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Interest, learning, and the psychological processes that mediate their relationship

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Although influences of interest on learning are well documented, mediating processes have not been clarified. The authors investigated how individual and situational interest factors contribute to topic interest and text learning. Traditional self-report measures were combined with novel interactive computerized methods of recording cognitive and affective reactions to science and popular culture texts, monitoring their development in real time. Australian and Canadian students read 4 expository texts. Both individual interest variables and specific text titles influenced topic interest. Examination of processes predictive of text learning indicated that topic interest was related to affective response, affect to persistence, and persistence to learning. Combining self-rating scales with dynamic measures of student activities provided new insight into how interest influences learning.
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Interest, Learning, and the Psychological Processes
That Mediate Their Relationship
Mary Ainley
University of Melbourne Suzanne Hidi and Dagmar Berndorff
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto
Although influences of interest on learning are well documented, mediating processes have not been
clarified. The authors investigated how individual and situational interest factors contribute to topic
interest and text learning. Traditional self-report measures were combined with novel interactive
computerized methods of recording cognitive and affective reactions to science and popular culture texts,
monitoring their development in real time. Australian and Canadian students read 4 expository texts.
Both individual interest variables and specific text titles influenced topic interest. Examination of
processes predictive of text learning indicated that topic interest was related to affective response, affect
to persistence, and persistence to learning. Combining self-rating scales with dynamic measures of
student activities provided new insight into how interest influences learning.
It has been widely noted in the literature that after decades of
neglect, the concept of interest has been revived by investigators
(Hidi, 1990; Krapp, 1999; Krapp, Hidi, & Renninger, 1992).
Interest has a strong influence on individuals’ cognitive and affec-
tive functioning (Ainley, 1998; Renninger, 2000; Renninger &
Wozniak, 1985; Schiefele, 1996; Schiefele, Krapp, & Winteler,
1992). Whereas some motivational concepts such as task value
(e.g., Wigfield & Eccles, 1992), self-efficacy (e.g., Bandura, 1986;
Zimmerman, 1989), and achievement goals (e.g., Ames, 1992;
Dweck, 1986; Dweck & Leggett, 1988; Harackiewicz & Elliot,
1993) focus on individuals’ beliefs and cognitive representations,
interest has been conceptualized both as an individual predisposi-
tion and as a psychological state. This psychological state is
characterized by focused attention, increased cognitive and affec-
tive functioning, and persistent effort.
Within the interest literature, the relationship between interest
and learning has focused on three types of interest: individual,
situational, and topic. Individual interest is considered to be an
individual’s predisposition to attend to certain stimuli, events, and
objects. Situational interest is elicited by certain aspects of the
environment. These include content features such as human activ-
ity or life themes, and structural features such as the ways in which
tasks are organized and presented. Topic interest, the level of
interest triggered when a specific topic is presented, seems to have
both individual and situational aspects (Ainley, Hidi, & Berndorff,
1999). How the three types of interests interact and through what
processes they influence learning has not been clearly established
(Rheinberg, 1998; Schiefele, 1998).
New ways of accessing the processes that link interest and
learning are required. Alexander (1997) suggested that in addition
to more standard quantitative and qualitative methodologies, the
complexity of academic development in specific domains requires
the creation of alternative techniques that can document and de-
scribe the nature of interest, shifts in interest over time, and the
influence of interest on student learning. The present study inves-
tigated relationships between individual, situational, and topic
interest and specific aspects of the affective and cognitive pro-
cesses through which they influence learning. We examined how
the interest triggered by text titles influenced affective responses,
persistence, and scores on a test of text comprehension and recall.
In addition to traditional self-report ratings, a novel interactive
computer task was used to monitor students’ reactions as they read
the four texts.
First we consider some of the issues that are important for
distinguishing individual, situational, and topic interest and review
some of the methodological difficulties that have limited under-
standing of the ways interest influences learning.
Individual Interest
Individual interest has been described as a relatively enduring
predisposition to attend to certain objects and events and to engage
in certain activities (e.g., Krapp et al., 1992; Renninger, 1992,
2000). This behavior is associated with a psychological state of
positive affect and persistence and tends to result in increased
learning. For example, the reader with an individual interest in
ecology and conservation seeks opportunities to engage in associ-
ated activities and while so engaged experiences enjoyment and
expands his or her knowledge.
