Tracing Multiple Interests in and Across Multiple Contexts

• In Event: Interests on the Move: Cultivating Interest Across Contexts

Abstract

Interest seems one of the most basic catalysts for learning and development (Renninger & Hidi, 2016). Yet empirical research on interests has been dominated by an object orientation; the main focus has been on determining the presence or degree of an interest under influence of the environment and its effects on learning and achievement, with studies usually predefining an educational context (typically a classroom or course context) as well as the associated “intended” interest (e.g. interest in physics in a physics course). Although defendable from an educational perspective and economic needs in particular areas (e.g. professionals needed in STEM domain), this orientation has unintendedly portrayed interest development as a relatively simple and linear process, by research already predefining the object of interest, context of development and developmental direction.
To balance current research, this study takes a life-wide and idiosyncratic perspective on interest development, assuming that within daily participation, basically any artefact, resource, event, topic, or activity may stick based on its perceived ‘interestingness’, and that such interest may be continued and pursued also across school and out-of-school contexts (Barron, 2006), depending on across-context opportunity structure (Akkerman & Bakker, 2011; Bronkhorst & Akkerman, 2016). More specifically, this paper questions what multiple interest – multiple context dynamics can occur in the daily lives of individual students within and beyond education and what intrapersonal dynamics may result from that in terms of weighing interests and choosing study and career direction.
To this end, four students were followed intensively for three years with repeated Ecological Momentary Assessment and interviews. The students were aged 17 at baseline following a STEM talent program in upper secondary education, and after one year making the transition to postsecondary education. For the EMA, we used a newly developed smartphone application called inTin that students used every four months for a complete week to report every two hours about 1) existing and emerging interests and 2) situated interest-based activities and interactions in various social contexts during the day (+/- 42 reports per wave).
Results show 1) students’ multiple diverging interests in STEM and other disciplines and leisure, 2) interests appearing and disappearing over time, with most radical changes during transition, 3) interests changing also categorically and qualitatively, and 4) interests showing patterns of differentiation and integration, in the context of academic study choice leading to efforts to combine interests in a study and career direction. When it comes to the social environment we find that 5) interests differ in across-context pursuance, with most prominent interests being shared across school, family, and peer contexts. We conclude how interest development is more complex and fluid than typically theorized, leading to several questions that we have taken up in follow-up longitudinal research amongst 600 students.

Authors

• Sanne Akkerman, Leiden University

• Arthur Bakker, Utrecht University