Job Boredom and Its Impact on Teacher Creativity and Teaching: Pedagogical Knowledge Absorptive Capacity and Leader-Member Exchange Make a Difference

Job Boredom and Its Impact on Teacher Creativity and Teaching: Pedagogical Knowledge Absorptive Capacity and Leader-Member Exchange Make a Difference | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Article Job Boredom and Its Impact on Teacher Creativity and Teaching: Pedagogical Knowledge Absorptive Capacity and Leader-Member Exchange Make a Difference Marcus Pietsch, Christian Ugwuanyi, Mehmet Bellibaş This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-6488938/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract In today's dynamic and increasingly uncertain educational environments, teachers are expected to constantly acquire new knowledge and demonstrate creativity. Job boredom, as an emotion, is regarded as a key driver of individuals' knowledge-seeking behavior and creativity. Dyadic leader-member exchange relationships (LMX) have been identified as a critical factor in the emotion regulation of teachers. Using data from 1,406 Nigerian teachers, this study investigates the impact of job boredom on teacher creativity and teaching practices, with a particular focus on the mediating and moderating roles of LMX and pedagogical knowledge absorptive capacity (ACAP) in this relationship. The findings indicate a correlation between teacher job boredom and increased activities aimed at recognizing, assimilating, transforming, and exploiting new pedagogical knowledge, as well as a greater variation in teaching practices. ACAP, in turn, is associated with increasd creativity in the workplace, which itself is linked to a greater variety of teaching practices. LMX functions as a climate variable that shapes teachers' emotions, experiences, and behaviors at school. Social science/Education Social science/Psychology Absorptive Capacity Creativity Job boredom Leader-member exchange Pedagogical Knowledge Teaching Figures Figure 1 Figure 2 Introduction In today's dynamic and increasingly uncertain educational environments, teachers are expected to demonstrate creativity, continuously refine their skills by exploring new knowledge, and consistently enhance and adapt the quality of their teaching to meet ever-evolving contexts and demands (König et al., 2024 ). Whether teachers are able to meet these requirements and how they manage to do so depends, in large part, on their emotions (Chen and Cheng, 2021; Frenzel et al., 2021 ; Pekrun, 2021 ). In this regard, it is supposed that teachers' emotions shape their work by influencing their choice of instructional strategies, considering the emotional impact on both students and themselves (Hargreaves, 2000 ; Sutton and Wheatley, 2003). Especially, in language classes, but also in mixed-language classes, teacher boredom is considered to be a relevant aspect in terms of classroom instruction and student learning (Kruk et al., 2024 ). However, there has been limited research on teacher job boredom, its antecedents, and its effects in schools (Tam et al., 2020 ). For instance, despite the enormous demands of their daily work, researchers have reported an increase in boredom among teachers in recent years, which may be linked to a rise in mental health issues (Weybright et al., 2020 ). Although counterintuitive at first glance, various studies suggest that boredom in the workplace can act as a catalyst for explorative activities (Bench and Lench, 2019) and spark the emergence of much-needed creativity (Mann and Cadman, 2014). This also appears to apply to teachers (Elahi Shirvan et al., 2024 ) and teacher creativity (Emo, 2015 ), where the evidence remains generally scarce. The objective of our study is to address this research gap. We adopt Shulman's (1986, 1987) perspective that teaching is fundamentally a knowledge-based activity and follow the premise that schools, above all, are social institutions where affective and relational contexts and conditions are imperative (Benoliel and Berkovich, 2021 ). In this regard, on the one hand, we introduce the concept of individual absorptive capacity (ACAP) into educational research, as it allows us to examine "an individual’s activities to recognize, assimilate, transform, and exploit new external knowledge" (Lowik et al., 2017 , p. 1323). On the other hand, we draw on the concept of leader-member exchange (LMX; Grean and Uhl-Bien, 1995), as numerous studies highlight the significance of high-quality relationships between leaders and their subordinates for followers‘ emotion regulation (Little et al., 2016) and work outcomes (Mumtaz and Rowley, 2020), particularly creativity and innovative work behavior (Madrid et al., 2019 ). As such, we aim to determine whether teacher job boredom is associated with higher absorptive capacity (ACAP) and enhanced creativity among teachers, whether this is reflected in greater variation in teaching practices at the individual level, and what role LMX plays in this context. For our study, we use data from 1,406 teachers nested in 146 schools in Nigeria – a nation with more than 500 indigenous languages and a national policy which mandates that school students be taught in indigenous languages (Adeniyi and Ayodele, 2024; Obiakor, 2024 ) – and test a dozen hypotheses by estimating latent moderated mediated structural equation models (Cheung and Lau, 2017). Theoretical background Our research is based upon the premise that teaching essentially is a knowledge-based activity (Hagerty, 2010). In this regard, Shulman’s (1986, 1987) foundational work conceptualized teachers’ professional knowledge as comprising three core components: pedagogical knowledge, content knowledge, and pedagogical content knowledge. Building on this framework, Mishra and Koehler (2006) introduced technological knowledge, developing the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework. This knowledge, however, is inherently tacit, encompassing a broad repertoire of in-situ teaching skills and abilities related to subject matter, pedagogy, curriculum, and technology (Mena et al., 2017). As such, teachers' knowledge forms the foundation of their everyday decision-making processes, offering guidance on effectively facilitating student learning through thoughtful lesson design and instructional practice (Fenstermacher, 1994). Shulman (1986), however, suggested that such tacit knowledge is acquired through a complex procedural and iterative process, requiring a continuous inflow of new knowledge to support ongoing professional development and growth. The processes through which teachers gain new knowledge in the context of their professional practice remain relatively understudied (König et al., 2024). However, it is known that boredom can lead people to seek new experiences (Reio Jr., 2024), which in turn is associated with increased creativity (Hunter et al., 2016). In this regard, it is noteworthy that empirical research indicates that boredom outperforms curiosity in terms of information-seeking behaviour (Wolff et al., 2024). Given that schools are fundamentally social institutions, it is further essential to acknowledge their affective and relational contexts to better understand how teachers acquire new knowledge and apply it to their teaching practices (Benoliel and Berkovich, 2021). In this regard, a crucial contextual factor influencing emotion regulation in the workplace is the emotional management of leaders in the context of dyadic leader-member exchange relationships (Little et al., 2016; Niven, 2017). It has been shown that high-quality relationships have a significant impact on work outcomes (Herman et al., 2018; Mumtaz and Rowley, 2020), particularly on employee creativity and innovation (Madrid et al., 2019). Recent studies indicate that the capacity of individuals to search for pertinent, connectable knowledge and to exploit it effectively plays an important mediating role in determining whether and how new knowledge is acquired and implemented in practice (Lowik et al., 2017; Xiong et al., 2024). Nevertheless, whether and to what extent this so-called individual absorptive capacity (ACAP, Lowik et al., 2017; Zahra and George, 2002) is also relevant in the context of schools, for teachers, and how these concepts and mechanisms are related remains an area that has not yet been explored. Addressing this gap and based on these theoretical backgrounds, the present study links job boredom and pedagogical knowledge ACAP to teacher creativity and teaching practices to examine how teachers' emotional states motivate them to seek knowledge, generate ideas, and better engage in their work. In addition, we examine how and the extent to which the dyadic relationship between school principals and teachers could facilitate these associations. The following sections will define each concept used in the theoretical framework and offer rationales regarding proposed relationships among them with relevant hypotheses. Teaching Practices Since the famous Coleman report in 1966, educational researchers, practitioners and policymakers focusing on school improvement have been concerned with classroom teaching quality due to its unique impact on student learning and achievement. (e.g., Bryk et al., 2010; Stronge et al., 2007). Additionally, educational reformers claimed that school reforms are unlikely to achieve their desired results unless they successfully address the problems associated with and improve teaching and learning activities (Blömeke et al., 2016; Bryk et al., 2010). Despite a lack of concurrence among researchers regarding the quality of teaching, a wide range of key practices have been highlighted. For example, Parise and Spillane (2010) proposed several strategies, such as supporting collaborative learning by grouping students, diversifying materials and techniques, and asking questions to stimulate higher-order thinking. Other practices included creating opportunities for students to ask questions and making constructive feedback available to them, communicating with students, using questioning and discussion techniques (Stronge et al., 2007). While ensuring these practices could facilitate school improvement, they are often challenging since teachers tend to stay within their comfort zone and resist change (Riley and Solic, 2021). Aiming to address this globally, research efforts on school factors that could enhance the quality of teaching have been boosted over the past decade, with many new insights from the developing world (see, e.g., Bellibas et al., 2021). Teacher Creativity Creativity is „the production of novel and useful ideas or solutions” (Zhou and George, 2003, p. 547) or ‘the production of novel and useful ideas by an individual or small group or individuals working together’ (Amabile, 1988, p. 126). Definitions of creativity often involve two common essential features: novelty and usefulness (Harvey and Berry, 2023). The first suggests that creative people think outside the box (Beghetto, 2019) to develop original and better ways of doing things (Zhou and George, 2003). The second implies that creative ideas should be different from crazy and bizarre ones, relevant to the problem, or acceptable within the standards (Harvey and Berry, 2023). Concerning teachers, creativity might refer to teachers' capability to combine and integrate “different educational theories, stances, and models about teaching, learning, and instruction in novel ways to address the needs of unique learners” (Bramwell et al., 2011, p. 228). Creative teachers generate original ideas to increase the quality of their daily work, search for novel teaching practices, take risks by experimenting with new teaching strategies, and seek out novel ideas to produce solutions to classroom problems (Zhou and George, 2001). Individual Absorptive Capacity Implementing innovative ideas in the organization is not straightforward and requires acquiring new knowledge (Schweisfurth and Raasch, 2018). A relevant concept here is absorptive capacity, which, at the individual level, refers to the proactive capability of a person to evaluate, identify, evaluate, assimilate, and apply external knowledge (Schweisfurth and Raasch, 2018, p. 687). It is a proactive and dynamic capability for producing and exploiting new knowledge (Zahra and George, 2002). This process involves several activities: recognition, assimilation, transformation, and exploitation (Lowik et al., 2017). Recognition activity requires proactively searching, identifying, and assessing new knowledge. Assimilation is about adapting knowledge to the organizational context by making it clear and useable for other members. The transformation process involves combining and integrating new knowledge with existing knowledge to produce new ideas. Finally, exploitation is related to internalizing new knowledge in the daily work routines (Lowik et al., 2017). ACAP attracted the attention of only a few researchers (Lenart-Gansiniec et al., 2022) who focused on school-level capacity (Da’as and Qadach, 2020). This research examines ACAP at the individual level and the absorptive capacity of individual teachers. This is due to the paucity of research examining how teachers acquire new knowledge once they have commenced their professional careers (König et al., 2024). Consequently, it focuses on pedagogical knowledge ACAP. Shulman (1986) notes that pedagogical knowledge goes beyond teachers' content knowledge in a given subject matter to the knowledge of teaching a subject matter and of what facilitates learning. Therefore, ACAP for pedagogical knowledge is the teacher’s ability to proactively recognize the relevance of new pedagogical knowledge, assimilate it effectively, and apply it in classrooms to innovate their teaching. Those teachers seek and identify new knowledge about teaching and learning, adapt it to their context, change the old knowledge with the new one, and apply new knowledge to improve teaching. This capability can be enhanced through previous knowledge and skills, participation in various projects, interaction with the outside environment (Lenart-Gansiniec et al., 2022), strong leadership (Bakker and Leiter, 2017) and can enhance creativity and performance (Tian and Soo, 2018). Job boredom Fahlman et al. (2013) define boredom as ‘the experience of being disengaged from the world and stuck in a seemingly endless and dissatisfying present’ (p. 68). These people want to but cannot engage in satisfying activities (Fahlman et al., 2013). It is considered an experience related to attention deficit, distorted time perception, emotions, and affect (Kruk et al., 2024). It often occurs after completing a work or task, which is common in education, particularly during COVID-19 lockdowns (Audrin and Hascoët, M 2021). The concept has been associated with significant social, psychological, and physical health difficulties (Fahlman et al., 2013). For example, negative feelings, perception of time passing slowly, poor concentration, unwillingness to change the situation, low arousal, and change in facial expression have been listed among various indicators (Audrin and Hascoët, 2021). Fahlman et al. (2013) listed four main theories that explain why a bored person is less likely to achieve a task: psychodynamic, arousal, attention, and existential theories. Psychodynamic theory suggests that the bored person cannot determine what is desired because the desire is repressed. Arousal theory links it to less arousal due to a mismatch between environmental stimulation and a person’s need for arousal. Attention theory considers it a problem related to the lack of attention, while existential theory argues that it results from the lack of purpose. Empirical research shows that boredom can lead individuals to seek new experiences (Reio Jr., 2024) and increase information-seeking behavior (Wolff et al., 2024), a process associated with increased creativity (Hunter et al., 2016). LMX LMX differs from leader-based or follower-based approaches—two dominant approaches in educational leadership literature—due to its focus on the reciprocal interaction between the leader and each follower (Graen and Uhl-Bien, 1995). Bauer and Erdogan, (1998) refer to this relationship as a dyad—a unique relationship between a leader and each of their followers spanning mutual trust, respect, loyalty and support (Erdogan and Liden, 2002). In education, LMX is related to the quality of the dyadic relationship between the principal and each teacher within the school. Such a relationship develops over time as both sides interact (Cunningham and MacGregor, 2000). According to LMX, leaders vary in how they interact with each follower, leading to variability in the quality of relationships between the leader and each follower within the organization (Martin et al., 2016) and suggesting that each follower should be the unit of analysis (Graen and Uhl-Bien, 1995). When LMX is low, followers focus mainly on economic exchanges based on the completion of work. In the case of a high LMX, the relationship enhances enthusiasm and willingness to perform their best (Martin et al., 2016). Consequently, LMX has been linked to stronger creativity, citizenship behavior, and commitment (Mumtaz and Rowley, 2020), trust, motivation, empowerment, job satisfaction, and performance (Martin et al., 2016), and weaker turnover intention (Mumtaz and Rowley, 