The phenomenon of learning burnout among college students is increasingly becoming an obstacle to the development of quality higher education in China (Feng & Tao, 2019). Learning burnout is a form of maladaptive behavior, and refers to students’ loss of interest in learning or their inability to cope with academic stress, resulting in a negative attitude and behavior toward learning (Lian et al., 2005). Surveys have revealed that 61.63% of college students in China experience varying degrees of learning burnout, with as many as 37.5% suffering from a severe form of this condition (Sun, 2007; Wei, 2007). Learning burnout is also commonly present in physical education classes (Q. Shi, 2013), with students in Chinese universities exhibiting a moderate level of physical education learning burnout, necessitating significant attention from those employed by educational authorities and related professionals (H. Yu & Ang, 2012).

 

It has been established that achievement goal orientation is closely related to learning burnout (L. Shi et al., 2012). Achievement goal orientation is a pivotal theory within the field of achievement motivation, denoting individuals’ cognitive understanding of the purpose or reason for undertaking a specific task and their belief that they can complete it (Y. Wang et al., 2001). However, most previous studies have been based on a three-factor measurement of achievement goal orientation, and the use of a model including a fourth dimension of mastery avoidance orientation has not been widely applied (Hou, 2019). Use of a three-factor measure might overlook a common psychological aspect in college students’ physical education learning, such as the fear of being unable to master athletic skills or avoiding the appearance of ignorance of sports.

 

State boredom is one of the most common academic emotions that students experience during physical education classes (Karagiannidis et al., 2015; Y. Ye & Sun, 2016). State boredom is an adverse academic emotion characterized by a complex, unpleasant emotional experience of emptiness and helplessness, which arises when facing impoverished internal or external stimuli, leading to insufficient fulfillment of needs (Huang et al., 2011; Struk et al., 2017). Pekrun et al. (2002) introduced the concept of academic emotions, which they defined as the range of emotions students experience in the school setting, encompassing not only those associated with success or failure but also those generated during the teaching and learning process. Gao (2014a) found that academic emotions significantly impact college students’ learning burnout. As a negative academic emotion, state boredom adversely affects individuals’ motivation, cognition, self-awareness and regulation, learning engagement, and academic performance (Gao, 2014b). Therefore, research on state boredom as an academic emotion is necessary.

 

Additionally, Chen and Yu (2002) examined the relationship between learning-oriented and performance-oriented environments as contexts for physical education teaching and learning tasks with academic emotions and sports skill performance. However, research is relatively lacking in understanding the impact of the level of difficulty in physical education teaching content on students’ learning attitude, interest, and psychological qualities (Fan et al., 2014; L. Wang & Chen, 2018). The teaching content of a physical education program stimulates students to actively participate in physical education learning. The effectiveness of tuition in teaching students according to their aptitude is affected by the key factor of practice through problem guidance; this entails setting questions of varying difficulty levels before, during, and after class for students with different levels of sports technical skills, in order to guide their learning interests and stimulate their class participation (Qin & Cheng, 2024). Therefore, research on whether the content of a physical education program aligns with students’ psychological characteristics (Zhou et al., 2000) should consider the impact of the program on fostering positive attitudes toward physical education, cultivating healthy emotions, and enhancing students’ communication and adaptability skills (Lan & Liu, 2002).

 

Extending these previous findings, we conducted an exploratory study of a physical education program with different levels of difficulty (challenging vs. easy teaching content) to examine whether students holding different orientations for their achievement goals would experience physical education learning burnout. We also introduced state boredom to explore whether this negative academic emotion played a mediating role between different achievement goal orientations and physical education learning burnout. Our research will help to explain the complex process and mechanism of the formation of learning burnout in regard to physical education, and will provide a theoretical reference for the scientific prevention of and intervention in negative academic emotions of state boredom and physical education learning burnout in relation to difficulty of the teaching content of the physical education program.