Within the broader domain of schooling, students have not just
one individual interest but a network or system of individual
interests, some closely related to the goals of classroom learning,
Mary Ainley, Department of Psychology, University of Melbourne,
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia; Suzanne Hidi and Dagmar Berndorff,
Department of Curriculum, Teaching, and Learning, Ontario Institute for
Studies in Education of the University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
The preparation of this article was partially supported by Social Sci-
ences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Grant 410011481 to
Suzanne Hidi.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Mary
Ainley, Department of Psychology, University of Melbourne, Melbourne,
Victoria 3010, Australia. E-mail: maryda@unimelb.edu.au
Journal of Educational Psychology Copyright 2002 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.
2002, Vol. 94, No. 3, 545–561 0022-0663/02/$5.00 DOI: 10.1037//0022-0663.94.3.545
545
others antithetical to classroom learning. Specific patterns of in-
dividual interests and how they influence student engagement with
learning have not been well researched. As well as the need to
identify studentsspecific patterns of individual interests, it is
important to determine how individual interests at different levels
of generality might differentially influence student learning. Pin-
trich (2000) argued that achievement goals should be seen as
representing goals that are between task-specific goals and general
life goals. In a similar way, there are different levels of generality
implicit in different conceptualizations of individual interest. In-
dividual interests can be defined in terms of specific domains such
as school subjects (e.g., literature, history, mathematics) or specific
activities within popular culture (e.g., music, sports, movies). In
addition to having individual interest in specific domains and
activities, students may have a more general individual interest in
learning. General individual interest in learning is expressed as a
desire to acquire new information, to find out about new objects,
events, and ideas not restricted to any narrow domain. This may
involve approaching and acquiring information about something
novel or it may involve seeking new information concerning
something the student already knows about. As Ainley (1998)
argued, general interest in learning represents a characteristic way
of approaching novel, uncertain, or puzzling phenomena with the
goal or purpose of understanding those phenomena. This type of
interest may involve both seeking new knowledge and expanding
existing knowledge. Ainley has found that general individual in-
terest in learning was associated with a range of positive attitudes
to schooling.
From another perspective, Bergin (1999) suggested that group
identification based on social categories such as culture and gender
can function as a set of individual interests that influence class-
room behavior. Thus, culture and gender influence what is valued
and practiced by specific groups. Fivush (1998) also argued that
gender represents a system of valuing certain activities and behav-
iors and making judgments about new experiences. From these
perspectives, culture and gender operate as self-schema and rep-
resent broad sets of individual interests that have developed
through experience.
In addition to the interests related to culture and gender, students
may bring to their learning in specific school subjects their own
well-developed individual interests. Once a student has a well-
developed individual interest in a specific domain, various topics
from that domain may draw on that interest. For example, having
an individual interest in ecology and conservation means that
specific topics, such as global warming, are likely to arouse
interest and school texts on this topic will be given increased
attention and processed accordingly. To assess individual interest
and the complex role that it may play in the arousal of topic
interest, in the present study we have included various measures of
individual interest at different levels of generality, such as general
individual interest in learning and individual interest in specific
domains.
Situational Interest
The psychological state of interest can also be generated by
specific environmental stimuli and is referred to as situational
interest (Hidi & Baird, 1988). Whereas the state is characterized by
focused attention that is similar to the outcome of individual
interest, the immediate affective reaction may include a broader
range of emotions. Situational interest may also involve some
negative feelings (Hidi & Harackiewicz, 2000; Iran-Nejad, 1987).
Once triggered, this reaction may or may not be maintained (Hidi
& Baird, 1986; Mitchell, 1993). Certain texts are sources of this
interest, and high-interest text segments are associated with in-
creased comprehension and recall (e.g., Anderson, Shirey, Wilson,
& Fielding, 1987; Benton, Corkill, Sharp, Downey, &
Khramtsova, 1995; Harp & Mayer, 1997; Hidi & Anderson, 1992;
Schraw, Bruning, & Svoboda, 1995; Wade, Buxton, & Kelly,
1999).