2020). Hypotheses Creativity is an essential teacher competence that can be used to deal with classroom problems (Torrance, 1970). Developing novel and useful ideas can drive teachers toward innovation (Da’as, 2022). Teachers who come up with new ideas might develop a profound intrinsic motivation to implement new ideas in teaching (Wibowo and Saptono, 2018). Consistent with those theoretical arguments, the researchers reported a strong positive relationship between teacher creativity and their pedagogical approaches and competencies (Suharyatia et al., 2019) and teaching effectiveness (Arifani et al., 2019). Hence, we hypothesize that: H1: Teacher creativity will be positively related to teaching quality ACAP requires individuals to evaluate, identify, assimilate, and apply external knowledge (Schweisfurth and Raasch, 2018). Such knowledge obtained from external sources can stimulate different and novel ways of thinking (Chiang et al., 2015). Individuals with a higher ACAP can, therefore, be more creative and innovative because they exploit external knowledge and bring it to the organization for the use of other team members (Schweisfurth and Raasch, 2018). On the contrary, a low capacity to seek and exploit external knowledge could dim the chance of developing creative ideas (Ince et al., 2022). In addition, with the exploitation of new knowledge derived from outside sources, individuals tend to better perform (Chiang et al., 2015). For example, Darling-Hammond et al. (2017) asserted that exchanging ideas with people beyond the school offers new insights and knowledge that are powerful enough to make changes in classrooms. Therefore, we hypothesize that: H2: ACAP will be positively related to teacher creativity H3: ACAP will be positively related to teaching quality Job boredom has been associated with attention deficit, distorted time perception, emotions, and affect (Kruk et al., 2024) and, therefore, often has negative consequences, including increased absenteeism, lower job satisfaction (Kass et al., 2001), depression complaints, distress, and counterproductive work behavior (Hooff and Hooft, 2014). Evidence also reported a potential negative impact on teaching quality depending on teachers' responses (Dumančić, 2018). On the other hand, there could be positive consequences as well. Boredom often results from mismatches between cognitive demands and available mental resources, which can drive individuals to seek more engaging and meaningful activities (Westgate and Wilson, 2018) and to explore novel ways of doing things (Geana, 2016). Here, awareness seems to be the key to positive outcomes. For example, in a qualitative study involving interviews with thirty teachers in primary, secondary, and university settings in the USA, Emo (2015) suggested that many participants viewed boredom as a key factor driving their decision to engage in a professional learning activity for developing and implementing creative ideas. For some, it acted as a catalyst, prompting immediate action to address their boredom. In contrast, others considered it a more general, ongoing motivator for engaging in innovative activities and improving the quality of their teaching. In another study, teachers indicated that they seek strategies to make their teaching interesting to avoid boredom (Dumančić, 2018). H4: Job boredom will be positively related to ACAP H5: Job boredom will be positively related to teaching quality H6: Job boredom will be positively related to creativity Defined as the quality of the dyadic relationship between the leader and the follower (Bauer and Erdogan, 2015), LMX suggests that a high-quality relationship offers followers increased autonomy and decision-making opportunities important for developing creative ideas. This relationship also gives followers a higher sense of advocacy and liking from the leader, promoting increased comfort and trust required for taking risks and demonstrating creativity (Tierney et al., 1999). In addition, followers who enjoy a closer and higher quality relationship with their leader are expected to have higher motivation to learn new skills and knowledge (Bakker and Leiter, 2017). In exchange for increased support from the leader, followers develop a desire to please the leader (Martin et al., 2016) by seeking, acquiring and implementing innovative ideas (Mascareño et al., 2020). Such a good relationship can motivate augmented performance in general (Muktar and Kassie, 2022) and better-quality teaching in particular (Tasić et al., 2020). Therefore, we expect the following: H7 : LMX will be positively related to ACAP H8: LMX will be positively related to creativity H9: LMX will be positively related to teaching quality As shown in the previous section, under certain conditions or contexts, such as developing an awareness of their situation, the boredom that employees (i.e., teachers) feel can trigger the development of internal enthusiasm and motivation for better knowledge-seeking, creativity, and performance (Dumančić, 2018; Emo, 2015) or negative outcomes (e.g., disengagement) (Hooff and Hooft, 2014; Kass et al., 2001). A high-quality relationship could facilitate and strengthen this mechanism. Bored employees might want to perform better and come up with better ideas when they know that through good relationships with their leader can enjoy autonomy and psychological safety and easily handle the risk of failure (Smothers, 2023). Therefore, psychological safety might be one factor that leads to bored employees developing awareness and acting (Emo, 2015). The supportive environment created through the high-quality relationship between the leader and employee characterized by support and trust (Graen and Uhl-Bien, 1995) might turn boredom into an opportunity for creativity or performance improvement. H10: LMX will positively moderate the relationship between Job boredom and ACAP H11: LMX will positively moderate the relationship between Job boredom and creativity H:12 LMX will positively moderate the relationship between Job boredom and ACAP Methods The foundation of this investigation is a cross-sectional survey design. The sections that follow describe the study site, sample, data collection, measurements, and data analysis techniques. Study Area This study was conducted in Nigeria. Nigeria lies in western Africa and has a diverse geography, with humid and desert equatorial temperatures. In total, Nigeria is home to more than 500 indigenous languages (Adeniyi and Ayodele, 2024), including Yoruba, Igbo, Fula, Hausa, Edo, Ibibio, Tiv. It is manatory that the local language or mother tongue be used for teaching in primary schools (Obiakor, 2024). In secondary schools, English (or Arabic or French) is designated as the medium of instruction. However, the combined use of the mother tongue and the community language is actively encouraged (Adeniyi and Ayodele, 2024). As a result, according to Trudell (2018), switching from one language to another occurs frequently in Nigerian classrooms. Sample and Data Collection This cross-sectional survey involved N=1406 Nigerian teachers nested in 146 schools in the spring of 2023. The participants were divided into the following states: 144 teachers from Benue State represented 9.6% of the participants; 146 teachers from Ebonyi State represented 9.8% of the participants; 132 teachers from Kogi State represented 8.8% of the participants; 146 teachers from Akwa-Ibom State represented 9.8% of the participants; 120 teachers from Enugu State represented 8% of the participants; 266 teachers in Anambra State, representing 17.8% of the participants; there were 288 teachers in Federal Capital Territory, representing 19.3% of the participants; 110 teachers in Delta State, representing 7.4% of the participants; and 54 teachers in Ogun State, representing 3.6% of the participants. 49.4% of respondents were men and 50.6 percent of respondents were women. Purposive sampling was used to select the participants from schools in the Federal Capital Territory of Nigeria, as well as the states of Enugu, Anambra, Ebonyi, Kogi, Benue, Delta, and Akwa-Ibom. Purposive sampling was used in order to enable the researchers to sample only principals of schools that do not have significant security issues, since Nigeria is now dealing with a number of security challenges that may compromise the nation's status as an independent republic. These comprise kidnapping, human trafficking, armed robberies, gun smuggling, urban violence, and disputes between religious and communal groups. Furthermore, it has been seen that the government, security, and intelligence services are caught off guard by the continuous attacks by terrorists, herders, and ethnic-religious disputes (Awotayo et al., 2023). Measures Teaching Practices (TEAC, ω = .775). In order to assess the instructional methods employed by teachers, five items from the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement's (IEA) Second International Science Study 1984 (SISS84) were utilized, as this was the final international large-scale assessment study (ILSA) in which Nigeria participated (Howie, 2011). In SISS84, these items each correlated with student achievement at about r =.20 and together explained about seven percent in student achievement between schools (Wolf, 1992). The base question was: „How often do you use each of the following types of instructional methods for teaching?“. All items were answered on a 4-point Likert-type scale (1 = never to 4 = frequently). Example items are: „Lecture to the whole class followed by questions from students.“; „The class is divided into small groups of students who work together on the same assignment or different assignments, including practical/laboratory work.“; „Students follow individualized programs, which may include individually printed materials and laboratory work“. Teacher Creativity (TCRE, ω = .919). Teacher‘s creative behavior at work was measured with three items developed by George and Zhous‘ (2001). All items were answered on a 4-point Likert-type scale (1 = strongly disagree to 4 = strongly agree). An example item is “I exhibit creativity on the job when given the opportunity to”. Absorptive Capacity (ACAP, ω = .892). Because ACAP is domain-specific (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990), we assessed teachers‘ pedagogical knowledge ACAP, as defined by Shulman (1986). Hence. we showed the following introduction: In the following we would like to learn how you deal with pedagogical knowledge. Pedagogical knowledge is knowledge about teaching and learning that is subject-independent, i.e. can be applied to different subjects and educational areas. How much do you agree with the following statements? The measurement was conducted using an adapted unidimensional six-item scale developed by Schweisfurth and Raasch (2018). All items could be answered on a four-point Likert-type scale, coded from 1 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree). Example items are: „I am always searching for new knowledge about teaching and learning to raise student achievement“; „I translate new knowledge about teaching and learning into a language that my colleagues understand“; „I exploit new knowledge about teaching and learning to change instruction fundamentally“. Job Boredom (BORE, ω = .778). A 3-item short version of the Dutch Boredom Scale (Reijseger et al., 2013) was used to capture teachers‘ boredom at work. All items were answered on a 4-point Likert-type scale (1 = strongly disagree to 4 = strongly agree). One item assesses affective aspects of job boredom, a second item assesses cognitive aspects, and a third item assesses behavioral aspects. Item wordings are as follows: „I feel bored at my job.“; „At work, time goes by very slowly.“; „At work, I spend my time aimlessly. “ Leader Member Exchange (LMX, ω = .899). We captured LMX with Graen and Uhl-Bien’s (1995) seven-item scale. All items are coded on five-point Likert-type scales. An example item is “ How well does your principal recognize your potential?”, coded from 1 (Not at all) to 5 (Fully). Another example item is “I have enough confidence in my principal that I would defend and justify his or her decision if he or she were not present to do so.”, also coded from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree). Data Analyses We utilized MPLUS 8.5 software (Muthén and Muthén, 2017) to conduct the analyses, with confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) and structural equation models (SEMs). We employed maximum likelihood estimation with robust (Huber-White) standard errors (MLR), and cluster-robust standard errors were requested by specifying TYPE = COMPLEX. For the goodness of fit in the basic model, we employed the standardized root mean square residual (SRMR) and the comparative fit index (CFI). The cut-offs for SRMR and CFI were .08 and .90, respectively, as Hu and Bentler (1999) suggested. However, we did not estimate the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) because it is sensitive to the model used and performs poorly with ordinal indicators (Shi and Maydeu-Olivares, 2020). We also estimated the robustness of the mediation effects using bootstrapped mediation analysis. This procedure provides 95% bias-corrected bootstrap confidence intervals with 1,000 bootstrap replications (Hayes, 2018; Preacher and Hayes, 2008). Indirect effects are considered significant if the 95% confidence intervals (CI) do not include zero (Hayes, 2018). We applied a random effects model to examine the interaction effects (moderation). For standardized path coefficients, we standardized all manifest indicator variables, following the procedures recommended by Maslowsky et al. (2015). Since no fit indices are available for random effects models, we compared the log-likelihoods of the model without and with latent interaction to examine if the addition of the interaction made a significant change to the analysis, using a log-likelihood ratio test and report coefficient D (Klein and Moosbrugger, 2000). Moreover, we investigated whether the newly added parameter could explain more variance in the dependent variables between teachers (ΔR2) (Maslowsky et al., 2015). Following best practice recommendations for interaction reporting, we also use a pick-a-point, simple slope procedure (Finsaas and Goldstein, 2021). Since the data utilized in this study originate from a single instrument, we initially examined the common variance by loading all items used in the analyses on a single unrotated factor (Harmann, 1960). A value less than 50% indicates less chance for common method bias in model estimates (Lance et al., 2010). The data show that the common variance is 27.5%. To handle the 5.8% of missing data, we used a full information maximum likelihood approach (FIML). Results The results are presented in the following order: descriptive statistics, structural equation model, mediation model, and moderation model. Descriptives We started the analysis with descriptive statistics, as shown in Table 1. Notably, a considerable proportion of teachers surveyed reported experiencing high levels of job boredom (M = 2.45). Approximately one in every two teachers (50%) (strongly) agreed that the time at work goes by slowly, that they feel bored at work, and that they spend their working hours aimlessly. The mean value on the quality of teaching practices is also relatively low (M = 2.92). All other variables are relatively high and above 3.00. Correlations ranged from moderate to low, with the highest being between teaching practices and ACAP ( r = .541) and the lowest between ACAP and boredom ( r = -.078). Negative correlations were identified between boredom and the three variables teacher creativity ( r = -.149), LMX ( r = -.091), and ACAP ( r = -.078). In contrast, a positive correlation was observed between job boredom and teaching practices ( r = .155); that is to say, the more bored a teacher is in their job, the more frequently they vary their instructional methods. Table 1 Descriptive Statistics of Variables Included in the Model M SD TEAC TCRE ACAP BORE LMX TEAC 2.92 .61 1 TCRE 3.36 .66 .248 1 ACAP 3.29 .65 .346 .541 1 BORE 2.45 .83 .155 -.149 -.078 1 LMX 3.69 .83 .263 .375 .375 -.091 1 Note: All correlations are significant at p <.05. TEAC = Teaching Practices; TCRE = Teacher Creativity; ACAP = Absorptive Capacity; BORE = Job Boredom; LMX = Leader-Member Exchange Our measurement models demonstrated good fit to the data, with fit values being CFI = .979 and SRMR = .024 for teaching practices, CFI = .985 and SRMR = .022 for ACAP, and CFI = .984 and SRMR = .023 for LMX, respectively. In this regard, it is important to note that preliminary analyses indicated a high correlation between two items of the teaching practices scale („Question-and-answer methods for presenting information to the whole class.“ and „Lecture to the whole class followed by questions from students.