each time until you give up out of boredom. How long did you make it? Keep reading to find out why this task was so boring.
The opposite of curiosity is boredom and a great deal of research has been done on what boredom is and how to reduce it. This research has great utility in identifying ways to increase curiosity by reducing boredom. Reducing boredom doesn't necessarily cause curiosity, but it creates an atmosphere where curiosity can thrive. Curiosity cannot thrive in the stifling atmosphere of boredom.
The best definition that we have for boredom is that it's when a person decides that another task would hold more value that the one that they are currently spending vital resources on. We can't possibly convince students that their hobbies are less important, so the key would be to convince them that the current task is very important. The more that this importance gap can be reduced, the less likely a student is to become bored.
Researchers (Gilbert and Wilson) did an experiment to find out what factors influence boredom. They set up tedious, boring tasks and then changed the scenario to see how the changes would affect levels of boredom. They had participants turn 8 knobs a quarter of a turn each and then start all over again, repeating this sequence for hours.
As we already knew from previous chapters, novelty reduces boredom greatly. Most of the boredom-inducing tasks were repetitive and monotonous, not novel. Refer back to (Novelty Blog) for more on how to increase novelty.
Researchers also found that rewards (monetary in their case) were powerful influencers of boredom with a dosage response; the bigger the reward, the less boredom. This is more difficult to implement in the classroom, but many teachers use other kinds of reward systems to motivate students.
The researchers found that putting progress bars, speed indicators, and ranking systems also reduced boredom. This immediate feedback was a very powerful influencer for participants to continue the menial task. Teachers use "gamification" the same way in the classroom. We will have a blog on gamification soon.
Researchers also found that the more challenging they made the task, the less boring it was... to a point until it got too difficult and got boring again. So it goes in the classroom where matching the challenge level to the student is very important in inducing curiosity. Give a 10th grader 2nd-grade math or differential equations problems and they'll get bored. But give them problems just above their current capability but within reach and they'll rise to the challenge through curiosity.
Another group of researchers set out to test the hypothesis that people get bored after retirement. They found that this relationship was only true for those who did not participate in social activities. Curiosity is social and individual work is more likely to be boring.
A teacher can create an atmosphere that will be more likely to reduce boredom and increase curiosity. Previous blog posts have focused on the latter and future posts will focus on the former. How far did you make it on the corner tapping activity? It was not social, not novel, not valuable, and not very challenging, the epitome of boring and the antithesis of curiosity.
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