Hidi (1990) distinguished two types of factors that contribute to
situational interest. The first group includes formal structural char-
acteristics such as novelty, intensity, and ambiguity, what Berlyne
(1960) called collative variability.The second group consists of
content features such as human activity, intensity factors, and life
themes. Investigators have argued that situational sources of inter-
est may be particularly important for educators dealing with stu-
dents who do not have preexisting individual interests in their
school activities (Bergin, 1999; Folling-Albers & Hartinger, 1998;
Hidi, 1990; Hidi & Berndorff, 1998; Hidi & Harackiewicz, 2000;
Mitchell, 1993; Schraw & Dennison, 1994). For example, a reader
who has no previous interest in ecological issues may have his or
her interest aroused when confronted with a novel and personally
relevant text on the topic of global warming. Furthermore, the
aroused interest may be maintained if the text is well written. The
present study investigated how situational interest, in the form of
varied human activity themes, and individual interests combine to
influence topic interest triggered by texts drawn from the areas of
science and popular culture.
Topic Interest as an Outcome of Individual and
Situational Factors
Topic interest refers to the interest elicited by a word or para-
graph that presents the reader with a topic. This form of interest is
particularly relevant for educators, because students are often
given topics about which they will be expected to learn or to write.
Some of the earliest references in the literature to topic interest
appeared in a study by Hidi and McLaren (1990). The focus of this
investigation was fourth- and fifth-grade studentsinterest in top-
ics and themes taken from social science textbooks. One group of
students rated their interest in studying the topics and themes, and
another group of students rated their interest in writing about those
topics and themes. The researchers considered the elicited interest
to be situational as the ratings were reactions to the characteriza-
tion of the topics, most of which were not among students
individual interests. Furthermore, the responses elicited were an-
ticipatory, because students were making judgments about what
they expected to experience when studying or writing about the
topics and themes.
In subsequent investigations, Schiefele (1996, 1998) and Schie-
fele and Krapp (1996) have used the term topic interest to mean a
relatively enduring evaluative orientation toward certain topics, a
form of individual interest. In their studies, topic interest was
assessed by asking students to rate how they felt about a given
topic (feeling-related valence) and how valuable the topic was to
them personally (value-related valence), with the two valence
measures highly correlated. They contrasted topic interest with
546 AINLEY, HIDI, AND BERNDORFF
text-based interest, which they defined as an emotional state
aroused by specific text features, a form of situational interest. The
methodology used in the current investigation allowed us to reex-
amine these relationships.
We propose that topic interest is not necessarily the same as
either situational or individual interest. A strong existing individ-
ual interest in the content of a text will increase the likelihood that
individual interest factors are contributing to topic interest. A weak
or nonexistent individual interest will increase the likelihood that
situational factors are paramount. Most topics, whether a three-
word title or a paragraph, will have both sources contributing to the
measured topic interest. As Bergin (1999) suggested, It is impor-
tant to recognize that personal or individual factors always interact
with situational factors to create interest, or lack of interest. It is
not useful or accurate to claim that a particular factor is purely
personal or purely situational(p. 89). A similar view has been
presented by a number of other researchers. Renninger (2000)
treats topic interest as having both individual and situational com-
ponents, and Wade, Buxton, and Kelly (1999) have adopted a
similar stance when suggesting that more research is needed to
define the relationship between the constructs of situational and
individual interest. In summary, given the basic interactive nature
of interest, both the characteristics of the person (individual fac-
tors) and the features of the environment (situational factors) can
potentially influence topic interest.
In the present study, topic interest was measured prior to pre-
sentation of the texts. That is, a number of text topics such as Body
Image and X-rays were presented as titles consisting of one or a
few words, and topic interest was measured as a rating of how
interesting students expected each text to be. The procedures were
designed to assess the different levels of topic interest created by
situational factors such as the content of the separate text titles, as
well as to determine the contribution of individual interest to
variability in the topic interest triggered by these titles.