“). Consequently, we correlated their item residuals with each other. Further, we do not report fit indices for teacher creativity and job boredom as both analyses would demonstrate perfect fit to the data, due to just identified models, as both constructs are indicated by only three items each. Structural Equation Model The R²-values for ACAP, teacher creativity, and teaching practices are .541, .738, and .700, respectively. The results indicated that teacher creativity is significantly and positively related to teaching practices (β = .248 p < .01). Job boredom is significantly related to ACAP (β = .157 p < .05) and teaching practices (β = .308 p < .001) but not creativity (β = .008 p = .822). LMX is significantly and positively related to creativity (β = .198 p < .001), ACAP (β = .712 p < .001) and teaching practices (β = .208 p < .001). Similarly, the relationships between ACAP and creativity (β = .739 p < .001) and between ACAP and teaching practices (β = .298 p < .001) are significant and positive. These results overall highlight several points: (1) the frequent use of varying teaching practices depends on all model variables. The strongest predictor is boredom, meaning that teachers often switch between teaching methods if they are bored at school. (2) Teacher creativity on the other hand is mainly driven by a teacher‘s pedagogical knowledge ACAP. If a teacher is searching for new knowledge about teaching and learning, this leads to more creativity in the job (but apparently not necessarily to the same extent in the instructional practices). (3) ACAP in turn is based on LMX. If a teacher has a good relationship with his or her principal, they will try to find and implement more new and relevant pedagogical knowledge. Table 2 Standardized direct effects Parameter β p CREA -> TEACH .248 ACAP .157 TEACH .308 CREA .008 .822 LMX -> CREA .198 ACAP .712 TEACH .208 CREA .739 TEACH .298 <.001 Mediation Model The indirect effect between ACAP and teaching practices through creativity is significant only on a single tailed test (β = .183, 95%CI [.043, .375], p = .054). As a result, while the total effect of ACAP on teaching practices is significant and positive (β = .481, 95%CI [.361, .606], p < .001), the total indirect effect is not significant (β = .183, 95%CI [043, .375], p = .054). Similarly, although the total effect of job boredom on teaching practices is significant and positive (β = .385 95%CI [.229, .472], p < .001), the total indirect effect is not significant (β = .183 95%CI [-.059, .130], p = .054) because specific indirect effects between boredom and teaching practices through creativity (β = .002 95%CI [-.018, .016], p = .869) and ACAP (β = .047 95%CI [-.031, .101], p = .356) paths and both paths combined (β = .029 p = .230 95%CI -.008, .073) are not significant. However, the total effect of LMX on teaching practices is significant (β = .598 95%CI [.325, .654], p < .001) as well as the total indirect effect (β = .392, 95%CI [.153, .489], p < .01). Specific indirect effects in the relationship between LMX and teaching practices include ACAP (β = .212, 95%CI [.123, .357], p < .01), creativity (β = .049, 95%CI [.008, .095], p = .078) and both combined (β = .130, 95%CI [.018, .278], p = .084). On the other hand, neither total (β = .123 95%CI [-.223, .225], p = .543) nor total indirect effects (β = .116 p = .315 -.077, .197) is significant in the relationship between job boredom and teacher creativity through ACAP (β = .116, 95%CI [-.077, .197], p = .315). LMX is significantly related to creativity both through total effect (β = .724, 95%CI [.343, .807], p < .01) and total indirect effect (β = .526, 95%CI [.239, .612], p < .01), meaning that the specific indirect effect via ACAP is also significant (β = .526, 95%CI [.239, 612], p < .01). The results overall suggest that (1) ACAP has the largest total effect on teaching practices and (2) LMX has the second largest effect on teaching practices. All indirect paths are relevant, demonstrating that LMX might be some kind of a climate variable for a teacher. (3) Boredom has a positive total effect on teaching practices. The effect of boredom on teaching practices is only direct without any indirect effects. Table 3 Standardized indirect effects with confidence intervals and moderating effect 95% Confidence Intervals Parameter Estimate Lower Upper p Mediation effects ACAP -> CREA -> TEACH .183 .043 .375 .054 BOR -> CREA -> TEACH .002 -.018 .016 .869 BOR -> ACAP -> TEACH .047 -.031 .101 .356 BOR -> ACAP -> CREA .116 -.077 .197 .315 LMX -> ACAP-> TEACH .212 .123 .357 CREA -> TEACH .049 .008 .095 .078 LMX -> ACAP -> CREA .526 .239 .612 ACAP -.316 CREA -.179 TEACH -.144 <.001 Moderation Model In a final step, we investigated the moderating effect of LMX on teachers' job boredom. Concerning ACAP (β = -.316, p < .001), creativity (β = -.179, p < 001), and teaching practices (β = -.144, p < .001), we found a negative and statistically significant effect of the interaction. The direct effect of boredom on teaching practices remains stable and significant, indicating that these are additional, independent effects. The ΔR²-values for ACAP, teacher creativity, and teaching practices are .086, .081, and .098, respectively. This indicates that adding the job boredom-LMX interaction increases the explanatory power in each case by more than 10%. The coefficient D is 367 (df=3, p <.001), demonstrating that adding the three latent interaction terms to the model results in a better fit to the data. In Figures 2a, 2b and 2c, we graphically show how LMX moderates the relationship between teacher boredom and teacher creativity, ACAP and teaching practices, respectively—that is, when LMX is zero (average) or 1 SD below (low) or 1 SD above (high) this value. LMX negatively moderates the boredom relation to these variables. The results indicate that LMX mainly has a positive effect on teacher creativity, ACAP and teaching practices when the job boredom of teachers is low. Positive effects are identified, particularly in instances where teachers experience minimal boredom and perceive high levels of LMX. Precisely, the results indicate that LMX is positively associated with enhanced teaching practices, the exploration of novel pedagogical knowledge, and creativity among teachers when they experience low levels of boredom. However, as boredom increases, a strong LMX tends to have nor or negative effects, while positive outcomes of boredom are more likely to occur when LMX is particularly low. The negative interaction is fully compensated by the positive effects of LMX (and concerning teaching boredom too) on these variables. Discussion A fundamental premise in educational research is the notion that teaching is primarily a knowledge-based activity. A central question that has received scant attention in the extant literature so far is that of how teachers ensure the maintenance of their knowledge. The present article seeks to shed light on this issue by means of an investigation into the assumption that boredom at work leads to increased proactive information-seeking behaviour of teachers, namely their pedagogical ACAP. It was hypothesised that this, taken together, is associated with both increased creativity and a broader application of or greater variety in teaching practices. Schools have been regarded as social institutions in which affective and relational contexts and conditions are imperative, shaping teachers' emotions and behaviors. Our findings demonstrate that both boredom in the workplace and pedagogical ACAP had significant positive relationship with teachers‘ creativity and teaching practices. The findings indicate that teachers who experience higher levels of job boredom tend to alternate between teaching methods with greater frequency. However, these teachers do not demonstrate any significant disparities in creativity in the workplace when compared to those teachers who report lower levels of boredom. In contrast, their activities aimed at recognizing, assimilating, transforming, and exploiting new external pedagogical knowledge—i.e. pedagogical ACAP—are positively associated with both their creativity and teaching practices. Furthermore, a high-quality relationship with the principal is also important in this regard: the more pronounced the LMX, the more teachers try to acquire new pedagogical knowledge. Interestingly, we discovered relevant interaction effects between LMX and teachers‘ job boredom. In general, LMX exerts a more relevant influence on ACAP, teacher creativity, and the variation in teaching practices when job boredom is low. However, as teachers experience increasing boredom at work, the effect of LMX on these variables diminishes. This effect was observed for all the constructs examined, suggesting that LMX functions as a climate variable that shapes teachers' emotions, experiences, and behaviors at school, emphasizing the significance of high-quality relationships between school leaders and teachers for emotion regulation and work outcomes. With regard to exisiting research, our findings supports what we already know in the global context and from other disciplines (Little et al., 2016; Madrid et al., 2019 ; Mumtaz and Rowley, 2020), but it adds to the literature by offering new evidence from an understudied context of Africa (Nigeria). Notwithstanding that limited access to education and inadequate infrastructure in the Nigerian context are potential determinants of teachers‘ ACAP, this is the only empirical evidence of the relationship between teachers' ACAP and their creativity and teaching behavior in the workplace. Our search also supports the claim that people with higher ACAP can consequently be more creative and innovative (Schweisfurth and Raasch, 2018). Furthermore, people tend to perform better when they make use of fresh information obtained from external sources (Chiang et al., 2015 ). Darling-Hammond et al. ( 2017 ) also asserted that the exchange of ideas with people beyond the school offers new insights and knowledge that are powerful enough to make changes in classrooms. Creativity and individual ACAP are strongly correlated, and work performance and creativity are favorably correlated (Ince et al., 2022 ). Thus, teachers’ performance rises quickly as creativity rises at high absorptive capacity levels (Thanh and Tran, 2023). Further, job boredom has previously been linked to attention deficit, distorted time perception, emotions, and affect (Kruk et al., 2024 ). In this regard, we found that boredom can trigger action to change something. For example, teachers who are bored at school tend to switch up their lesson plans. While this might contradict some research indicating that boredom can have a detrimental effect on the quality of instruction (Dumančić, 2018 ), it supports the one who claims positive outcomes of boredom. For instance, research demonstrated that boredom can promote better teaching practices (Craven and Frick, 2024). Similarly, Borgonovi et al. ( 2023 ) found that boredom is positively related to teachers' readiness to teach. Our research concurred with this second line of research by showing that while the number of bored teachers is high, this might have positive implications for teaching in the Nigerian context. In contrast to the findings of previous studies (Mann and Cadman, 2014), we discovered that job boredom does not enhance creativity in the Nigerian school context. It is, however, linked to higher ACAP and teaching practices. This means that boredom encourages teachers to look for more interesting and fulfilling activities and knowledge (Westgate and Wilson, 2018) as well as to try new things (Geana, 2016). In line with existing research, we found a positive association between LMX and three other variables in our model: ACAP, teacher creativity and teaching practices. This means that a high quality relationship between a teacher and the principal will foster Nigerian teachers’ search for and use of more fresh and pertinent pedagogical knowledge, creative ideas and implementation of new teaching strategies. Consequently, what we discovered in the Nigerian context regarding the effect of LMX on teacher behavior concurs with the findings of studies from other contexts that showed a positive impact of LMX on teachers' creativity (Li and Pei, 2012), job crafting (Babadag, 2020), work engagement (Klein and Zwilling, 2022), and innovative work behavior (Vermeulen et al., 2022 ). Through moderation analysis, however, we found that LMX negatively moderates the relationship between boredom and the three outcome variables. This means that while in the Nigerian context boredom among teachers might lead teachers to increase their search and application of new knowledge, creative ideas and high-quality teaching, this positive effect is reduced when those teachers have a better relationship with their principals. In other words, the good relationship between leaders and teachers becomes a sort of barrier for bored teachers to seek out new knowledge and implement it in the classroom. This could be because of psychological safety and comfort derived from good relationships with the principals. Research indicated that teachers with high LMX can enjoy increased autonomy and psychological safety (Smothers, 2023 ). It seems like this is creating a comfort zone among bored teachers and hence despite being bored, they are less likely to take action while their colleagues who do not have a good relationship with their leaders have a higher inclination toward implementing innovative ideas and teaching strategies. Limitations While addressing a substantial issue in educational research in an understudied context, the present study involves several limitations that need attention. First, the results are based on cross-sectional data collected at a single point in time unable to make causal implications. Experimental or longitudinal studies are needed for such claims. Second, all variables teaching were only reported by teachers themselves. Consequently, such measures are susceptible to bias due to the potential influence of social desirability or confidentiality concerns (Podsakoff et al., 2003). Especially, in the context of teaching practices, extant research suggests that teachers' self-perceptions frequently diverge considerably from students' perceptions (Wagner et al., 2016 ). This discrepancy, however, can be attributed to perspective-specific validities, positioning teachers as the most reliable source of information for distinguishing between different instructional approaches (Kunter and Baumert, 2006). However, if other aspects of teaching are to be examined, it would be necessary to include further data on teaching from the students' perspective (Wiesnewski et al., 2022) in future studies. Third, the existing literature in the field of educational research offers only a limited number of results in relation to some of the variables examined here. This is particularly the case with regard to the constructs of ACAP, job boredom and teacher creativity. Further research is required to gain a more detailed understanding of these constructs, including their measurement, their antecedents, their effects, and the contingency factors that influence them. It should also be noted in this regard, that ACAP is domain-specific and path-dependent, meaning that mechanisms for each knowledge domain is different (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990). Given that the present study has focused exclusively on pedagogical ACAP, we recommend that future research also explore teachers' ACAP related to content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and technological pedagogical content knowledge. Conclusion In this research, we concluded that pedagocial knowledge ACAP had the most relevant effect on the teaching practices, followed by LMX. Already in their seminal work, Cohen and Levinthal (1990) established a link between prior knowledge, ACAP, and both learning and innovation. The fundamental premise is that ACAP facilitates accelerated learning and a self-reinforcing spiral of knowledge acquisition and utilization (Zahra and George, 2002). Our study demonstrates, for the first time in the context of education, that these assumptions can be applied to teachers too. In particular, it becomes evident that the extent of teacher creativity and teaching contingent upon a teacher‘s capacity to acquire, assimilate, transform and exploit new pedagogicl knowledge. This positions our research as one of the few studies that examine how teachers acquire and apply new knowledge in their professional practice (König et al., 2024 ). From our findings, we can also conclude that teacher creativity plays a significant role in promoting teaching practices. Besides, given that all of the indirect effects are relevant, LMX may be a climate variable for the teachers. Further, the overall impact of boredom on teaching practices is very important since it has a direct impact on teaching practices without any indirect effects. In accordance with the tenets outlined by Lee et al. ( 2016 , p. 844), our study, thus, demonstrates that "teaching is an emotional effort." Consequently, our research has several contributions to the existing knowledge-base in the areas of both teacher education and school improvement. Further, the reported findings have both practical and policy implications. Since we found that ACAP, creativity and boredom are all major determinants of teachers’ teaching practices, the implication is that if Nigerian teachers are not properly trained to improve their ACAP, creativity and manage their boredom positively, they will not be able to carry out effective teaching practices. Moreover, the policy implication of our findings is that to ensure effective teaching practices in Nigeria, education policymakers need to develop an adequate policy framework that will encourage in-service training of teachers on the best ways to improve their pedagogical knowledge ACAP. Moreover, a policy framework for the training of principals on building healthy LMX is needed to foster knowledge sharing, peer mentorship and networking between the principals and the teachers. Declarations Ethics approval and consent to participate Ethical approval for the conduct of this research as well as permission to access the sampled schools were obtained. Before the data collection, the researchers issued informed consent forms to the teachers to fill and sign. Such exercise was done before the visits of the researchers to the various schools to ensure that the participants consented to the completion of the questionnaire items. 