How situational is situational interest? Investigating the longitudinal structure of situational interest

Abstract Interest theory adopts a person-in-context perspective. In this view, a momentary experience of interest is shaped by environmental circumstances and stable personal preferences. According to the Four-Phase Model of Interest Development, environmental factors are important in defining the concept of situational interest (SI). This study investigates this assumption. Repeated measurements of SI collected from a sample of 327 high school students during problem-based learning activities were analyzed using Latent-State Trait (LST) theory. LST models allow identification of situation-specific and consistent components in repeated measurements. Results show that situation-specific effects had a strong influence on self-reported SI. Further analysis revealed that substantial variance components in SI were unconfounded with preexisting individual interest. Based on these two criteria, the findings support defining the psychological state of interest as “situational interest”.

[1]  Daniel A. Sass,et al.  Testing Measurement Invariance and Comparing Latent Factor Means Within a Confirmatory Factor Analysis Framework , 2011 .

[2]  T. Little.  Longitudinal Structural Equation Modeling , 2013 .

[3]  Suzanne Hidi,et al.  Interest: A unique motivational variable , 2006 .

[4]  Margaret E. Gredler,et al.  Hiding in Plain Sight: The Stages of Mastery/Self-Regulation in Vygotsky's Cultural-Historical Theory , 2009 .

[5]  Ulrich Schiefele,et al.  Situational and individual interest. , 2009 .

[6]  C. Randler,et al.  Pupils' Interest Before, During, and After a Curriculum Dealing With Ecological Topics and its Relationship With Achievement , 2007 .

[7]  Patricia A. Alexander,et al.  Interrelationship of Knowledge, Interest, and Recall: Assessing a Model of Domain Learning , 1995 .

[8]  Andreas Gegenfurtner,et al.  Digital simulation-based training: A meta-analysis , 2014, Br. J. Educ. Technol..

[9]  Andreas Krapp,et al.  Structural and Dynamic Aspects of Interest Development: Theoretical Considerations from an Ontogenetic Perspective. , 2002 .

[10]  Jutta Heckhausen,et al.  Motivation and action , 1991 .

[11]  P. Darst,et al.  Individual and Situational Interest: The Role of Gender and Skill☆ , 2002 .

[12]  Ulrich Trautwein,et al.  What makes lessons interesting?: The role of situational and individual factors in three school subjects , 2008 .

[13]  F. Heider,et al.  Principles of topological psychology , 1936 .

[14]  Mary Ainley,et al.  Connecting with Learning: Motivation, Affect and Cognition in Interest Processes , 2006 .

[15]  F. Chen.  Sensitivity of Goodness of Fit Indexes to Lack of Measurement Invariance , 2007 .

[16]  R. P. McDonald,et al.  Goodness-of-fit indexes in confirmatory factor analysis : The effect of sample size , 1988 .

[17]  A. Chen,et al.  An examination of situational interest and its sources. , 2001, The British journal of educational psychology.

[18]  Elaine H. J. Yew,et al.  The process of problem‐based learning: what works and why , 2011, Medical education.

[19]  J. Eccles,et al.  Expectancy-Value Theory of Achievement Motivation. , 2000, Contemporary educational psychology.

[20]  P. Pintrich.  A Motivational Science Perspective on the Role of Student Motivation in Learning and Teaching Contexts. , 2003 .

[21]  O. Köller,et al.  Interest research in secondary level I : An overview , 1998 .

[22]  R. Steyer,et al.  States and traits in psychological assessment. , 1992 .

[23]  K. Ann Renninger,et al.  Interest, Learning and Development , 1992 .

[24]  S. Hidi,et al.  Gender and interest processes in response to literary texts: situational and individual interest , 2002 .

[25]  P. Bentler,et al.  Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis : Conventional criteria versus new alternatives , 1999 .

[26]  Carol Sansone,et al.  Interest as the Missing Motivator in Self-Regulation , 2005 .

[27]  K. E. Barron,et al.  The Role of Achievement Goals in the Development of Interest: Reciprocal Relations Between Achievement Goals, Interest, and Performance , 2008 .

[28]  Markku Niemivirta,et al.  Predictors and outcomes of situational interest during a science learning task , 2013 .

[29]  Julianne C. Turner,et al.  How Does Motivation Develop and Why Does It Change? Reframing Motivation Research , 2008 .

[30]  Henk G. Schmidt,et al.  Situational interest and learning: Thirst for knowledge , 2014 .

[31]  D. Schwartz,et al.  Toward the development of flexibly adaptive instructional design , 1999 .

[32]  Gregory Schraw,et al.  Situational Interest: A Review of the Literature and Directions for Future Research , 2001 .

[33]  David A. Bergin,et al.  Influences on classroom interest , 1999 .

[34]  K. Ann Renninger,et al.  Interest And Its Development , 2012 .

[35]  Marie-Christine Opdenakker,et al.  Students’ Experiences of Autonomy, Competence, Social Relatedness and Interest Within a CSCL Environment in Vocational Education: The Case of Commerce and Business Administration , 2011 .

[36]  B. Fredrickson.  The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. , 2004, Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences.

[37]  Rex B. Kline,et al.  Principles and Practice of Structural Equation Modeling , 1998 .

