Abstract
Boredom has shown to associate with undesirable effects, but little is known about how international students differ from Canadian students in boredom coping. The purposes of this study are to validate Boredom Coping Scale and evaluate students’ differences in boredom coping styles based on 408 Canadian and 104 international students. The confirmatory factor analysis showed that the factor structure, loadings, and covariances were invariant across the two samples. In the latent profile analysis, the Canadian students were classified into three groups who used different combination of coping strategies: Reappraisers, Thinkers, and Criticizers, whereas the international students were grouped into two new categories: Persistent Students and Behaviourists. While Reappraisers and Criticizers are consistent with previous findings, Thinkers, who preferred coping with boredom cognitively through either approach or avoidance, is the new profile. Our results partly supported previous findings and showed that international students were different from Canadian students in boredom coping.
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Notes
Given that the purpose of the present study was to provide additional validity evidence on Nett et al.’s BSC, it makes a logical sense to use the same scale and subsequently identified different boredom coping profiles. Regarding the use of AEQ, as Sharp, Sharp and Young (2020) indicated, the psychometric properties had been evaluated utilizing university student samples in Canada, which suites for the current study that took place in a Canadian context. Furthermore, as Vodanovich and Watt (2016) stated, the measures showed excellent reliabilities.
Perkun and his colleague develop the AEQ and the full scale is available in the public domain.
The collectivism subscale is available in Lukwago et al.’s (2001) study.
The sample size of 99 international students is due to listwise deletion.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Dr. Lori Doan at the University of Manitoba and the International College of Manitoba for her help in allowing us to collect my data of international students in her classrooms. This manuscript is submitted in partial fulfilment for the requirements for the Bachelor of Arts (Hons.) in Psychology of Chun Ho But.
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The authors did not have any conflict of interest in this research. This study was approved by the the Psychology/Sociology Research Ethics Board (PSREB) at the University of Manitoba. All the participants have provided their informed consent to participate in this study.
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But, C.H., Li, J.CH. & Tze, V.M.C. Boredom coping profiles among international students in canada and canadian students: similarities and differences. Curr Psychol 42, 18431–18446 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-03031-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-03031-z