Motivational factors and writing: the role of topic interestingness

The primary objective was to investigate the effect of an important motivational variable — interest ∶ on sixth-grade children’s performance on a writing task. Because our previous research showed that prior knowledge has an inordinate effect on writing, we augmented the children’s knowledge of the topics they were to write about. Students studied one of four texts (two high-interest/moderate-knowledge and two low-interest/high-knowledge) and then were assigned to either a tutorial condition, in which they studied and wrote about the same topic, or a control condition, in which they studied one topic and wrote about a companion topic at the same interest and knowledge level.Our general expectation, that children writing with tutorial support on high-interest topics would do better than all other groups because of the motivational effect, was not supported. The results unexpectedly showed that low-interest topics supported by tutorials resulted in longer productions. In addition high interest topics facilitated only better quality ideas, but not qualitatively better writing. These results indicate that the motivational power of generally interesting topics in writing is confounded with the role of prior knowledge. It is further suggested that attentional factors may explain why topic interest has a limited effect on children’s writing performance.

[1]  R. D. Walshe,et al.  Donald Graves in Australia--"Children Want to Write ...". , 1983 .

[2]  Suzanne Hidi,et al.  Interest and Its Contribution as a Mental Resource for Learning , 1990 .

[3]  Sheldon Rosenberg Reading, writing, and language learning , 1987 .

[4]  R. Scott Baldwin,et al.  Effects of Topic Interest and Prior Knowledge on Reading Comprehension. , 1985 .

[5]  Fred I. Godshalk The Measurement of Writing Ability. , 1966 .

[6]  K. Renninger Children's play interests, representation, and activity. , 1990 .

[7]  Suzanne Hidi,et al.  Strategies for increasing text-based interest and students' recall of expository texts. , 1988 .

[8]  Suzanne Hidi,et al.  Interestingness - A Neglected Variable in Discourse Processing , 1986, Cogn. Sci..

[9]  Sheldon Rosenberg,et al.  Advances in applied psycholinguistics: List of contributors , 1987 .

[10]  Victoria Chou Hare,et al.  Topical Knowledge and Topical Interest Predictors of Listening Comprehension. , 1983 .

[11]  Carol Sue Englert,et al.  Young Writers' Use of Text Structure in Expository Text Generation , 1988 .

[12]  The effect of topic and theme interestingness on the production of school expositions , 1990 .

[13]  Donald H. Graves Writing Teachers and Children At Work , 1983 .

[14]  The Relationship between Content Knowledge and Topic Choice in Writing , 1989 .

[15]  M. Scardamalia Knowledge telling and knowledge transforming in written composition , 1987 .

[16]  Erik De Corte,et al.  Learning and Instruction: European Research in an International Context: Volume 1 , 1987 .

[17]  Steven R. Asher,et al.  Influence of Topic Interest on Children's Reading Comprehensiona , 1978 .

[18]  Donald H. Graves An Examination of the Writing Processes of Seven Year Old Children. , 1975 .

[19]  R. Fivush,et al.  Knowing and remembering in young children , 1992 .

[20]  E. White Teaching and assessing writing , 1996 .

[21]  Steven R. Asher,et al.  Influence of Topic Interest on Black Children's and White Children's Reading Comprehension. , 1979 .

[22]  The Impact of Interest on Qualitative and Structural Indicators of Knowledge. , 1988 .