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E., Murtic, et al (2024) Individual-level absorptive capacity: Unveiling the interplay between dispositions, work context. Technovation, 131, 102965. Zahra, S. A., George, et al (2002) Absorptive capacity: A review, reconceptualization, extension. Academy of Management Review, 27(2), 185-203. Zhou, J., George, et al (2001) When job dissatisfaction leads to creativity: Encouraging the expression of voice. Academy of Management Journal, 44(4), 682-696. Zhou, J., George, et al (2003) Awakening employee creativity: The role of leader emotional intelligence. The Leadership Quarterly, 14(4-5), 545-568. Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. 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Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-6488938","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":464045995,"identity":"77683b68-5b59-4a2e-a37c-43951f0424c6","order_by":0,"name":"Marcus Pietsch","email":"data:image/png;base64,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","orcid":"","institution":"Leuphana University of Lüneburg","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Marcus","middleName":"","lastName":"Pietsch","suffix":""},{"id":464045996,"identity":"2a3a0db0-81a5-45ae-b5f3-f39d57de82da","order_by":1,"name":"Christian Ugwuanyi","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"University of Nigeria","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Christian","middleName":"","lastName":"Ugwuanyi","suffix":""},{"id":464045997,"identity":"8bc18fb4-c6b4-4da1-9d74-d95478551498","order_by":2,"name":"Mehmet Bellibaş","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"University of Sharjah","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Mehmet","middleName":"","lastName":"Bellibaş","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2025-04-20 11:23:03","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-6488938/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-6488938/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":83838110,"identity":"bc3119cc-56b0-4894-94fe-f0e8f7d98bbb","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-06-03 13:30:52","extension":"png","order_by":1,"title":"Figure 1","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":38419,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eConceptual model\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"1.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-6488938/v1/3d42c0260f4f6f6eb6e04f8c.png"},{"id":83838909,"identity":"b0a96006-a465-4bbd-8400-6dfaad0c4ca4","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-06-03 13:38:52","extension":"png","order_by":2,"title":"Figure 2","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":213638,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e2a, 2b, 2c:\u003c/strong\u003eInteraction effects of Boredom and LMX on ACAP, teaching quality and creativity\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"2.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-6488938/v1/c3f39f11ab6c384aff2074f7.png"},{"id":89944045,"identity":"7f93b506-e996-4012-bd28-e05c49d34902","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-08-26 16:46:53","extension":"pdf","order_by":0,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":1035769,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"manuscript.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-6488938/v1/3410d182-5b60-41a8-a452-d396a28b8a24.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"No competing interests reported.","formattedTitle":"Job Boredom and Its Impact on Teacher Creativity and Teaching: Pedagogical Knowledge Absorptive Capacity and Leader-Member Exchange Make a Difference","fulltext":[{"header":"Introduction","content":"\u003cp\u003eIn today's dynamic and increasingly uncertain educational environments, teachers are expected to demonstrate creativity, continuously refine their skills by exploring new knowledge, and consistently enhance and adapt the quality of their teaching to meet ever-evolving contexts and demands (K\u0026ouml;nig et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR55\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e). Whether teachers are able to meet these requirements and how they manage to do so depends, in large part, on their emotions (Chen and Cheng, 2021; Frenzel et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR35\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e; Pekrun, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR75\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e). In this regard, it is supposed that teachers' emotions shape their work by influencing their choice of instructional strategies, considering the emotional impact on both students and themselves (Hargreaves, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR42\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2000\u003c/span\u003e; Sutton and Wheatley, 2003).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eEspecially, in language classes, but also in mixed-language classes, teacher boredom is considered to be a relevant aspect in terms of classroom instruction and student learning (Kruk et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR56\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e). However, there has been limited research on teacher job boredom, its antecedents, and its effects in schools (Tam et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR90\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e). For instance, despite the enormous demands of their daily work, researchers have reported an increase in boredom among teachers in recent years, which may be linked to a rise in mental health issues (Weybright et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR102\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e). Although counterintuitive at first glance, various studies suggest that boredom in the workplace can act as a catalyst for explorative activities (Bench and Lench, 2019) and spark the emergence of much-needed creativity (Mann and Cadman, 2014). This also appears to apply to teachers (Elahi Shirvan et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR28\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e) and teacher creativity (Emo, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR29\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e), where the evidence remains generally scarce.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe objective of our study is to address this research gap. We adopt Shulman's (1986, 1987) perspective that teaching is fundamentally a knowledge-based activity and follow the premise that schools, above all, are social institutions where affective and relational contexts and conditions are imperative (Benoliel and Berkovich, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR11\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e). In this regard, on the one hand, we introduce the concept of individual absorptive capacity (ACAP) into educational research, as it allows us to examine \"an individual\u0026rsquo;s activities to recognize, assimilate, transform, and exploit new external knowledge\" (Lowik et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR63\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e, p. 1323). On the other hand, we draw on the concept of leader-member exchange (LMX; Grean and Uhl-Bien, 1995), as numerous studies highlight the significance of high-quality relationships between leaders and their subordinates for followers\u0026lsquo; emotion regulation (Little et al., 2016) and work outcomes (Mumtaz and Rowley, 2020), particularly creativity and innovative work behavior (Madrid et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR64\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e). As such, we aim to determine whether teacher job boredom is associated with higher absorptive capacity (ACAP) and enhanced creativity among teachers, whether this is reflected in greater variation in teaching practices at the individual level, and what role LMX plays in this context. For our study, we use data from 1,406 teachers nested in 146 schools in Nigeria \u0026ndash; a nation with more than 500 indigenous languages and a national policy which mandates that school students be taught in indigenous languages (Adeniyi and Ayodele, 2024; Obiakor, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR74\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e) \u0026ndash; and test a dozen hypotheses by estimating latent moderated mediated structural equation models (Cheung and Lau, 2017).\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Theoretical background","content":"\u003cp\u003eOur research is based upon the premise that teaching essentially is a knowledge-based activity (Hagerty, 2010). In this regard, Shulman\u0026rsquo;s (1986, 1987) foundational work conceptualized teachers\u0026rsquo; professional knowledge as comprising three core components: pedagogical knowledge, content knowledge, and pedagogical content knowledge. Building on this framework, Mishra and Koehler (2006) introduced technological knowledge, developing the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework. This knowledge, however, is inherently tacit, encompassing a broad repertoire of in-situ teaching skills and abilities related to subject matter, pedagogy, curriculum, and technology (Mena et al., 2017). As such, teachers\u0026apos; knowledge forms the foundation of their everyday decision-making processes, offering guidance on effectively facilitating student learning through thoughtful lesson design and instructional practice (Fenstermacher, 1994). Shulman (1986), however, suggested that such tacit knowledge is acquired through a complex procedural and iterative process, requiring a continuous inflow of new knowledge to support ongoing professional development and growth.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe processes through which teachers gain new knowledge in the context of their professional practice remain relatively understudied (K\u0026ouml;nig et al., 2024). However, it is known that boredom can lead people to seek new experiences (Reio Jr., 2024), which in turn is associated with increased creativity (Hunter et al., 2016). In this regard, it is noteworthy that empirical research indicates that boredom outperforms curiosity in terms of information-seeking behaviour (Wolff et al., 2024). Given that schools are fundamentally social institutions, it is further essential to acknowledge their affective and relational contexts to better understand how teachers acquire new knowledge and apply it to their teaching practices (Benoliel and Berkovich, 2021). In this regard, a crucial contextual factor influencing emotion regulation in the workplace is the emotional management of leaders in the context of dyadic leader-member exchange relationships (Little et al., 2016; Niven, 2017). It has been shown that high-quality relationships have a significant impact on work outcomes (Herman et al., 2018; Mumtaz and Rowley, 2020), particularly on employee creativity and innovation (Madrid et al., 2019). Recent studies indicate that the capacity of individuals to search for pertinent, connectable knowledge and to exploit it effectively plays an important mediating role in determining whether and how new knowledge is acquired and implemented in practice (Lowik et al., 2017; Xiong et al., 2024). Nevertheless, whether and to what extent this so-called individual absorptive capacity (ACAP, Lowik et al., 2017; Zahra and George, 2002) is also relevant in the context of schools, for teachers, and how these concepts and mechanisms are related remains an area that has not yet been explored.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAddressing this gap and based on these theoretical backgrounds, the present study links job boredom and pedagogical knowledge ACAP to teacher creativity and teaching practices to examine how teachers\u0026apos; emotional states motivate them to seek knowledge, generate ideas, and better engage in their work. In addition, we examine how and the extent to which the dyadic relationship between school principals and teachers could facilitate these associations. The following sections will define each concept used in the theoretical framework and offer rationales regarding proposed relationships among them with relevant hypotheses.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTeaching Practices\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSince the famous Coleman report in 1966, educational researchers, practitioners and policymakers focusing on school improvement have been concerned with classroom teaching quality due to its unique impact on student learning and achievement.\u003cstrong\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003e(e.g., Bryk et al., 2010; Stronge et al., 2007). Additionally, educational reformers claimed that school reforms are unlikely to achieve their desired results unless they successfully address the problems associated with and improve teaching and learning activities (Bl\u0026ouml;meke et al., 2016; Bryk et al., 2010).\u003cstrong\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003eDespite a lack of concurrence among researchers regarding the quality of teaching, a wide range of key practices have been highlighted.\u003cstrong\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003eFor example,\u003cstrong\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003eParise and Spillane (2010) proposed several strategies, such as supporting collaborative learning by grouping students, diversifying materials and techniques, and asking questions to stimulate higher-order thinking. Other practices included creating opportunities for students to ask questions and making constructive feedback available to them, communicating with students, using questioning and discussion techniques (Stronge et al., 2007). While ensuring these practices could facilitate school improvement, they are often challenging since teachers tend to stay within their comfort zone and resist change (Riley and Solic, 2021). Aiming to address this globally, research efforts on school factors that could enhance the quality of teaching have been boosted over the past decade, with many new insights from the developing world (see, e.g., Bellibas et al., 2021).\u003cstrong\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTeacher Creativity\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCreativity is \u0026bdquo;the production of novel and useful ideas or solutions\u0026rdquo; (Zhou and George, 2003, p. 547) or \u0026lsquo;the production of novel and useful ideas by an individual or small group or individuals working together\u0026rsquo; (Amabile, 1988, p. 126). Definitions of creativity often involve two common essential features: novelty and usefulness (Harvey and Berry, 2023). \u0026nbsp;The first suggests that creative people think outside the box (Beghetto, 2019) to develop original and better ways of doing things (Zhou and George, 2003). The second implies that creative ideas should be different from crazy and bizarre ones, relevant to the problem, or acceptable within the standards (Harvey and Berry, 2023). Concerning teachers, creativity might refer to teachers\u0026apos; capability to combine and integrate \u0026ldquo;different educational theories, stances, and models about teaching, learning, and instruction in novel ways to address the needs of unique learners\u0026rdquo; (Bramwell et al., 2011, p. 228). Creative teachers generate original ideas to increase the quality of their daily work, search for novel teaching practices, take risks by experimenting with new teaching strategies, and seek out novel ideas to produce solutions to classroom problems (Zhou and George, 2001). \u003cstrong\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eIndividual Absorptive Capacity\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eImplementing innovative ideas in the organization is not straightforward and requires acquiring new knowledge (Schweisfurth and Raasch, 2018). A relevant concept here is absorptive capacity, which, at the individual level, refers to the proactive capability of a person to evaluate, identify, evaluate, assimilate, and apply external knowledge (Schweisfurth and Raasch, 2018, p. 687). It is a proactive and dynamic capability for producing and exploiting new knowledge (Zahra and George, 2002). This process involves several activities: recognition, assimilation, transformation, and exploitation (Lowik et al., 2017). Recognition activity requires proactively searching, identifying, and assessing new knowledge. Assimilation is about adapting knowledge to the organizational context by making it clear and useable for other members. The transformation process involves combining and integrating new knowledge with existing knowledge to produce new ideas. Finally, exploitation is related to internalizing new knowledge in the daily work routines (Lowik et al., 2017).