Methodological Issues in Examining Processes
Mediating Interest and Learning
There has been general agreement in the interest research liter-
ature that heightened attention, concentration, and affect charac-
terize the psychological state of interest (e.g., Krapp et al., 1992;
Pekrun, 2000). Although interest has been shown to contribute to
student learning, the path from the arousal of interest to learning is
not well documented. Almost 10 years ago, Lepper and Cordova
(1992) reviewed studies dealing with the relationship between
interest and learning and concluded that the main paradigm in-
volved correlating ratings of interest given by one group of sub-
jects with measures of learning from another group. Use of this
paradigm limits the possibility of exploring the critical mediating
variables. More recently, Schiefele and colleagues (Rheinberg,
1998; Schiefele, 1996, 1998; Schiefele & Rheinberg, 1997) drew
attention to this deficiency in the literature and argued that we
know very little of the processes that mediate between interest and
learning. Schiefele (1996) examined how aspects of subjective
experience mediated the relation between arousal of topic interest
and learning. During the reading phase of his study, high school
seniors were asked a number of times to make ratings on three
subjective experience dimensions: activation, affect, and concen-
tration. Ratings were aggregated on the basis that they were highly
correlated (.74). Schiefele reported that subjective experience
was significantly related to topic interest but unrelated to any of
the measures of cognitive processing of the texts. He concluded
that quality of experience did not mediate the effects of interest on
text learning, that quality of experience seems to be an epiphe-
nomenon of interest(Schiefele, 1996, p. 13). We further address
this interpretation in our conclusion.
One of the major difficulties facing interest researchers con-
cerned with investigating the way interest influences learning is
how to measure mediating processes. Interest researchers have
generally relied on self-report questions administered either before
or after a critical task. For example, Schraw, Flowerday, and
Reisetter (1998) investigated the role of choice in relation to both
affective and cognitive engagement with text materials. The task
required college students to read one text passage, and choice was
made salient through task instructions. All of the measures, such as
interest and attitude toward the task, were recorded along with the
measures of learning after reading the text.
The timing of questionnaires and rating scales is an important
consideration when interpreting their meaning as measures of the
psychological state of interest. For example, a rating of interest
prior to reading a text is an expectancy measure. It represents the
participantsestimation of their likely psychological state. A rating
administered after the event requires participants to reflect back, to
remember what they felt as they were reading the text. In this case,
knowledge of the whole text and its outcomes may then intrude
and color participantsrecollections of their psychological state
while reading. Even if participants are instructed to respond how
they felt at some defined point, for example, when they first started
reading a text, the intervening experience may influence their
judgment. Thus, measurement of the psychological state of interest
either before or after reading a text does not necessarily indicate
what is happening during the reading process. In particular, such
ratings are not sensitive to changes in interest levels that might
occur during the course of reading a text.
In the present study, in addition to measuring interest prior to the
reading task and subsequent learning, we also focused on behav-
ioral measures during task performance. That is, we designed an
interactive computer task that recorded in real time sequence
behavioral reactions indicative of student involvement or disen-
gagement with a text. This approach has been adopted because it
provides a way of accessing affective and cognitive variables that
are the consequence of arousal of topic interest. Important vari-
ables occurring before, during, and after reading have been re-
corded in a form that preserved their real-time occurrence (Ainley
& Hidi, 2002).
The Current Investigation
The above considerations pointed to a need for a methodology
that, in addition to measuring expected interest in the traditional
self-report mode, would allow the monitoring of the dynamics of
studentssubjective experience while engaged in reading a text. To
this end, the current study, in addition to rating scales, used
computerized online recording of studentsbehavior as they inter-
acted with a set of texts. Following participantssignaling of how
interesting they expected the texts on certain topics to be (mea-
surement of topic interest), each text was presented in a form that
recorded studentschoices, affective responses, and persistence
547
INTEREST, LEARNING, AND PSYCHOLOGICAL PROCESSES
with each text. Tracking these behavioral variables enabled us to
examine the set of psychological processes that may mediate
between arousal of interest and learning outcomes. By having the
advantage of recording behavioral decisions in real time rather
than only recording reflections in response to a questionnaire
before or after the fact, we were able to analyze the temporal
contingencies between responses.
