Implications for Vocational Education Research of Some German Views on the Nature of Interests.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce some views from the Munich school of interest to vocational education contexts. Recent theorizing on interests sees them as a relation between a person and an object and distinguishes this relationship from situational or more transient interests. This view focuses on the nature of the process of being interested and defines intrinsic interest in terms of cognitive, value, and emotional components. Overall, there is substantial support for the role of interests, both as a hypothetical construct and intervening variable, in vocational education and this is consistent with theorizing and research in other fields of education and psychology. The findings of Australian research are consistent with the emphasis provided by these modern German theories on the role and development of interest in learning. Finally, there is substantial scope to extend links between interests and motivational concepts such as task-involvement, intrinsic motivation, attribution theory, expectancies, self-efficacy, expertise, and interest in vocational education. (Contains 48 references.) (Author/KC) ******************************************************************************** * Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made * * from the original document. * ********************************************************************************

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