Achievement goals can be classified into four dimensions: The focus in mastery proximity orientation is on acquiring new knowledge and enhancing one’s abilities, the focus of a mastery avoidance orientation is on avoiding failure to complete tasks or striving to avoid errors during task execution, the focus in an achievement proximity orientation is on outperforming others and excelling relative to peers, and the focus in an achievement avoidance orientation is on avoiding performing worse than others or appearing incompetent. The goal–action model posits that each achievement orientation elicits various adaptive or maladaptive behaviors (Linnenbrink & Pintrich, 2002b). Mastery proximity orientation typically induces adaptive behaviors, whereas achievement avoidance orientation often leads to maladaptive behaviors (L. Zhao, 2006).  In studies conducted with both middle-school students (L. Shi et al., 2012) and college students (C. Wang, 2008), researchers have consistently found that holding a mastery orientation negatively impacts academic burnout, whereas holding an achievement orientation positively affects burnout.

 

However, research on achievement proximity orientation and mastery avoidance orientation does not yet hold a consensus. In different learning contexts and with different tasks, these orientations trigger dualistic behavioral outcomes (Elliot & Moller, 2003). In a study conducted with students from Grades 3–8 in the United States of America, Midgley et al. (2001) discovered that achievement proximity orientation tended to have a positive effect on students in higher grades and in competitive learning environments, and a negative effect in environments in which students avoid competition and collaboration. Z. Liu (2022) and S. Ye and Zhang (2014) reported that in Chinese settings, mastery avoidance orientation negatively influenced middle-school students’ perseverance and effort levels in both knowledge-acquired classes and skill-oriented classes, such as physical education, and L. Shi et al. (2012) found that achievement proximity orientation contributed to the alleviation of academic burnout among junior high school students.

 

The level of difficulty of the teaching content significantly affects students’ academic emotions (Hou, 2009; X. Wang et al., 2021). For instance, in a study on physical education teaching, Z. Liu (2009) found that students’ learning and practice emotions were influenced by the difficulty of the instructional content. In summary, we conducted an exploratory study to examine students’ achievement goal orientation and the predictive effect of the difficulty level of the teaching content on their physical education learning burnout.

Among the academic emotions that influence learning burnout, state boredom is a negative and low-arousal emotion (Gao, 2014a). When students experience state boredom, they are more likely to experience learning burnout (X. Zhao et al., 2016). Achievement goal orientation theory posits that each achievement goal evokes distinct academic emotions (Hu et al., 2020; Xu & Gong, 2009). However, scholars have not yet reached a consensus regarding the relationship between achievement proximity orientation, mastery avoidance orientation, and negative low-arousal emotions like state boredom (Guo et al., 2012; Linnenbrink & Pintrich, 2002a; Pekrun et al., 2006; Y. Zhang et al., 2013), necessitating further investigation into these relationships across various contexts and tasks.

 

In summary, each of the achievement goal orientations may exhibit varying intensities and the nature of their relationship with learning burnout may differ. As a negative academic emotion, state boredom could potentially act as a mediator between achievement goal orientation and learning burnout. Thus, we hypothesized that in the context of high and low difficulty levels of physical education teaching content, state boredom would mediate the relationship between achievement goal orientation and learning burnout.

We selected eight classes in elective table tennis from among first-year students majoring in physical education and sports training at Guangzhou Sport University in 2022, excluding students who were specializing in table tennis. The sample included 230 young men and 176 young women (406 students). Each class consisted of 50 or 51 students (28–30 men and 20–22 women). Participants had an average age of 18.29 years (SD = 0.60, range = 17–20).