[38]  T. Goetz,et al.  Beyond quantitative decline: conceptual shifts in adolescents' development of interest in mathematics. , 2012, Developmental psychology.

[39]  D. Berlyne,et al.  COMPLEXITY AND INCONGRUITY VARIABLES AS DETERMINANTS OF EXPLORATORY CHOICE AND EVALUATIVE RATINGS. , 1963, Canadian journal of psychology.

[40]  Gregory Schraw,et al.  Situational Interest in Literary Text , 1997, Contemporary educational psychology.

[41]  M. Tulis,et al.  Changes in interest and affect during a difficult reading task: Relationships with perceived difficulty and reading fluency , 2013 .

[42]  Todd D Little,et al.  Why the items versus parcels controversy needn't be one. , 2013, Psychological methods.

[43]  Craig K. Enders,et al.  An introduction to modern missing data analyses. , 2010, Journal of school psychology.

[44]  E. Deci.  The relation of interest to the motivation of behavior: A self-determination theory perspective. , 1992 .

[45]  David A. Cole,et al.  Latent trait-state models. , 2012 .

[46]  Erika A. Patall,et al.  Antecedents and consequences of situational interest. , 2013, The British journal of educational psychology.

[47]  S. Hidi,et al.  The Four-Phase Model of Interest Development , 2006 .

[48]  Charles M. Reigeluth,et al.  Instructional-Design Theories and Models Volume III , 2009 .

[49]  M. Mitchell.  Situational interest: Its multifaceted structure in the secondary school mathematics classroom. , 1993 .

[50]  William Meredith,et al.  The role of factorial invariance in modeling growth and change. , 2001 .

[51]  Michael Eid,et al.  Psychometric properties of a computerized mobile phone method for assessing mood in daily life. , 2010, Emotion.

[52]  J. Harackiewicz,et al.  Different Strokes for Different Folks: How Individual Interest Moderates the Effects of Situational Factors on Task Interest. , 2007 .

[53]  J. Reeve,et al.  The interest-enjoyment distinction in intrinsic motivation , 1989 .

[54]  W. Fleeson,et al.  In favor of the synthetic resolution to the person–situation debate , 2009 .

[55]  M. Eid,et al.  Do you feel better or worse? The validity of perceived deviations of mood states from mood traits , 1999 .

[56]  Doris Lewalter,et al.  Motivationale Aspekte von schulischen Besuchen in naturwissenschaftlich-technischen Museen , 2009 .

[57]  Carol L. O'Donnell.  Defining, Conceptualizing, and Measuring Fidelity of Implementation and Its Relationship to Outcomes in K–12 Curriculum Intervention Research , 2008 .

[58]  I. Mechelen.  A royal road to understanding the mechanisms underlying person-in-context behavior , 2009 .

[59]  M. Boekaerts,et al.  Autonomy, Competence, and Social Relatedness in Task Interest within Project-Based Education , 2007, Psychological reports.

[60]  Michael Eid,et al.  Latent state–trait theory and research in personality and individual differences , 1999 .

[61]  Ginger Lockhart,et al.  A comparison of four approaches to account for method effects in latent state-trait analyses. , 2012, Psychological methods.

[62]  D. Berlyne.  Novelty, complexity, and hedonic value , 1970 .

[63]  Henk G. Schmidt,et al.  Situational Interest and Academic Achievement in the Active-Learning Classroom. , 2011 .

[64]  W. Mischel.  From Personality and Assessment (1968) to Personality Science, 2009 , 2009 .

[65]  A. Buss,et al.  Personality Traits , 1973 .

[66]  David H. Palmer.  Student interest generated during an inquiry skills lesson , 2009 .

[67]  P. Pintrich,et al.  Motivation in Education: Theory, Research, and Applications , 1995 .

[68]  M. Ainley,et al.  The Specific Relationship between Disgust and Interest: Relevance during Biology Class Dissections and Gender Differences. , 2012 .

[69]  Axel Mayer,et al.  A theory of states and traits--revised. , 2015, Annual review of clinical psychology.

[70]  M. Tulis,et al.  Students' motivational and emotional experiences and their relationship to persistence during academic challenge in mathematics and reading , 2013 .

[71]  S. Hidi,et al.  Revisiting the Conceptualization, Measurement, and Generation of Interest , 2011 .

[72]  M. Lepper,et al.  Intrinsic motivation and the process of learning: Beneficial effects of contextualization, personalization, and choice. , 1996 .

[73]  David S. Cordray,et al.  Moving From the Lab to the Field: The Role of Fidelity and Achieved Relative Intervention Strength , 2009 .

[74]  K. E. Barron,et al.  Measuring Situational Interest in Academic Domains , 2010 .

[75]  Gordon W. Cheung,et al.  Evaluating Goodness-of-Fit Indexes for Testing Measurement Invariance , 2002 .

[76]  Patricio Cumsille,et al.  Methods for Handling Missing Data , 2003 .

[77]  K. Renninger,et al.  Interest and Identity Development in Instruction: An Inductive Model , 2009 .

[78]  J. Harackiewicz,et al.  Motivating the Academically Unmotivated: A Critical Issue for the 21st Century , 2000 .