Motivated by the present dominance of online education worldwide during the COVID-19 pandemic, the present study employed a process-tracing approach to explore the causal mechanisms of boredom in an online L3 learning. The present case study was done on an adult learner of German and analyzed her accounts of experiencing boredom throughout a whole semester, 13 sessions in length. The trajectory of boredom throughout the course showed that the beginning of the course was the most boring though the learner continued to experience boredom until the end of the semester. Among the theoretical explanations of boredom, under-stimulation, low perceived control over tasks and attention deficit were found to be the most dominant until the end of the course. Among the nontheoretical explanations of boredom, user-unfriendly requirements of online learning prevailed mostly in the beginning of the course until the middle but they were found to be less influential in the end of the course. The process tracing approach showed to be effective in unpacking the black box of the causal mechanisms involved in the boredom experienced in the online L3 learning. Suggestions were made on how to make an online language course less boring and more communicative, which seems essential today due to the unrivaled use of online education during the pandemic.

中文翻译：

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COVID-19 大流行期间德语 L3 在线课程中无聊动态模式的过程追踪研究

受 COVID-19 大流行期间全球在线教育的主导地位的推动，本研究采用过程跟踪方法来探索在线 L3 学习中无聊的因果机制。本案例研究是针对一名成年德语学习者进行的，并分析了她在整个学期（共 13 节课）中经历无聊的经历。整个课程的无聊轨迹表明，尽管学习者一直感到无聊，直到学期结束，但课程开始是最无聊的。在无聊的理论解释中，刺激不足、对任务的低感知控制和注意力缺陷在课程结束前被认为是最主要的。在无聊的非理论解释中，在线学习对用户不友好的要求主要在课程开始到中期普遍存在，但在课程结束时被发现影响较小。过程追踪方法被证明可以有效地解开在线 L3 学习中所经历的无聊所涉及的因果机制的黑匣子。关于如何使在线语言课程不那么无聊和更具交流性的建议，由于在大流行期间无与伦比的在线教育使用，这在今天似乎至关重要。