After obtaining informed consent from the school administrators, counselors, and the students themselves, we conducted group testing before and after the teaching experiment. For this study we adopted a quasiexperimental design and the survey method, with the main goal of the classes being teaching table tennis techniques and, for the students, mastering table tennis techniques. We utilized a paper-based survey, which was filled out on the spot and collected immediately. We distributed 406 survey forms during this teaching experiment, of which 402 were valid, resulting in a response rate of 99%. The experiment was conducted between September 1 and December 31, 2022, during a one-semester table tennis course, comprising 64 class hours over a period of 16 weeks (two classes per week, each lasting 80 minutes). Through a horizontal comparison between the experimental group (challenging-content group) and the control group (easy-content group), we examined the impact mechanism of college students’ achievement goal orientation and learning burnout.

 

We focused on forehand attacking and backhand pushing (flicking) as the main teaching content. The teaching process generally follows a four-phase approach: start (announcing content), preparation (warm-up), basic (explaining techniques), and end (relaxation and summarizing). Teaching mainly involves explaining, demonstrating, practicing, correcting, breaking down, full practice, and repetitive practice until the skill is acquired. The easy-content and challenging-content groups differed in terms of exercise content, methods, volume, and intensity. For example, for the easy-content group the primary focus was on single-ball, fixed-point, and single-technique teaching, with limited movement range and moderate exercise volume. In contrast, for the challenging-content group the emphasis was on multiple ball, variable-point, combined-technique teaching, with a wider range of movement and greater exercise volume. Specific content is shown in Table 1.

The control of experimental irrelevant variables was as follows: (a) Both the experimental and control groups used the unified teaching content as stipulated in the teaching syllabus. (b) To avoid participant effects, the participants in the experiment were selected using a balancing method. This involved choosing parallel classes of first-year students at the same level and randomly determining the composition of experimental and control groups.

 

A pretest was conducted 2 days before the experiment to ensure that the two groups were as similar as possible in terms of physical fitness, skills, and attitudes. To avoid interference from extracurricular activities during the experimental period, the first requirement was to prohibit the students from participating in table tennis competitions or after-school exercises during the experimental period. For this purpose, the students were required to sign a commitment letter. At the same time, we conducted a survey on the extracurricular activities of the students who participated in the experiment, and the results showed that during this period, the school did not hold any table tennis competitions or related training, and students did not participate in after-school tutoring. This ensured that the two groups of students took part in the teaching experiment under the same experimental conditions and standards. (c) To eliminate the experimenter effect, we chose teachers with the same educational background, title, teaching experience, and gender for the two groups. Two teachers were each assigned to teach two experimental (challenging content) classes and two control (easy content) classes. As the same teacher taught both the experimental and control classes, the influence of the teacher factor could be offset. Before the experiment, the teachers were thoroughly trained to understand the teaching process. The first author and the second corresponding author participated in and supervised the entire teaching experiment as observers, correcting any problems and deviations that occurred during the class. (d) We adopted a single-blind experimental design to avoid the interference of the phenomenon whereby participants in an experiment change their behavior and improve performance results because of their awareness of being observed (Hawthorne effect; Roethlisberger & Dickson, 1939) and the phenomenon whereby participants in the control group perform beyond their original level in order to prove that they are not inferior to the experimental group (John Henry effect; Saretsky, 1972). Only the teachers who were instructing the students were informed about the purpose, method, and group division of the experiment. The participating students were unaware of the purpose of the experiment. (e) To eliminate the impact of venue conditions, groups had their classes in the same venue. (f) To eliminate the impact caused by time of day for the class, both groups were scheduled for the first class time in the morning and the first class time in the afternoon. Depending on the learning situation, teachers gave students specific requirements to preview before class and review after class. (g) The number of students, teaching time slots, venue equipment, experimental teaching equipment, teaching hours, and teaching content were consistent between the challenging-content and easy-content groups. However, because of the variation in level of difficulty in the learning content, there were differences in practice difficulty, methods, intensity, volume, and progress. The students completed scales to assess achievement goal orientation, boredom, and academic burnout before and after the experiment.