Our main research questions concerned identification of the
contribution of individual interests to the arousal of topic interest,
how situational factors (variation in text topics) affect topic inter-
est, and the processes mediating between arousal of topic interest
and learning. A two-level hierarchical model of interest processes
was used to address these questions. At the primary process level,
responses initiated by arousal of topic interest (response variables
model) were considered. The response variables model included
topic interest, affect, persistence, and test scores. At the secondary
level, personal characteristics such as individual interest and gen-
der that potentially affect what happens in each specific learning
situation (personal characteristics model) were investigated. By
adopting multivariate, multilevel modeling procedures (see Rowe,
2000), we were able to investigate the responses initiated by
triggering topic interest independently of the effects of personal
characteristics. The main advantage of this technique is that the
matrix used to test the relationships between the key response
variables has been adjusted to allow for the effect of associations
with the personal characteristics. Hence, the first step in the
analysis deals with the secondary process level, the influence of
personal characteristics on topic interest and the subsequent re-
sponses. The second step in the analysis deals with the primary
process level, the model of relationships between topic interest and
the responses that followed. Thus the model allowed us to develop
information about psychological processes on the basis of the
behavioral level of student responses.
Method
Participants
Participants were 117 Australian Grade 8 students (mean age 14 years 3
months) and 104 Grade 9 Canadian students (mean age 14 years 7 months).
Each sample consisted of approximately equal numbers of boys and girls.
Both schools catered to children from predominantly lower middle-class
and middle-class backgrounds.
Materials and Procedures
The Between the Lines (BTL; Ainley, Hidi, & Tran, 1997) computer
program presented first a number of interest measures online. These
measures were followed by presentation of a set of four texts. Students
responses, more specifically their choice of the order they accessed texts,
how long they spent with each text, their feelings (affect) about the texts,
and how many parts of each text were accessed, were all recorded auto-
matically. After students finished reading each text, a multiple-choice test
provided a measure of learning.
Interest Measures
The first two of the three measures of self-reported interest investigated
in this study were given online prior to the reading task, and the third was
given after the reading task (see pencil-and-paper measures).
Individual interest in five specific domains. Following Renningers
(1992) definition that individual interest involves knowledge and value
components, students were asked to rate their individual interest in five
domains. Four of these domains (personal health, animals and pets, TV and
movies, and science) were related to the content of the text passages that
students were subsequently asked to read. Two ratings on 5-point Likert-
type scales were made online by the students for each domain. The first
was a rating of knowledge (how much I know about it:1a little;5
a lot), and the second a rating of value (how important it is to me:1
a little;5a lot). The two ratings for each domain were summed to give
participants an individual interest score for each of the specific domains.
We included popular music as a fifth domain because popular music has
been shown to be a marker in adolescent psychosocial development (e.g.,
Arnett, 1995; Larson, Kubey, & Colletti, 1989; Larson & Verma, 2000).
Analysis of specific findings involving this individual interest domain are
not reported here.
Topic interest measure. Because we assumed that both individual and
situational factors contribute to topic interest, separate ratings of topic
interest were made for four titles used in the reading tasks (Body Image,
Chameleons, Star Trek/X-Files, X-rays). Topic interest was measured
online by having students complete a 5-point Likert-type rating (1 a
little;5a lot) assessing how interesting they expected each title to be.
Texts
The materials consisted of four short expository texts. These were two
science-based texts (Chameleons and X-rays) and two popular culture texts
that researchers had determined to be topics of interest for young adoles-
cents (Body Image and Star Trek/X-Files). Each text was approximately
750 words in length. The choice of topics involved gender-balanced
considerations. Two topics (Chameleons and Body Image) were expected
to be of greater interest for girls, and the other two topics (X-rays and Star
Trek/X-Files) were expected to be of greater interest to boys. These
decisions were based on piloting the topics as well as on findings in the
literature on interest and gender (Hoffmann & Haussler, 1998; Hoffmann,
Krapp, Renninger, & Baumert, 1998).
Online Task Response Measures
After completing the two online interest measures, students were re-
quired to read the four text passages. While they read the text, we recorded
a number of variables to monitor the way that students engaged with these
four texts. The structure of the software recorded studentsresponses in
temporal sequence, thereby allowing assessment of the critical contingen-
cies between the processes that followed recording of topic interest ratings.
Text choice. Students were able to choose in which order to read the
four texts. The topics were presented simultaneously across the screen in
the following order: Body Image, Chameleons, Star Trek/X-Files, and
X-rays. To the extent that topic selection was based on participants
comparisons and preferences between the texts, text choice provided an
indicator of the situational aspect of topic interest.
Affect. Each text was made up of three 250-word parts, and students
could choose to continue or quit after reading each part. Affect and its
intensity were measured through responses to a panel of faces (see Ap-
pendix) presented online at the end of each part of all four texts. The panel
included 11 faces representing common basic emotions such as happy,
angry, bored, sad, interested, and sorry. These emotions covered the range
of basic emotions defined by Izard (1972) and included what Pekrun
(2000) has described as activating and deactivating achievement emotions.
An expressionless neutral face was also included. Participants were asked
to choose a face that reflected how they were feeling. If students wished to
report more than one emotion, they were able to do so. In addition, 5-point
Likert scales (1 a little;5a lot) were used to measure the intensity of
the chosen emotion(s). Practice trials showed that students used the emo-
548 AINLEY, HIDI, AND BERNDORFF
tion panel in a way that discriminated appropriately between situations in
which they would be expected to feel differently.
Persistence. Each text was divided into three parts of approximately
250 words. As they progressed through the texts, students were able to
choose how much they read, indexed by how long they spent with the text
on the screen. A NEXT button in the bottom righthand corner of the screen
allowed them to move on whenever they chose. This could be as soon as
the text appeared on the screen or after an extended interval of time. When
participants chose to move on they were presented with the emotion panel.
Following this they were given the choice of reading more of that text or
quitting. This pattern was repeated if they chose to go to the second part of
the text, and again if they chose to go on to the third part. Persistence was
defined in terms of studentsengagement with each text and took into
account both the amount of time they spent with each part of the text and
how many parts they accessed.
Test score. Text comprehension and recall were measured by a set of
three multiple-choice items presented as soon as the participant indicated
he or she had finished with a text, whether this was after one part, two
parts, or three. All students were presented with the test for their chosen
text before they were able to choose another text. The items were designed
to be a test of what students had read. The specific three items presented
to each participant covered content only from those sections of a text that
the participant had accessed. A student who accessed only the first part of
a text was required to answer three questions on that part. A student who
had accessed all three parts was presented with three questions that covered
material from the whole text. Potentially, a student could score three
correct responses whether he or she had accessed one, two, or three parts
of the text.
Pencil-and-Paper Measures
On completion of the BTL computer task, students were administered a
pencil-and-paper questionnaire (Two Factor Curiosity Scale; Ainley,
1986). The depth-of-interest subscale of this test was used to provide a
measure of participantsgeneral individual interest in learning. This sub-
scale measures studentsgeneral orientation toward wanting to find out
about and investigate novel, uncertain, or puzzling phenomena (see Ainley,
1998) and has strong psychometric properties (
.89; testretest over 1
week, r.90; Ainley, 1986).
The final measure consisted of an estimate of studentsprior knowledge
of the content of the texts. Using 5-point Likert-type scales (1 very little;
5a lot), students were asked to indicate how much they knew about each
specific topic prior to reading the texts.
Results
The results are presented in four sections. First, the construction
of various measures included in the analyses is outlined. In the
second section, the analysis of relationships between topic interest
for the four text titles and individual interest factors is presented.
In the third section the order of text choice as an outcome of topic
interest is considered. In the final section, a multivariate, multi-
level modeling of the relationships between individual interest,
topic interest, and the processes that mediate the effects of interest
on learning is described.
Measure Construction
Measures for a number of the variables for the analyses were
constructed by combining responses recorded online. These in-
cluded the individual interest for the specific domains, affect, and
persistence.
Individual Interest for the Specific Domains
Following Renningers (1992) conceptualization, we measured
individual interest by having students rate how much they knew
about each domain (personal health, animals and pets, TV and
movies, science, and popular music) and how important it was for
them. Principal-components analysis of the 10 ratings (knowledge
and importance ratings for each of 5 domains) indicated that five
factors accounted for 76% of the variance. After varimax rotation,
each factor was defined by strong loadings (.80) for the knowl-
edge and importance ratings from one of the individual interest
domains. There were no substantial cross-loadings between the
domains. Subsequently, a single individual interest score for each
domain was calculated by summing the knowledge and importance
ratings.
Affect
The analyses reported in this study deal with the first emotion
chosen at the end of the first part of the text for each topic. The
most commonly chosen emotions were interested, neutral, and
bored. These three emotions accounted for more than 80% of all
responses. A 5-point index of affect was calculated from the
specific emotion and associated intensity rating and ranged from 1
(very bored), through 3 (neutral), to 5 (very interested). The
relatively small number of students who chose emotions other than
interested, neutral, or bored were not included in the analysis.
Persistence
An index of persistence was developed that considered the
automatically recorded reading times distinguishing between two
levels of text engagement, brief and more substantial. On the basis
of the results of a pilot study, less than 35 s was taken as a cutoff
point to identify students who had accessed a section of a text only
briefly and had quit before spending enough time to read any
substantial part of the text. The extent of this brief engagement can
be seen in the mean times spent with the first 250-word segment of
the texts. Mean times ranged from 11.14 s for the Chameleon text
to 12.95 s for the Body Image text. Students who had spent 35 s or
longer reading a text segment were considered to have spent
sufficient time with the text to be able to read at least a part of it.
Mean times for the first 250-word segment of each of the four texts
for this group ranged from 96.14 s for the Body Image text to
107.39 s for the X-rays text.
Persistence with the reading task was measured by calculating
the number of parts students had accessed and read for longer than
35 s from the three sections each text contained. The final cate-
gories on this index of persistence were 1 no parts read,2one
part read, and 3 more than one part read.
The means and standard deviations for all of the measures used
in the analyses are presented in Table 1.
Topic Interest and Individual Interest
There were strong differences in topic interest in response to the
specific text titles. The Body Image title was rated as the most
interesting (M3.41, SD 1.03) and the X-rays title as the least
(M2.46, SD 1.17), whereas Chameleons (M2.84,
SD 1.22) and Star Trek/X-Files (M2.78, SD 1.37) aroused
549
INTEREST, LEARNING, AND PSYCHOLOGICAL PROCESSES
similar medium levels of interest. Repeated measures multivariate
analyses of variance (MANOVA) indicated that there was signif-
icant within-subject variation in topic interest scores (multivariate
F(3, 218) 28.59, p.01,
.28). The Chameleons and Star
Trek/X-Files pair of text titles was the only paired comparison for
which the mean topic interest scores were not significantly differ-
ent. In summary, text titles tended to trigger different levels of
topic interest.
The contributions of individual interest factors to differences in
levels of topic interest were tested by examining the effects of
specific individual interest domains and general individual interest
in learning. Multivariate repeated measures analysis of covariance
(MANCOVA) was used with general individual interest in learn-
ing and the four specific interest domains related to the four texts
entered as covariates. Gender was included as a between-subjects
factor. Zero-order correlations between all of the main variables
considered in the analyses in this section are presented in Table 2.
The multivariate Fresults are presented in Table 3, demonstrating
that significant within-subject variability across the set of text titles
was associated with general individual interest in learning and two
of the four specific individual interest domains. These were the
domains of personal health, and animals and pets.
Reference to the correlations presented in Table 2 shows that
general individual interest in learning was correlated with topic
interest for all of the texts except Body Image. The strongest of
these associations was with topic interest for the X-rays title. The
specific individual interest domain of personal health was signif-
icantly associated with topic interest for the Body Image title,
whereas individual interest in animals and pets was associated
most strongly with Chameleons and less strongly with Body Im-
age. Although significant, these patterns of association accounted
for only a part of the within-subject variation. After allowing for
the effects of these covariates, gender was not significantly related
to topic interest ratings. This is shown in the covariate-adjusted
estimates of the mean topic interest scores for the total sample and
separately for boys and girls presented in Table 4.
In summary, different levels of topic interest were triggered by
the four text titles. The Body Image title triggered stronger topic
interest than the X-rays title. Whether individual interest was
measured at the general level represented by general individual
interest in learning scores or at the more specific domain level,
individual interest did account for a part of the variation in topic
interest. The contribution of gender over and above the effects of
the specific individual interest domains was not significant.
Topic Interest and Text Choice
It was our expectation that the order in which students selected
topics would be primarily a measure of the situational aspects of
topic interest and would be significantly related to topic interest.
Unexpectedly, approximately 50% of the students chose the texts
in the order that matched the left to right layout of the topics as
they were presented on the computer screen. To separate the effect
of screen order on topic choice from the effect of interest on topic
choice, the following classification was made. Topics were pre-
sented across the screen in the order of Body Image, Chameleons,
Star Trek/X-Files, and X-rays. Where students selected a topic in
the order that matched its position on the screen, the selection was
classified as a screen order choice. A topic chosen earlier than its
screen order was classified as a positive interest choice. A topic
chosen later than its screen order was classified as a negative
interest choice. We expected that topic interest would have an
influence on order of selection. More specifically, for each of the
four texts, the mean topic interest scores were expected to be the
highest for positive interest choices. Negative interest choices were
expected to have the lowest topic interest. Screen order choices
were expected to be in the middle. The results (shown in Table 5)
confirmed these expectations. The pattern of means was in the
predicted direction, and for three of the four topics the differences
were statistically significant. Thus, topic interest triggered by text
titles was associated with some students choosing specific texts
ahead of other texts, and lack of such interest resulted in some
students delaying the selection of texts.
Table 1
Descriptive Statistics for Personal Characteristics and Response
Variables (N 221)
Variable MSD
Personal characteristics
General individual interest in learning
(average item score: 14) 2.35 0.62
Specific individual interest domains
(110)
Personal health 8.23 1.34
Animals and pets 7.22 2.19
TV and movies 7.50 1.65
Science 6.10 1.62
Popular music
a
7.47 1.90
Prior knowledge (15)
Body Image 3.49 0.90
Chameleons 2.46 1.07
Star Trek/X-Files 3.06 1.10
X-rays 2.55 0.95
Response variables
Topic interest (15)
Body Image 3.41 1.03
Chameleons 2.84 1.22
Star Trek/X-Files 2.78 1.37
X-rays 2.46 1.17
Affect (15)
b
Body Image 2.96 1.30
Chameleons 3.08 1.27
Star Trek/X-Files 2.77 1.24
X-rays 2.87 1.34
Persistence (13)
Body Image 2.05 0.60
Chameleons 1.88 0.61
Star Trek/X-Files 1.95 0.65
X-rays 1.82 0.57
Test score (13)
Body Image 2.05 0.91
Chameleons 1.54 1.00
Star Trek/X-Files 1.64 0.82
X-rays 1.88 0.88
a
Not included in further analyses.
b
Includes only those participants
choosing the emotions interested, neutral, or bored; Body Image, N172;
Chameleons, N190; Star Trek/X-Files, N190; X-rays, N174.
550 AINLEY, HIDI, AND BERNDORFF
Individual Interest, Topic Interest, and Processes
Mediating the Effects of Interest on Learning
The multivariate, multilevel modeling procedures used in this
analysis generated a two-level hierarchical model of interest pro-
cesses (see Rowe, 2000). The first step in the analysis dealt with
the secondary process level, the influence of personal characteris-
tics on topic interest and the responses that followed. The second
step in the analysis dealt with the primary process level, the model
of relationships between topic interest and the responses that
followed.
Means and standard deviations for the scores on the personal
characteristics (gender, general individual interest in learning, spe-
cific interest domains, and prior knowledge) and all of the response
variables (topic interest, affect, persistence, and test score) used in
the modeling procedures were presented in Table 1. Correlations
within the set of personal characteristics and with topic interest
were presented in Table 2, whereas Table 6 presents the correla-
tions between personal characteristics and response variables as
well as correlations within the set of response variables.
The personal characteristics showed some significant correla-
tions with the response variables. Gender was significantly related
to all of the Body Image text measures, with girls scoring higher
than boys. Gender was also correlated with topic interest for two
of the other three texts. