Tailoring Attention as a Support for Interest Development and Learning

• In Event: 41.023 - Exploring Links Between Interest and Learning

Abstract

Objectives and Framework
We report that the tailoring of learners’ attentional focus supports the development of interest, the learning of science practices (e.g., observing, questioning) and the development of science understanding (e.g., controlling variables). Attention was a focus of early psychologists and educators who pointed to the important role of interest in schooling attention (e.g. James, 1890), and research findings have indicated that especially in early stages of learning interest serves an important orienting function (e.g. Hidi, 1995).

Data Sources and Methods
Findings from a set of three sequential mixed method studies of economically challenged, urban, middle-school age, African American youth and their participation in out-of-school, inquiry-oriented science workshops are juxtaposed for purposes of this presentation. Workshop participation included encouragement to reflect on science activities by writing responses to ICAN probes (e.g., I CAN write some examples about how an animal can use its senses to find things out about its environment.”), which are theoretically similar to a utility value intervention (Harackiewicz, Tibbetts, Canning, & Hyde, 2014).

We primarily focus on findings from the third study in which the ICAN probes were tailored to support workshop participants to attend to and make use of evidence. The study included 20 (4 males, 16 females) target and two groups of control participants: one that received no workshop and, consequently, no intervention (N= 13, 9 females) and the other received the workshop and the more general form of the ICAN probe (N= 13, 7 females).

All participants were interviewed (this included items assessing interest) and completed science tasks at the beginning and end of the workshop. Ethnographic records of a subsample of target group participants were collected during the workshop to allow tracking the process of learning and interest development. The entire target group was also interviewed one year later.

In each of the studies, interest was conceptualized and measured as a psychological state and a motivational variable that develops over time (see Renninger & Hidi, 2016). Learning refers to both the process of participants’ activity during learning and science understanding, as reflected in their work with 3 tasks: science as theory, as practice, and logical reasoning (see Lehrer & Schauble, 2006).

Results and Significance
Within-person analyses indicated that developments in interest were accompanied by developments in science understanding. The more developed interest of the participants corresponded to developments in science practices and understanding. Moreover, analysis of the ethnographic records indicated that as interest increases, participants are able to ask more sophisticated questions that, in turn, support their learning.

Furthermore, findings of the three studies indicate that the depth and quality of participants’ understanding is increased when the conditions of the environment, in this case, the tailored ICAN probes, provide a boost to attend to key elements of the practices and science understanding to be acquired. Importantly this effect is not limited to the learners with less developed interest in science, a finding that distinguishes it from utility value interventions, and extends understanding of attentional focus to boost interest and learning.

Authors

• K. Ann Renninger, Swarthmore College

• Fatema Jivanjee, Swarthmore College

• Ashley McQuiller, Swarthmore College