Investigation of Interest and Motivation in Chemistry Assessments and Their Impact on Performance

• In Event: Assessments in STEM Education in the Public School Classroom

Abstract

It is of particular interest in science education research to investigate affective factors influencing students’ performance in written competencies tests. While research so far has mainly investigated cognitive factors (such as prior knowledge), affective factors focusing on test items itself have received only little attention so far. Our study tries to close this gap by investigating how situational interest, perceived relevance and motivation with regard to the test items affect students’ answers in a chemistry test that covers different contexts and content areas. The results show that interest and motivation vary between the different contexts and contents of test items, which in term influence test performance. These findings bear important implications for future competencies assessments.

Authors

• Vanessa Pupkowski, University of Duisburg-Essen

• Elke Sumfleth, University Duisburg - Essen

• Maik Walpuski, University of Duisburg-Essen