Complexities of Interest Development

• In Event: Interest Development, Expectancies, and Values: Insights, Challenges, and Prospects

Abstract

My colleagues and I have demonstrated that participants are likely to need different supports for learning depending on their phase of interest (e.g., Crouch, et al. 2018). We find that learners in earlier phases of interest development need to make connections to the content of interest itself, whereas learners in later phases of interest want (and need) to stretch their understanding (Renninger & Hidi, 2019; see Hidi & Renninger, 2006). Two current projects provide additional insight. They include development and validation of the domain-general Experience of Interest Scale (EIS), for use assessing the interest development of adult learners (Boeder, et al, unpublished manuscript) and a multi-method study of two professional learning communities (PLCs) for mathematics teachers (Shumar & Renninger, unpublished manuscript).

The EIS was developed and validated using the diverse Amazon Mechanical Turk participant group. Study 1 (n = 348) was used to identify items and underlying factors of the EIS, using parallel analysis and exploratory factor analysis. Five distinct underlying factors were identified for interest development: information seeking, motivation to re-engage, persistence, self-regulation, and value. Study 2 (n = 515) confirmed the factor structure identified in Study 1, examined convergent and discriminant validity of the items, and demonstrated that the scale is a reliable and valid measure of domain-general interest. Finally, mixed methods undertaken in Study 3 (n = 103) indicated that the EIS was able to differentiate between earlier and later phases of interest development, and that the motivation to re-engage factor showed significant differences among the phases assessed.

In the studies of the two PLCs, we used surveys and interviews to compare teachers’ participation in two different PLCs: a three-week mathematically infused summer enrichment activity (n = 47), the other a distributed set of 3-day, face-to-face workshops, that were preceded by 5 hours of online support, and designed to support the integration of computer programing into the teaching of mathematics (total n = 56). In both contexts, the teachers’ stated purposes for attending workshop appear to predict their readiness to collaborate, their level of interest, confidence, and post-workshop follow through. Engaging in collaboration provides access to thinking, and supports the likelihood of continued engagement: novices, as well as those with more experience, benefit from the scaffolds provided by PLC tasks and interactions with other people.

However, interest in the PLC settings is not just interest in mathematics, or interest in the integration of computer science into mathematics, or pedagogy, or teacher leadership; there are blends of these interests that together with the teachers’ characteristics as learners that are likely to be influencing their expectancies, and the types of support for learning that may be optimal. An open question is how to account for the complexity of the blending of interests (which occurs in any natural setting) and differences in learner characteristics in promoting motivation to reengage.

Author

• K. Ann Renninger, Swarthmore College