\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eACAP attracted the attention of only a few researchers (Lenart-Gansiniec et al., 2022) who focused on school-level capacity (Da\u0026rsquo;as and Qadach, 2020). This research examines ACAP at the individual level and the absorptive capacity of individual teachers. This is due to the paucity of research examining how teachers acquire new knowledge once they have commenced their professional careers (K\u0026ouml;nig et al., 2024). Consequently, it focuses on pedagogical knowledge ACAP. Shulman (1986) notes that pedagogical knowledge goes beyond teachers\u0026apos; content knowledge in a given subject matter to the knowledge of teaching a subject matter and of what facilitates learning. Therefore, ACAP for pedagogical knowledge is the teacher\u0026rsquo;s ability to proactively recognize the relevance of new pedagogical knowledge, assimilate it effectively, and apply it in classrooms to innovate their teaching. Those teachers seek and identify new knowledge about teaching and learning, adapt it to their context, change the old knowledge with the new one, and apply new knowledge to improve teaching. This capability can be enhanced through previous knowledge and skills, participation in various projects, interaction with the outside environment (Lenart-Gansiniec et al., 2022), strong leadership (Bakker and Leiter, 2017) and can enhance creativity and performance (Tian and Soo, 2018).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eJob boredom\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFahlman et al. (2013) define boredom as \u0026lsquo;the experience of being disengaged from the world and stuck in a seemingly endless and dissatisfying present\u0026rsquo; (p. 68). These people want to but cannot engage in satisfying activities (Fahlman et al., 2013). It is considered an experience related to attention deficit, distorted time perception, emotions, and affect (Kruk et al., 2024). It often occurs after completing a work or task, which is common in education, particularly during COVID-19 lockdowns (Audrin and Hasco\u0026euml;t, M 2021). The concept has been associated with significant social, psychological, and physical health difficulties (Fahlman et al., 2013). For example, negative feelings, perception of time passing slowly, poor concentration, unwillingness to change the situation, low arousal, and change in facial expression have been listed among various indicators (Audrin and Hasco\u0026euml;t, 2021). Fahlman et al. (2013) listed four main theories that explain why a bored person is less likely to achieve a task: psychodynamic, arousal, attention, and existential theories. Psychodynamic theory suggests that the bored person cannot determine what is desired because the desire is repressed. Arousal theory links it to less arousal due to a mismatch between environmental stimulation and a person\u0026rsquo;s need for arousal. Attention theory considers it a problem related to the lack of attention, while existential theory argues that it results from the lack of purpose. Empirical research shows that boredom can lead individuals to seek new experiences (Reio Jr., 2024) and increase information-seeking behavior (Wolff et al., 2024), a process associated with increased creativity (Hunter et al., 2016). \u003cstrong\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLMX\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLMX differs from leader-based or follower-based approaches\u0026mdash;two dominant approaches in educational leadership literature\u0026mdash;due to its focus on the reciprocal interaction between the leader and each follower (Graen and Uhl-Bien, 1995). Bauer and Erdogan, (1998) refer to this relationship as a dyad\u0026mdash;a unique relationship between a leader and each of their followers spanning mutual trust, respect, loyalty and support (Erdogan and Liden, 2002). In education, LMX is related to the quality of the dyadic relationship between the principal and each teacher within the school. Such a relationship develops over time as both sides interact (Cunningham and MacGregor, 2000). According to LMX, leaders vary in how they interact with each follower, leading to variability in the quality of relationships between the leader and each follower within the organization (Martin et al., 2016) and suggesting that each follower should be the unit of analysis (Graen and Uhl-Bien, 1995). When LMX is low, followers focus mainly on economic exchanges based on the completion of work. In the case of a high LMX, the relationship enhances enthusiasm and willingness to perform their best (Martin et al., 2016). Consequently, LMX has been linked to stronger creativity, citizenship behavior, and commitment (Mumtaz and Rowley, 2020), trust, motivation, empowerment, job satisfaction, and performance (Martin et al., 2016), and weaker turnover intention (Mumtaz and Rowley, 2020).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eHypotheses\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCreativity is an essential teacher competence that can be used to deal with classroom problems (Torrance, 1970). Developing novel and useful ideas can drive teachers toward innovation (Da\u0026rsquo;as, 2022). Teachers who come up with new ideas might develop a profound intrinsic motivation to implement new ideas in teaching (Wibowo and Saptono, 2018). Consistent with those theoretical arguments, the researchers reported a strong positive relationship between teacher creativity and their pedagogical approaches and competencies (Suharyatia et al., 2019) and teaching effectiveness (Arifani et al., 2019). Hence, we hypothesize that:\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eH1:\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003e\u003cem\u003eTeacher creativity will be positively related to teaching quality\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eACAP requires individuals to evaluate, identify, assimilate, and apply external knowledge (Schweisfurth and Raasch, 2018). Such knowledge obtained from external sources can stimulate different and novel ways of thinking (Chiang et al., 2015). Individuals with a higher ACAP can, therefore, be more creative and innovative because they exploit external knowledge and bring it to the organization for the use of other team members (Schweisfurth and Raasch, 2018). On the contrary, a low capacity to seek and exploit external knowledge could dim the chance of developing creative ideas (Ince et al., 2022). In addition, with the exploitation of new knowledge derived from outside sources, individuals tend to better perform (Chiang et al., 2015). For example, Darling-Hammond et al. (2017) asserted that exchanging ideas with people beyond the school offers new insights and knowledge that are powerful enough to make changes in classrooms. Therefore, we hypothesize that:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eH2:\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003e\u003cem\u003eACAP will be positively related to teacher creativity\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eH3:\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003e\u003cem\u003eACAP will be positively related to teaching quality\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJob boredom has been associated with attention deficit, distorted time perception, emotions, and affect (Kruk et al., 2024) and, therefore, often has negative consequences, including increased absenteeism, lower job satisfaction (Kass et al., 2001), depression complaints, distress, and counterproductive work behavior (Hooff and Hooft, 2014). Evidence also reported a potential negative impact on teaching quality depending on teachers\u0026apos; responses (Dumančić, 2018).\u003cstrong\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003eOn the other hand, there could be positive consequences as well.\u003cstrong\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003eBoredom often results from mismatches between cognitive demands and available mental resources, which can drive individuals to seek more engaging and meaningful activities (Westgate and Wilson, 2018) and to explore novel ways of doing things (Geana, 2016).\u003cstrong\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003eHere, awareness seems to be the key to positive outcomes. For example, in a qualitative study involving\u0026nbsp;interviews with thirty teachers in primary, secondary, and university settings in the USA, Emo (2015) suggested that many participants viewed boredom as a key factor driving their decision to engage in a professional learning activity for developing and implementing creative ideas. For some, it acted as a catalyst, prompting immediate action to address their boredom. In contrast, others considered it a more general, ongoing motivator for engaging in innovative activities and improving the quality of their teaching. In another study, teachers indicated that they seek strategies to make their teaching interesting to avoid boredom (Dumančić, 2018).\u003cstrong\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eH4:\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003e\u003cem\u003eJob boredom will be positively related to ACAP\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eH5:\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003e\u003cem\u003eJob boredom will be positively related to teaching quality\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eH6:\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003e\u003cem\u003eJob boredom will be positively related to creativity\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDefined as the quality of the dyadic relationship between the leader and the follower (Bauer and Erdogan, 2015), LMX suggests that a high-quality relationship offers followers increased autonomy and decision-making opportunities important for developing creative ideas. This relationship also gives followers a higher sense of advocacy and liking from the leader, promoting increased comfort and trust required for taking risks and demonstrating creativity (Tierney et al., 1999). In addition, followers who enjoy a closer and higher quality relationship with their leader are expected to have higher motivation to learn new skills and knowledge (Bakker and Leiter, 2017). In exchange for increased support from the leader, followers develop a desire to please the leader (Martin et al., 2016) by seeking, acquiring and implementing innovative ideas (Mascare\u0026ntilde;o et al., 2020). Such a good relationship can motivate augmented performance in general (Muktar and Kassie, 2022) and better-quality teaching in particular (Tasić et al., 2020). Therefore, we expect the following:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eH7\u003c/strong\u003e: \u003cem\u003eLMX will be positively related to ACAP\u003c/em\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eH8:\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003e\u003cem\u003eLMX will be positively related to creativity\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eH9:\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003e\u003cem\u003eLMX will be positively related to teaching quality\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs shown in the previous section, under certain conditions or contexts, such as developing an awareness of their situation, the boredom that employees (i.e., teachers) feel can trigger the development of internal enthusiasm and motivation for better knowledge-seeking, creativity, and performance (Dumančić, 2018; Emo, 2015) or negative outcomes (e.g., disengagement) (Hooff and Hooft, 2014; Kass et al., 2001). A high-quality relationship could facilitate and strengthen this mechanism. Bored employees might want to perform better and come up with better ideas when they know that through good relationships with their leader can enjoy autonomy and psychological safety and easily handle the risk of failure (Smothers, 2023). Therefore, psychological safety might be one factor that leads to bored employees developing awareness and acting (Emo, 2015). The supportive environment created through the high-quality relationship between the leader and employee characterized by support and trust (Graen and Uhl-Bien, 1995) might turn boredom into an opportunity for creativity or performance improvement.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eH10:\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003eLMX will positively moderate the relationship between Job boredom and ACAP\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eH11:\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003eLMX will positively moderate the relationship between Job boredom and creativity\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eH:12\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003eLMX will positively moderate the relationship between Job boredom and ACAP\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Methods","content":"\u003cp\u003eThe foundation of this investigation is a cross-sectional survey design. The sections that follow describe the study site, sample, data collection, measurements, and data analysis techniques. \u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eStudy Area\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis study was conducted in Nigeria. Nigeria lies in western Africa and has a diverse geography, with humid and desert equatorial temperatures. In total, Nigeria is home to more than 500 indigenous languages (Adeniyi and Ayodele, 2024), including Yoruba, Igbo, Fula, Hausa, Edo, Ibibio, Tiv. It is manatory that the local language or mother tongue be used for teaching in primary schools (Obiakor, 2024). In secondary schools, English (or Arabic or French) is designated as the medium of instruction. However, the combined use of the mother tongue and the community language is actively encouraged (Adeniyi and Ayodele, 2024). As a result, according to Trudell (2018), switching from one language to another occurs frequently in Nigerian classrooms.\u003cstrong\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSample and Data Collection\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis cross-sectional survey involved N=1406 Nigerian teachers nested in 146 schools in the spring of 2023. The participants were divided into the following states: 144 teachers from Benue State represented 9.6% of the participants; 146 teachers from Ebonyi State represented 9.8% of the participants; 132 teachers from Kogi State represented 8.8% of the participants; 146 teachers from Akwa-Ibom State represented 9.8% of the participants; 120 teachers from Enugu State represented 8% of the participants; 266 teachers in Anambra State, representing 17.8% of the participants; there were 288 teachers in Federal Capital Territory, representing 19.3% of the participants; 110 teachers in Delta State, representing 7.4% of the participants; and 54 teachers in Ogun State, representing 3.6% of the participants. 49.4% of respondents were men and 50.6 percent of respondents were women.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePurposive sampling was used to select the participants from schools in the Federal Capital Territory of Nigeria, as well as the states of Enugu, Anambra, Ebonyi, Kogi, Benue, Delta, and Akwa-Ibom. Purposive sampling was used in order to enable the researchers to sample only principals of schools that do not have significant security issues, since Nigeria is now dealing with a number of security challenges that may compromise the nation\u0026apos;s status as an independent republic. These comprise kidnapping, human trafficking, armed robberies, gun smuggling, urban violence, and disputes between religious and communal groups. Furthermore, it has been seen that the government, security, and intelligence services are caught off guard by the continuous attacks by terrorists, herders, and ethnic-religious disputes (Awotayo et al., 2023).\u003cstrong\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMeasures\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTeaching Practices\u003c/strong\u003e (TEAC, \u0026omega; = .775). In order to assess the instructional methods employed by teachers, five items from the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement\u0026apos;s (IEA) Second International Science Study 1984 (SISS84) were utilized, as this was the final international large-scale assessment study (ILSA) in which Nigeria participated (Howie, 2011). In SISS84, these items each correlated with student achievement at about \u003cem\u003er\u003c/em\u003e=.20 and together explained about seven percent in student achievement between schools (Wolf, 1992). The base question was: \u0026bdquo;How often do you use each of the following types of instructional methods for teaching?\u0026ldquo;. All items were answered on a 4-point Likert-type scale (1 = never to 4 = frequently). Example items are: \u0026bdquo;Lecture to the whole class followed by questions from students.\u0026ldquo;; \u0026bdquo;The class is divided into small groups of students who work together on the same assignment or different assignments, including practical/laboratory work.\u0026ldquo;; \u0026bdquo;Students follow individualized programs, which may include individually printed materials and laboratory work\u0026ldquo;.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTeacher Creativity\u003c/strong\u003e (TCRE, \u0026omega; = .919). Teacher\u0026lsquo;s creative behavior at work was measured with three items developed by George and Zhous\u0026lsquo; (2001). All items were answered on a 4-point Likert-type scale (1 = strongly disagree to 4 = strongly agree). An example item is \u0026ldquo;I exhibit creativity on the job when given the opportunity to\u0026rdquo;.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAbsorptive Capacity\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003e(ACAP,\u003cstrong\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003e\u0026omega; = .892). Because ACAP is domain-specific (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990), we assessed teachers\u0026lsquo; pedagogical knowledge ACAP, as defined by Shulman (1986). Hence. we showed the following introduction:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eIn the following we would like to learn how you deal with pedagogical knowledge. Pedagogical knowledge is knowledge about teaching and learning that is subject-independent, i.e. can be applied to different subjects and educational areas. How much do you agree with the following statements?\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe measurement was conducted using an adapted unidimensional six-item scale developed by Schweisfurth and Raasch (2018). All items could be answered on a four-point Likert-type scale, coded from 1 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree). Example items are: \u0026bdquo;I am always searching for new knowledge about teaching and learning to raise student achievement\u0026ldquo;; \u0026bdquo;I translate new knowledge about teaching and learning into a language that my colleagues understand\u0026ldquo;; \u0026bdquo;I exploit new knowledge about teaching and learning to change instruction fundamentally\u0026ldquo;.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eJob Boredom\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003e(BORE,\u003cstrong\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003e\u0026omega; = .778). \u0026nbsp;A 3-item short version of the Dutch Boredom Scale (Reijseger et al., 2013) was used to capture teachers\u0026lsquo; boredom at work. \u0026nbsp;All items were answered on a 4-point Likert-type scale (1 = strongly disagree to 4 = strongly agree). One item assesses affective aspects of job boredom, a second item assesses cognitive aspects, and a third item assesses behavioral aspects. Item wordings are as follows: \u0026bdquo;I feel bored at my job.\u0026ldquo;; \u0026bdquo;At work, time goes by very slowly.\u0026ldquo;; \u0026bdquo;At work, I spend my time aimlessly. \u0026ldquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLeader Member Exchange\u003c/strong\u003e (LMX, \u0026omega; = .899). We captured LMX with Graen and Uhl-Bien\u0026rsquo;s (1995) seven-item scale. All items are coded on five-point Likert-type scales. An example item is \u0026ldquo; How well does your principal recognize your potential?\u0026rdquo;, coded from 1 (Not at all) to 5 (Fully). Another example item is \u0026ldquo;I have enough confidence in my principal that I would defend and justify his or her decision if he or she were not present to do so.\u0026rdquo;, also coded from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree).\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eData Analyses\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe utilized MPLUS 8.5 software (Muth\u0026eacute;n and Muth\u0026eacute;n, 2017) to conduct the analyses, with confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) and structural equation models (SEMs). We employed maximum likelihood estimation with robust (Huber-White) standard errors (MLR), and cluster-robust standard errors were requested by specifying TYPE = COMPLEX.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor the goodness of fit in the basic model, we employed the standardized root mean square residual (SRMR) and the comparative fit index (CFI). The cut-offs for SRMR and CFI were .08 and .90, respectively, as Hu and Bentler (1999) suggested. However, we did not estimate the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) because it is sensitive to the model used and performs poorly with ordinal indicators (Shi and Maydeu-Olivares, 2020). We also estimated the robustness of the mediation effects using bootstrapped mediation analysis. This procedure provides 95% bias-corrected bootstrap confidence intervals with 1,000 bootstrap replications (Hayes, 2018; Preacher and Hayes, 2008). Indirect effects are considered significant if the 95% confidence intervals (CI) do not include zero (Hayes, 2018).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe applied a random effects model to examine the interaction effects (moderation). For standardized path coefficients, we standardized all manifest indicator variables, following the procedures recommended by Maslowsky et al. (2015). Since no fit indices are available for random effects models, we compared the log-likelihoods of the model without and with latent interaction to examine if the addition of the interaction made a significant change to the analysis, using a log-likelihood ratio test and report coefficient D (Klein and Moosbrugger, 2000). Moreover, we investigated whether the newly added parameter could explain more variance in the dependent variables between teachers (\u0026Delta;R2) (Maslowsky et al., 2015). Following best practice recommendations for interaction reporting, we also use a pick-a-point, simple slope procedure (Finsaas and Goldstein, 2021).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSince the data utilized in this study originate from a single instrument, we initially examined the common variance by loading all items used in the analyses on a single unrotated factor (Harmann, 1960). A value less than 50% indicates less chance for common method bias in model estimates (Lance et al., 2010). The data show that the common variance is 27.5%. To handle the 5.8% of missing data, we used a full information maximum likelihood approach (FIML).\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Results","content":"\u003cp\u003eThe results are presented in the following order: descriptive statistics, structural equation model, mediation model, and moderation model.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDescriptives\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe started the analysis with descriptive statistics, as shown in Table 1. Notably, a considerable proportion of teachers surveyed reported experiencing high levels of job boredom (M = 2.45). Approximately one in every two teachers (50%) (strongly) agreed that the time at work goes by slowly, that they feel bored at work, and that they spend their working hours aimlessly. The mean value on the quality of teaching practices is also relatively low (M = 2.92). All other variables are relatively high and above 3.00. Correlations ranged from moderate to low, with the highest being between teaching practices and ACAP (\u003cem\u003er\u003c/em\u003e = .541) and the lowest between ACAP and boredom (\u003cem\u003er\u003c/em\u003e = -.078). Negative correlations were identified between boredom and the three variables teacher creativity (\u003cem\u003er\u003c/em\u003e = -.149), LMX (\u003cem\u003er\u003c/em\u003e = -.091), and ACAP (\u003cem\u003er\u003c/em\u003e = -.078). In contrast, a positive correlation was observed between job boredom and teaching practices (\u003cem\u003er\u003c/em\u003e = .155); that is to say, the more bored a teacher is in their job, the more frequently they vary their instructional methods.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTable 1\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003e\u003cem\u003eDescriptive Statistics of Variables Included in the Model\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ctable border=\"1\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\"\u003e\n \u003ctbody\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 75px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 75px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eM\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eSD\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eTEAC\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eTCRE\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eACAP\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eBORE\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eLMX\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 75px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eTEAC\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 75px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e2.92\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e.61\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e1\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 75px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eTCRE\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 75px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e3.36\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e.66\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e.248\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e1\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 75px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eACAP\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 75px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e3.29\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e.65\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e.346\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e.541\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e1\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 75px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eBORE\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 75px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e2.45\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e.83\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e.155\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e-.149\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e-.078\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e1\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 75px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eLMX\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 75px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e3.69\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e.83\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e.263\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e.375\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e.375\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e-.091\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e1\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003c/tbody\u003e\n\u003c/table\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNote: All correlations are significant at \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026lt;.05. TEAC = Teaching Practices; TCRE = Teacher Creativity; ACAP = Absorptive Capacity; BORE = Job Boredom; LMX = Leader-Member Exchange\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOur measurement models demonstrated good fit to the data, with fit values being CFI = .979 and SRMR = .024 for teaching practices, CFI = .985 and SRMR = .022 for ACAP, and CFI = .984 and SRMR = .023 for LMX, respectively. In this regard, it is important to note that preliminary analyses indicated a high correlation between two items of the teaching practices scale (\u0026bdquo;Question-and-answer methods for presenting information to the whole class.\u0026ldquo; and \u0026bdquo;Lecture to the whole class followed by questions from students.\u0026ldquo;). Consequently, we correlated their item residuals with each other. Further, we do not report fit indices for teacher creativity and job boredom as both analyses would demonstrate perfect fit to the data, due to just identified models, as both constructs are indicated by only three items each.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eStructural Equation Model\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe R\u0026sup2;-values for ACAP, teacher creativity, and teaching practices are .541, .738, and .700, respectively. The results indicated that teacher creativity is significantly and positively related to teaching practices (\u0026beta; = .248 \u003cem\u003ep\u0026nbsp;\u003c/em\u003e\u0026lt; .01). Job boredom is significantly related to ACAP (\u0026beta; = .157 \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e \u0026lt; .05) and teaching practices (\u0026beta; = .308 \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e \u0026lt; .001) but not creativity (\u0026beta; = .008 \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e = .822). \u0026nbsp;LMX is significantly and positively related to creativity (\u0026beta; = .198 \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e \u0026lt; .001), ACAP (\u0026beta; = .712 \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e \u0026lt; .001) and teaching practices (\u0026beta; = .208 \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e \u0026lt; .001). Similarly, the relationships between ACAP and creativity (\u0026beta; = .739 \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e \u0026lt; .001) and between ACAP and teaching practices (\u0026beta; = .298 \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e \u0026lt; .001) are significant and positive. These results overall highlight several points: (1) the frequent use of varying teaching practices depends on all model variables. The strongest predictor is boredom, meaning that teachers often switch between teaching methods if they are bored at school. (2) Teacher creativity on the other hand is mainly driven by a teacher\u0026lsquo;s pedagogical knowledge ACAP. If a teacher is searching for new knowledge about teaching and learning, this leads to more creativity in the job (but apparently not necessarily to the same extent in the instructional practices). (3) ACAP in turn is based on LMX. If a teacher has a good relationship with his or her principal, they will try to find and implement more new and relevant pedagogical knowledge.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTable 2\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003e\u003cem\u003eStandardized direct effects\u003cstrong\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ctable border=\"1\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" width=\"606\"\u003e\n \u003cthead\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 64.5656%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eParameter\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 15.5026%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u0026beta;\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 19.9319%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003c/thead\u003e\n \u003ctbody\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 64.5656%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eCREA -\u0026gt; TEACH\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 15.5026%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e.248\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 19.9319%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026lt;.010\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 64.5656%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eBOR \u0026nbsp; -\u0026gt; ACAP\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 15.5026%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e.157\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 19.9319%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026lt;.050\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 64.5656%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eBOR -\u0026gt; TEACH\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 15.5026%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e.308\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 19.9319%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026lt;.001\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 64.5656%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eBOR -\u0026gt; CREA\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 15.5026%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e.008\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 19.9319%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp; .822\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 64.5656%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eLMX -\u0026gt; CREA\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 15.5026%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e.198\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 19.9319%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026lt;.001\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 64.5656%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eLMX -\u0026gt; ACAP\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 15.5026%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e.712\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 19.9319%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026lt;.001\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 64.5656%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eLMX -\u0026gt; TEACH\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 15.5026%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e.208\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 19.9319%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026lt;.001\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 64.5656%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eACAP -\u0026gt; CREA\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 15.5026%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e.739\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 19.9319%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026lt;.001\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 64.5656%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eACAP -\u0026gt; TEACH\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 15.5026%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e.298\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 19.9319%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026lt;.001\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003c/tbody\u003e\n\u003c/table\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMediation Model\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe indirect effect between ACAP and teaching practices through creativity is significant only on a single tailed test (\u0026beta; = .183, 95%CI [.043, .375], \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e = .054). As a result, while the total effect of ACAP on teaching practices is significant and positive (\u0026beta; = .481, 95%CI [.361, .606], \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e \u0026lt; .001), the total indirect effect is not significant (\u0026beta; = .183, 95%CI [043, .375], \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e = .054). \u0026nbsp; Similarly, although the total effect of job boredom on teaching practices is significant and positive (\u0026beta; = .385 95%CI [.229, .472], \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e \u0026lt; .001), the total indirect effect is not significant (\u0026beta; = .183 95%CI [-.059, .130], p = .054) because specific indirect effects between boredom and teaching practices through creativity (\u0026beta; = .002 95%CI [-.018, .016], p = .869) and \u0026nbsp;ACAP (\u0026beta; = .047 95%CI [-.031, .101],\u003cem\u003e\u0026nbsp;p\u0026nbsp;\u003c/em\u003e= .356) paths and both paths combined (\u0026beta; = .029 \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e = .230 95%CI -.008, .073) are not significant. \u0026nbsp;However, the total effect of LMX on teaching practices is significant (\u0026beta; = .598 95%CI [.325, .654], \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e \u0026lt; .001) as well as the total indirect effect (\u0026beta; = .392, 95%CI [.153, .489], \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e \u0026lt; .01). Specific indirect effects in the relationship between LMX and teaching practices include ACAP (\u0026beta; = .212, 95%CI [.123, .357], \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e \u0026lt; .01), creativity (\u0026beta; = .049, 95%CI [.008, .095], \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e = .078) and both combined (\u0026beta; = .130, 95%CI [.018, .278], \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e = .084). On the other hand, neither total (\u0026beta; = .123 95%CI [-.223, .225], p = .543) nor total indirect effects (\u0026beta; = .116 \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e = .315 -.077, .197) is significant in the relationship between job boredom and teacher creativity through ACAP (\u0026beta; = .116, 95%CI [-.077, .197], \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e = .315). LMX is significantly related to creativity both through total effect (\u0026beta; = .724, 95%CI [.343, .807], \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e \u0026lt; .01) and total indirect effect (\u0026beta; = .526, 95%CI [.239, .612], \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e \u0026lt; .01), meaning that the specific indirect effect via ACAP is also significant (\u0026beta; = .526, 95%CI [.239, 612], \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e \u0026lt; .01). The results overall suggest that (1) ACAP has the largest total effect on teaching practices and (2) LMX has the second largest effect on teaching practices. All indirect paths are relevant, demonstrating that LMX might be some kind of a climate variable for a teacher. (3) Boredom\u003cem\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/em\u003ehas a positive total effect on teaching practices. The effect of boredom on teaching practices is only direct without any indirect effects.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTable 3\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eStandardized indirect effects with confidence intervals and moderating effect\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ctable border=\"1\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" width=\"626\"\u003e\n \u003cthead\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 356px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 12.9674%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 22.2527%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e95% Confidence Intervals\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 9.2853%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 356px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eParameter\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 12.9674%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eEstimate\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 10.4059%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLower\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 11.8468%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eUpper\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 9.2853%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ep\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003c/thead\u003e\n \u003ctbody\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 53.6306%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eMediation effects\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 12.9674%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 10.4059%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 11.8468%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 9.2853%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 53.6306%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eACAP -\u0026gt; CREA -\u0026gt; TEACH\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 12.9674%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e.183\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 10.4059%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e.043\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 11.8468%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e.375\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 9.2853%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e.054\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 53.6306%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eBOR -\u0026gt; CREA -\u0026gt; TEACH\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 12.9674%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e.002\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 10.4059%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e-.018\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 11.8468%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e.016\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 9.2853%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e.869\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 53.6306%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eBOR -\u0026gt; ACAP -\u0026gt; TEACH\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 12.9674%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e.047\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 10.4059%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e-.031\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 11.8468%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e.101\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 9.2853%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e.356\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 53.6306%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eBOR -\u0026gt; ACAP -\u0026gt; CREA\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 12.9674%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e.116\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 10.4059%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e-.077\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 11.8468%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e.197\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 9.2853%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e.315\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 53.6306%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eLMX -\u0026gt; ACAP-\u0026gt; TEACH\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 12.9674%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e.212\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 10.4059%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e.123\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 11.8468%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e.357\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 9.2853%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026lt;.010\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 53.6306%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eLMX -\u0026gt; CREA -\u0026gt; TEACH\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 12.9674%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e.049\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 10.4059%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e.008\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 11.8468%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e.095\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 9.2853%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;.078\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 53.6306%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eLMX -\u0026gt; ACAP -\u0026gt; CREA\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 12.9674%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e.526\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 10.4059%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e.239\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 11.8468%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e.612\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 9.2853%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026lt;.010\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 53.6306%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eModeration effects\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 12.9674%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 10.4059%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 11.8468%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 9.2853%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 53.6306%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eLMX*BOR -\u0026gt; ACAP\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 12.9674%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e-.316\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 10.4059%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 11.8468%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 9.2853%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026lt;.001\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 53.6306%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eLMX*BOR -\u0026gt; CREA\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 12.9674%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e-.179\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 10.4059%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 11.8468%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 9.2853%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026lt;.001\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 53.6306%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eLMX*BOR -\u0026gt; TEACH\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 12.9674%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e-.144\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 10.4059%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 11.8468%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 9.2853%;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026lt;.001\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003c/tbody\u003e\n\u003c/table\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eModeration Model\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn a final step, we investigated the moderating effect of LMX on teachers\u0026apos; job boredom. Concerning ACAP (\u0026beta; = -.316, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e \u0026lt; .001), creativity (\u0026beta; = -.179, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e \u0026lt; 001), and teaching practices (\u0026beta; = -.144, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e \u0026lt; .001), we found a negative and statistically significant effect of the interaction. The direct effect of boredom on teaching practices remains stable and significant, indicating that these are additional, independent effects. The \u0026Delta;R\u0026sup2;-values for ACAP, teacher creativity, and teaching practices are .086, .081, and .098, respectively. This indicates that adding the job boredom-LMX interaction increases the explanatory power in each case by more than 10%. The coefficient D is 367 (df=3, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026lt;.001), demonstrating that adding the three latent interaction terms to the model results in a better fit to the data.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn Figures 2a, 2b and 2c, we graphically show how LMX moderates the relationship between teacher boredom and teacher creativity, ACAP and teaching practices, respectively\u0026mdash;that is, when LMX is zero (average) or 1 SD below (low) or 1 SD above (high) this value. LMX negatively moderates the boredom relation to these variables. The results indicate that LMX mainly has a positive effect on teacher creativity, ACAP and teaching practices when the job boredom of teachers is low. Positive effects are identified, particularly in instances where teachers experience minimal boredom and perceive high levels of LMX. Precisely, the results indicate that LMX is positively associated with enhanced teaching practices, the exploration of novel pedagogical knowledge, and creativity among teachers when they experience low levels of boredom. However, as boredom increases, a strong LMX tends to have nor or negative effects, while positive outcomes of boredom are more likely to occur when LMX is particularly low. The negative interaction is fully compensated by the positive effects of LMX (and concerning teaching boredom too) on these variables.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Discussion","content":"\u003cp\u003eA fundamental premise in educational research is the notion that teaching is primarily a knowledge-based activity. A central question that has received scant attention in the extant literature so far is that of how teachers ensure the maintenance of their knowledge. The present article seeks to shed light on this issue by means of an investigation into the assumption that boredom at work leads to increased proactive information-seeking behaviour of teachers, namely their pedagogical ACAP. It was hypothesised that this, taken together, is associated with both increased creativity and a broader application of or greater variety in teaching practices. Schools have been regarded as social institutions in which affective and relational contexts and conditions are imperative, shaping teachers' emotions and behaviors.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eOur findings demonstrate that both boredom in the workplace and pedagogical ACAP had significant positive relationship with teachers\u0026lsquo; creativity and teaching practices. The findings indicate that teachers who experience higher levels of job boredom tend to alternate between teaching methods with greater frequency. However, these teachers do not demonstrate any significant disparities in creativity in the workplace when compared to those teachers who report lower levels of boredom. In contrast, their activities aimed at recognizing, assimilating, transforming, and exploiting new external pedagogical knowledge\u0026mdash;i.e. pedagogical ACAP\u0026mdash;are positively associated with both their creativity and teaching practices. Furthermore, a high-quality relationship with the principal is also important in this regard: the more pronounced the LMX, the more teachers try to acquire new pedagogical knowledge.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eInterestingly, we discovered relevant interaction effects between LMX and teachers\u0026lsquo; job boredom. In general, LMX exerts a more relevant influence on ACAP, teacher creativity, and the variation in teaching practices when job boredom is low. However, as teachers experience increasing boredom at work, the effect of LMX on these variables diminishes. This effect was observed for all the constructs examined, suggesting that LMX functions as a climate variable that shapes teachers' emotions, experiences, and behaviors at school, emphasizing the significance of high-quality relationships between school leaders and teachers for emotion regulation and work outcomes.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eWith regard to exisiting research, our findings supports what we already know in the global context and from other disciplines (Little et al., 2016; Madrid et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR64\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e; Mumtaz and Rowley, 2020), but it adds to the literature by offering new evidence from an understudied context of Africa (Nigeria). Notwithstanding that limited access to education and inadequate infrastructure in the Nigerian context are potential determinants of teachers\u0026lsquo; ACAP, this is the only empirical evidence of the relationship between teachers' ACAP and their creativity and teaching behavior in the workplace. Our search also supports the claim that people with higher ACAP can consequently be more creative and innovative (Schweisfurth and Raasch, 2018). Furthermore, people tend to perform better when they make use of fresh information obtained from external sources (Chiang et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR17\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e). Darling-Hammond et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR25\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e) also asserted that the exchange of ideas with people beyond the school offers new insights and knowledge that are powerful enough to make changes in classrooms. Creativity and individual ACAP are strongly correlated, and work performance and creativity are favorably correlated (Ince et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR51\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e). Thus, teachers\u0026rsquo; performance rises quickly as creativity rises at high absorptive capacity levels (Thanh and Tran, 2023).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eFurther, job boredom has previously been linked to attention deficit, distorted time perception, emotions, and affect (Kruk et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR56\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e). In this regard, we found that boredom can trigger action to change something. For example, teachers who are bored at school tend to switch up their lesson plans. While this might contradict some research indicating that boredom can have a detrimental effect on the quality of instruction (Dumančić, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR26\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2018\u003c/span\u003e), it supports the one who claims positive outcomes of boredom. For instance, research demonstrated that boredom can promote better teaching practices (Craven and Frick, 2024). Similarly, Borgonovi et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR13\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2023\u003c/span\u003e) found that boredom is positively related to teachers' readiness to teach. Our research concurred with this second line of research by showing that while the number of bored teachers is high, this might have positive implications for teaching in the Nigerian context. In contrast to the findings of previous studies (Mann and Cadman, 2014), we discovered that job boredom does not enhance creativity in the Nigerian school context. It is, however, linked to higher ACAP and teaching practices. This means that boredom encourages teachers to look for more interesting and fulfilling activities and knowledge (Westgate and Wilson, 2018) as well as to try new things (Geana, 2016).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn line with existing research, we found a positive association between LMX and three other variables in our model: ACAP, teacher creativity and teaching practices. This means that a high quality relationship between a teacher and the principal will foster Nigerian teachers\u0026rsquo; search for and use of more fresh and pertinent pedagogical knowledge, creative ideas and implementation of new teaching strategies. Consequently, what we discovered in the Nigerian context regarding the effect of LMX on teacher behavior concurs with the findings of studies from other contexts that showed a positive impact of LMX on teachers' creativity (Li and Pei, 2012), job crafting (Babadag, 2020), work engagement (Klein and Zwilling, 2022), and innovative work behavior (Vermeulen et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR99\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e). Through moderation analysis, however, we found that LMX negatively moderates the relationship between boredom and the three outcome variables. This means that while in the Nigerian context boredom among teachers might lead teachers to increase their search and application of new knowledge, creative ideas and high-quality teaching, this positive effect is reduced when those teachers have a better relationship with their principals. In other words, the good relationship between leaders and teachers becomes a sort of barrier for bored teachers to seek out new knowledge and implement it in the classroom. This could be because of psychological safety and comfort derived from good relationships with the principals. Research indicated that teachers with high LMX can enjoy increased autonomy and psychological safety (Smothers, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR86\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2023\u003c/span\u003e). It seems like this is creating a comfort zone among bored teachers and hence despite being bored, they are less likely to take action while their colleagues who do not have a good relationship with their leaders have a higher inclination toward implementing innovative ideas and teaching strategies.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec20\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003eLimitations\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eWhile addressing a substantial issue in educational research in an understudied context, the present study involves several limitations that need attention. First, the results are based on cross-sectional data collected at a single point in time unable to make causal implications. Experimental or longitudinal studies are needed for such claims. Second, all variables teaching were only reported by teachers themselves. Consequently, such measures are susceptible to bias due to the potential influence of social desirability or confidentiality concerns (Podsakoff et al., 2003). Especially, in the context of teaching practices, extant research suggests that teachers' self-perceptions frequently diverge considerably from students' perceptions (Wagner et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR100\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2016\u003c/span\u003e). This discrepancy, however, can be attributed to perspective-specific validities, positioning teachers as the most reliable source of information for distinguishing between different instructional approaches (Kunter and Baumert, 2006). However, if other aspects of teaching are to be examined, it would be necessary to include further data on teaching from the students' perspective (Wiesnewski et al., 2022) in future studies. Third, the existing literature in the field of educational research offers only a limited number of results in relation to some of the variables examined here. This is particularly the case with regard to the constructs of ACAP, job boredom and teacher creativity. Further research is required to gain a more detailed understanding of these constructs, including their measurement, their antecedents, their effects, and the contingency factors that influence them. It should also be noted in this regard, that ACAP is domain-specific and path-dependent, meaning that mechanisms for each knowledge domain is different (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990). Given that the present study has focused exclusively on pedagogical ACAP, we recommend that future research also explore teachers' ACAP related to content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and technological pedagogical content knowledge.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e"},{"header":"Conclusion","content":"\u003cp\u003eIn this research, we concluded that pedagocial knowledge ACAP had the most relevant effect on the teaching practices, followed by LMX. Already in their seminal work, Cohen and Levinthal (1990) established a link between prior knowledge, ACAP, and both learning and innovation. The fundamental premise is that ACAP facilitates accelerated learning and a self-reinforcing spiral of knowledge acquisition and utilization (Zahra and George, 2002). Our study demonstrates, for the first time in the context of education, that these assumptions can be applied to teachers too. In particular, it becomes evident that the extent of teacher creativity and teaching contingent upon a teacher\u0026lsquo;s capacity to acquire, assimilate, transform and exploit new pedagogicl knowledge.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis positions our research as one of the few studies that examine how teachers acquire and apply new knowledge in their professional practice (K\u0026ouml;nig et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR55\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e). From our findings, we can also conclude that teacher creativity plays a significant role in promoting teaching practices. Besides, given that all of the indirect effects are relevant, LMX may be a climate variable for the teachers. Further, the overall impact of boredom on teaching practices is very important since it has a direct impact on teaching practices without any indirect effects. In accordance with the tenets outlined by Lee et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR59\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2016\u003c/span\u003e, p. 844), our study, thus, demonstrates that \"teaching is an emotional effort.\" Consequently, our research has several contributions to the existing knowledge-base in the areas of both teacher education and school improvement.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eFurther, the reported findings have both practical and policy implications. Since we found that ACAP, creativity and boredom are all major determinants of teachers\u0026rsquo; teaching practices, the implication is that if Nigerian teachers are not properly trained to improve their ACAP, creativity and manage their boredom positively, they will not be able to carry out effective teaching practices. Moreover, the policy implication of our findings is that to ensure effective teaching practices in Nigeria, education policymakers need to develop an adequate policy framework that will encourage in-service training of teachers on the best ways to improve their pedagogical knowledge ACAP. Moreover, a policy framework for the training of principals on building healthy LMX is needed to foster knowledge sharing, peer mentorship and networking between the principals and the teachers.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Declarations","content":"\u003ch2\u003eEthics approval and consent to participate\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEthical approval for the conduct of this research as well as permission to access the sampled schools were obtained. Before the data collection, the researchers issued informed consent forms to the teachers to fill and sign. Such exercise was done before the visits of the researchers to the various schools to ensure that the participants consented to the completion of the questionnaire items.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eConsent for publication\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAll authors have reviewed and approved the final manuscript and consent to its publication in Humanities and Social Sciences Communications.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003eCompeting interests\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe do not have any competing interest.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003eAuthor Contribution\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAuthors\u0026apos; contributions, CRediT: Christian Ugwuanyi, C.U.: Data Curation, Investigation, Project Administration, Writing \u0026ndash; Original Draft Preparation, Writing \u0026ndash; Review \u0026amp; Editing; Mehmet Ş\u0026uuml;kr\u0026uuml; Bellibaş, M.S.B.: Conceptualization, Investigation, Validation, Writing \u0026ndash; Original Draft Preparation, Writing \u0026ndash; Review \u0026amp; Editing; Marcus Pietsch, M.P.: Conceptualization, Formal Analysis, Funding Acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project Administration, Resources, Supervision, Visualization, Writing \u0026ndash; Original Draft Preparation, Writing \u0026ndash; Review \u0026amp; Editing\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003eAvailability of data and materials\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eData is available upon reasonable request.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"References","content":"\u003col\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eAdeniyi, H., Ayodele, et al (2024) Language Policy in Nigeria. 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The Leadership Quarterly, 14(4-5), 545-568.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ol\u003e"}],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":true,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":false,"hideJournal":true,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":false,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":false,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true},"keywords":"Absorptive Capacity, Creativity, Job boredom, Leader-member exchange, Pedagogical Knowledge, Teaching","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-6488938/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-6488938/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"\u003cp\u003eIn today's dynamic and increasingly uncertain educational environments, teachers are expected to constantly acquire new knowledge and demonstrate creativity. Job boredom, as an emotion, is regarded as a key driver of individuals' knowledge-seeking behavior and creativity. Dyadic leader-member exchange relationships (LMX) have been identified as a critical factor in the emotion regulation of teachers. Using data from 1,406 Nigerian teachers, this study investigates the impact of job boredom on teacher creativity and teaching practices, with a particular focus on the mediating and moderating roles of LMX and pedagogical knowledge absorptive capacity (ACAP) in this relationship. The findings indicate a correlation between teacher job boredom and increased activities aimed at recognizing, assimilating, transforming, and exploiting new pedagogical knowledge, as well as a greater variation in teaching practices. ACAP, in turn, is associated with increasd creativity in the workplace, which itself is linked to a greater variety of teaching practices. LMX functions as a climate variable that shapes teachers' emotions, experiences, and behaviors at school.\u003c/p\u003e","manuscriptTitle":"Job Boredom and Its Impact on Teacher Creativity and Teaching: Pedagogical Knowledge Absorptive Capacity and Leader-Member Exchange Make a Difference","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2025-06-03 13:30:47","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-6488938/v1","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"d16a95a8-f98d-4258-8ae8-8c7cf970843e","owner":[],"postedDate":"June 3rd, 2025","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"posted","subjectAreas":[{"id":49274233,"name":"Social science/Education"},{"id":49274234,"name":"Social science/Psychology"}],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2025-08-26T16:38:44+00:00","versionOfRecord":[],"versionCreatedAt":"2025-06-03 13:30:47","video":"","vorDoi":"","vorDoiUrl":"","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-6488938","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-6488938","identity":"rs-6488938","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"8U1c8b4HqxoKbykW_rLl7","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}