We used the achievement goal orientation scale developed by H. Liu and Gao (2003), which is divided into four dimensions: achievement proximity orientation (six items), mastery proximity orientation (four items), achievement avoidance orientation (four items), and mastery avoidance orientation (four items). A 5-point Likert rating scale is used (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree), with higher total scores on each dimension indicating a higher degree of individual achievement goal orientation in that dimension. Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for achievement avoidance orientation, mastery proximity orientation, achievement avoidance orientation, and mastery avoidance orientation were .92, .93, .91, and .90, respectively. Confirmatory factor analysis showed that the scale had a good fit to the data, χ²/df = 1.85, comparative fit index (CFI) = .96, Tucker–Lewis index (TLI) = .96, root-mean-square error of approximation (RMSEA) = .04.

 

We employed the Chinese version of the Multidimensional State Boredom Scale, revised by Y. Liu et al. (2013). The scale is divided into five dimensions: attention deficit (five items), time perception (five items), low arousal (five items), high arousal (five items), and lack of engagement (four items). A 5-point Likert rating scale is used (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree), with higher total scores in each dimension indicating a higher level of boredom. Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for the attention deficit, time perception, low arousal, high arousal, and lack of engagement dimensions of this scale were .94, .94, .92, .90, and .88, respectively. Confirmatory factor analysis showed the scale had a good fit to the data, χ²/df = 1.92, CFI = .96, TLI = .95, RMSEA = .06.

 

We used the Academic Burnout Scale developed by Lian et al. (2005). The scale is divided into three dimensions: emotional exhaustion (five items), inappropriate behavior (two items), and low achievement (five items). A 5-point Likert rating scale is used (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree), with higher total scores in each dimension indicating more severe academic burnout. Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for the emotional exhaustion, inappropriate behavior, and low achievement dimensions of this scale were .92, .89, and .89, respectively. Confirmatory factor analysis showed that the scale had a good fit to the data, χ²/df = 1.67, CFI = .98, TLI = .98, RMSEA = .06.

Data analysis was performed using SPSS 26.0 and Amos 24.0 software.

As we relied solely on a survey for data collection in this study, the data might be susceptible to common method bias. Procedural remedies such as anonymity of participants and reverse scoring for some items were implemented to control for this. Additionally, we applied Harman’s single-factor test to assess common method bias. The results indicated that there were 13 factors with eigenvalues greater than 1, and the cumulative variance explained by the first factor was 31.32%, which is below the 40% critical value threshold. This suggests that there was no significant common method bias in this study (Li et al., 2016).

Descriptive statistics were calculated and Pearson correlation analysis was performed for each variable. We found that the dimensions of achievement goal orientation, achievement proximity orientation, achievement avoidance orientation, and mastery avoidance orientation were all significantly and positively correlated with state boredom. Only mastery proximity orientation was significantly and negatively correlated with state boredom. Finally, state boredom was significantly and positively correlated with learning burnout. See Table 3 for details.

To holistically test the direct effect of achievement goal orientation on learning burnout, we established a structural equation model, χ²/df = 3.06, CFI = .96, NFI = .93, TLI = .94, RMSEA = .07. The results show that in the group with easy teaching content, mastery proximity orientation (β = −.23, p < .001) and achievement proximity orientation (β = −.31, p < .001) significantly and negatively influenced learning burnout, whereas mastery avoidance orientation (β = .11, p < .001) and achievement avoidance orientation (β = .08, p < .001) significantly and positively influenced learning burnout. In the group with challenging teaching content, mastery proximity orientation (β = −.54, p < .001) significantly and negatively influenced learning burnout, whereas mastery avoidance orientation (β = .15, p < .001), achievement proximity orientation (β = .18, p < .001), and achievement avoidance orientation (β = .28, p < .001) all significantly and positively influenced learning burnout.

We used the bias-corrected nonparametric percentile bootstrapping method with 5,000 resamples to estimate mediating effects and confidence intervals. The mediation model fit the data well, χ²/df = 1.45, normed fit index (NFI) = .92, CFI = .91, TLI = .90, RMSEA = .05. The path coefficients are shown in Figure 1.

