The Function of Daily Interest in the Classroom

• In Event: 61.032 - When Rubber Meets the Road: How Interest Shapes Learners' Interactions With Content

Abstract

Purpose and Theoretical Framework
Interest is an important predictor of students’ learning and achievement (Hidi & Harackiwicz, 2000; Schiefele, 2009). Research suggests that situational interest, a temporary psychological state aroused by the context and often characterized by positive emotion and value (Linnenbrink et al., 2010; Hidi & Renninger, 2006), supports learning-related processes such as increased attention, cognitive processing, involvement, and persistence (Ainley, Hidi, & Berndorff, 2002; Durik & Harackiewicz, 2007). However, the majority of this research has been conducted outside of the classroom and has been limited to the effect of interest on text-based processing. Further, little is known about how teachers respond to student interest in the classroom, despite an emphasis on reciprocal determinism in social cognitive theories of learning and motivation (Bandura, 1986). Thus, a precise understanding of how students’ daily interest experiences shape learning-related behavior in the classroom and teachers’ daily practice in response to student interest is lacking.

Method and Sources of Data
To investigate these questions, a brief longitudinal diary study was conducted with 218 urban and suburban high school science students (55% female, 60% ethnic minority). Students provided reports of their interest, learning-related behaviors, and perceptions of teachers’ autonomy and motivation supportive and thwarting practices (Reeve & Jang, 2006) after every science class for a six-week instructional unit (2,306 total reports).

Results and Scholarly Significance
In a series of multilevel models, we assessed the effects of interest decomposed and centered so as to be appropriately modeled at each of the three levels (day, student, and class). We also included time and the outcome for the previous class session to model change, and corrected for the autocorrelation in errors across days in each model. Results revealed that students’ daily interest predicted increases in same day effort (β=.18), participation (β=.23), attention (β=.22), cognitive learning strategy use (β=.15), and four aspects of agentic engagement (i.e. expressing opinions, needs, and interests, and asking questions; βs=.16 to .19). In line with theory related to the relative strength of individual versus situational interest (Hidi & Renninger, 2006), students’ aggregated interest over time was a stronger predictor of all outcomes (βs=.22 to .31) compared to daily interest.

Results also revealed that daily interest predicted students’ same day perceptions that science teachers encouraged students to work in their own way to a greater extent (β=.15), drew more connections between course activities and real life (β=.09), provided more opportunities for students to express opinions (β=.12) and ask questions (β=.13), and provided more feedback when students struggled (β=.14). Likewise, on days students reported experiencing greater interest, they also perceived teachers to be less strict about working in teacher prescribed ways (β=-.07), less resistant to student complaints (β=-.04), and less likely to provide controlling (“because I said so”) rationales (β=-.06). Results highlight the importance of interest in supporting classroom behaviors that lead to learning and the need to consider how students’ interest and teachers’ practice may reciprocally influence each other.

Authors

• Erika Alisha Patall, The University of Texas - Austin

• Ariana Vasquez

• Rebecca Rose Steingut, The University of Texas - Austin

• Scott Stephen Trimble, The University of Texas - Austin

• Danika Maddocks, The University of Texas - Austin

• Keenan A. Pituch, The University of Texas - Austin