DOI: 10.60629/ffda-sh41
title: Datd for Less is more: Developing and validating the short scale for investigating L2 boredom beyond the classroom

description: <p>Project &#34;Pozytywne i negatywne emocje, zaangażowanie, motywacja a poziom opanowania języka angielskiego przez uczniów polskiej szkoły średniej&#34;, number 2022/45/B/HS2/00187, National Science Centre, Poland.</p><p>In line with current trends in the field to reduce the number of items in scales and to provide thorough validation evidence, the study aimed to develop and validate a short-form version of the 21-item Boredom in Learning English Outside of School (BLEOS) scale. A multinational dataset of <em>n</em> &#61; 1,133 participants was divided into two samples: the first sample was used to develop the Short-form Boredom in Learning English Outside of School (S-BLEOS) scale while the second sample was used to validate the scale. Development efforts included examining the underlying factor structure of the 21-item scale and selecting items through a combination of factor loadings, item reliabilities, and inter-item correlations. Validation efforts included testing the resultant measurement model through confirmatory factor analysis, as well as establishing convergent and discriminant validity by contrasting the S-BLEOS with existing boredom and other individual difference variables in the known foreign language learning nomological network. The development of the S-BLEOS resulted in a unidimensional model of 10 items. The measurement model indicated a close fit, with convergent and discriminant validity established. Importantly, the S-BLEOS was shown to be a construct that was related to but distinct from in-class language learning boredom. In addition, invariance testing was carried out across gender, age, and nationality groups, with the S-BLEOS determined to be fully invariant. As such, the S-BLEOS can be used to measure out-of-class language learning boredom for adolescents and adults and can be fairly administered across genders, age groups, and nationalities.</p>
description: <p>Participants were 1,133 learners of English as a foreign language in Poland (n &#61; 550), Iran (n &#61; 241), and Hungary (n &#61; 342). In addition to examining the full-length BLEOS scale, several additional scales were administered in order to establish convergent and divergent validity. All assessments were self-report scales, and all items were measured on a 5-point Likert scale (1 &#61; strongly disagree, 5 &#61; strongly agree). The instruments were the following: Boredom in Learning English Outside of School (Pawlak et al., 2022), Short-form Foreign Language Classroom Boredom Scale (S-FLCBS; Pawlak et al., 2026), Grit Scale (Duckworth et al., 2007), L2 Grit Scale (Teimouri et al., 2022), Language Learning Curiosity Scale (Mahmoodzadeh & Khajavy, 2019), Language Learning Enjoyment Scale (based on Dewaele & MacIntyre, 2014; Pekrun et al., 2011), Short-Form Foreign Language Anxiety Scale (Botes et al., 2022), and Motivated Behavior Scale (Taguchi et al., 2009). English was used in all the questions and scales in view of the high proficiency level of participants. Data analysis involved the following steps: (1) creating two samples, (2) determining the factor structure, (3) short-form item selection, (4) testing the measurement model, (5) validation, (6) recombining the dataset, and (7) invariance testing. </p>