As shown in Tables 4 and 5, in the group with easy teaching content, mastery avoidance orientation and achievement proximity orientation had a significant direct effect on learning burnout. For the relationships of both mastery avoidance orientation and achievement proximity orientation with learning burnout, state boredom had a significant mediating effect, indicating that boredom partially mediated the relationships between mastery avoidance orientation, achievement proximity orientation, and learning burnout. However, the direct effect of mastery proximity orientation and achievement avoidance orientation on learning burnout was not significant, and the mediating effect of boredom on the links between mastery proximity orientation, achievement avoidance orientation, and learning burnout was significant. Therefore, state boredom played a complete mediating role in the impact of mastery proximity orientation and achievement avoidance orientation on learning burnout.

 

Also as shown in Tables 4 and 5, in the challenging-content group there were significant direct effects of mastery proximity orientation, mastery avoidance orientation, achievement proximity orientation, and achievement avoidance orientation on learning burnout. Further, state boredom had a significant mediating effect on learning burnout for all four achievement goal orientation types, indicating that state boredom played a partial mediating role in the relationship between achievement goal orientation and learning burnout. These results supported the hypothesis proposed in our study.

We found that in the group with easy teaching content, mastery proximity orientation and achievement proximity orientation significantly and negatively impacted physical education learning burnout, whereas mastery avoidance orientation and achievement avoidance orientation had a significant positive impact. In the group with challenging teaching content, mastery proximity orientation significantly and negatively impacted learning burnout, whereas achievement proximity orientation, mastery avoidance orientation, and achievement avoidance orientation all had a significant positive impact on learning burnout. Regardless of the difficulty level of the teaching content in physical education, achievement proximity orientation, achievement avoidance orientation, and mastery avoidance orientation contributed to learning burnout by increasing the level of state boredom. Conversely, mastery proximity orientation mitigated burnout by reducing students’ state boredom.

 

Our findings are largely consistent with those of previous research (Lian et al., 2005; L. Shi et al., 2012). Regardless of the difficulty level of the teaching content, university students with an achievement avoidance orientation focused on understanding, mastering, and developing abilities in learning tasks, seeing challenges as opportunities for learning and improvement. These students perceive failure and experiences as an indispensable part of learning (Linnenbrink & Pintrich, 2000), helping them to face difficulties and challenges actively, and they are less likely to experience learning burnout than are students with other achievement goal orientations. Research on mastery avoidance orientation is not extensive, but this goal orientation is frequently observed in physical education learning (Elliot & Thrash, 2001). Mastery avoidance manifests as an individual’s effort to avoid incompetence in completing personal or task goals, such as avoiding forgetting learned knowledge, avoiding displaying a perceived lack of ability (H. Zhang, 2020), or simply striving to make no mistakes. Although students with this orientation have strong learning motivation, their pursuit of perfection can lead to increased learning pressure and anxiety, and eventually to emotional exhaustion and learning burnout. When students have an achievement avoidance orientation this tends to lead to them engaging in maladaptive behaviors, often using fewer cognitive strategies than their peers do, showing reduced intrinsic motivation, and experiencing greater anxiety, leading to negative outcomes in cognition, motivation, emotion, and behavior (Song et al., 2013), thereby causing learning burnout.

 

However, we found that the relationship between achievement proximity orientation and learning burnout was influenced by the difficulty level of the teaching content. These results displayed two opposite trends, in that in the easy-to-teach content group, achievement proximity orientation had a positive impact on physical education learning burnout, whereas in the difficult-to-teach content group achievement proximity orientation had a negative impact on sports learning burnout. This finding is not entirely consistent with those of most previous studies on the behavioral outcomes triggered by achievement proximity orientation (Elliot & Moller, 2003; L. Zhao, 2006). The primary reason for the difference in our result from that of the prior studies is that the diversity and difficulty levels of physical education teaching content directly affect students’ enthusiasm for physical education learning (Chen & Yu, 2009). In physical education scenarios where the teaching content is more challenging, the focus is on the imparting and acquisition of individual sports knowledge and skills. The emphasis in the curriculum is on competition over the student’s sense of achievement, so that healthy cooperation and competition among students is often neglected. The goal of students with an achievement proximity orientation is often achieving high scores, and they may experience learning burnout when they encounter difficulties in learning or fail to receive a positive evaluation (Lu, 2009). Conversely, in scenarios with easy teaching content, students with an achievement proximity orientation can fully demonstrate their abilities, thereby receiving a positive evaluation of their capabilities. They exhibit a proactive learning attitude, actively maintain teacher–student relationships, and have a higher sense of achievement compared with students with other types of achievement goal orientation, enabling them to cope more comfortably with adverse academic emotions and behaviors (L. Shi et al., 2012). Of course, as our study was exploratory, the results are subject to empirical testing and further in-depth exploration.

We found that state boredom was influenced by achievement goal orientation, subsequently leading to learning burnout, which plays a significant role between goals and behaviors. However, we found that, regardless of the difficulty level of the teaching content, mastery avoidance orientation consistently intensified state boredom, which contradicts previous studies in which no such relationship was reported (Goudas et al., 1994; Vlachopoulos & Biddle, 1997). The main reasons for the difference in our results are as follows: First, the impact of mastery avoidance orientation varies depending on the nature of the learning task and context. In previous studies the focus was mainly on courses involving knowledge-acquired learning, whereas this study was centered on physical education, which involves skill-oriented learning that differs from knowledge-acquired learning in terms of content, form, and method in the course (S. Yu, 2015). Learning in physical education predominantly involves behavioral performance centered on bodily practice and experience (Deng, 2013), requiring the student to overcome various types of physiological and psychological discomfort associated with physical practice (Shao, 2017). In physical education, learning also requires integration of frequent interpersonal interactions, cooperation and competition, rule constraints, and varying outcomes in complex situations (J. Liu & Zhao, 2020). Second, according to academic emotion theory, in the context of learning behaviors that are focused on acquiring motor skills, students with a mastery avoidance orientation might be more prone than are those with other types of achievement goal orientation to experiencing negative academic emotions because they are aiming to complete tasks or avoid losing existing knowledge and skills. This can lead students to desire perfection and fear making mistakes, and to a lack of control and value perception, which can result in increased learning pressure and anxiety, triggering negative emotions, which then leads to learning burnout (Gao, 2014).

In this study we have extended achievement goal orientation theory from knowledge-acquired learning contexts into the physical education learning context, expanding the boundaries for application of this theory. The findings provide important practical implications for the prevention of and intervention in learning burnout in physical education among university students. While encouraging university students to embrace the established diverse achievement goal perspectives, school administrators need to identify differences in individual students’ goal orientations to guide their physical education learning. In teaching, it is essential to appropriately arrange the level of difficulty of teaching content and conduct differentiated instruction. Enriching the content, methods, and forms of classroom teaching can reduce students’ state boredom and enhance their participation in and awareness of physical education learning and competition, thereby reducing learning burnout.

This study has several limitations. First, this was a cross-sectional study. Although it is based on theoretical deductions and provides meaningful information, we could not establish causal relationships. To validate our model, future studies could employ longitudinal tracking to further test our results. Second, we examined only the impact relationships of each dimension of achievement goal orientation on state boredom and learning burnout. Considering the possibility that individuals may simultaneously hold two types of achievement goal orientation, future research could explore the interaction effects of two achievement goal orientations. Finally, we examine only one mediating role: that of state boredom between participants’ achievement goal orientation and learning burnout. In future research the existence of mediating and moderating effects could be discussed by incorporating other academic emotion variables into our model.

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