Interest Predicts Achievement Beyond General Cognitive Ability and Socioeconomic Status: Evidence for Between-Person and Within-Person Effects in Five Domains

• In Event: Exploring Students' Perceptions of Value, Relevance, and Interest in STEM Contexts

Abstract

We examined the incremental effect of academic interest on achievement beyond general cognitive ability and students’ background characteristics in five domains (math, German, biology, chemistry, and physics). We analyzed a nationally representative German dataset of 39,192 ninth-grade students and found a unique effect of interest over and above the other predictors across the five domains, both for class grades and standardized test scores. The effect was present between persons (in a given domain, students with higher interest showed higher achievement) and within persons (the same student showed a higher achievement in domains she/he was more interested in). The results emphasize the positive relation between interest and academic achievement in different domains.

Authors

• Malte Jansen, German Institute for International Educational Research

• Oliver Lüdtke, Leibniz Institute for Science and Mathematics Education, Kiel, Germany

• Ulrich Schroeders, Humboldt University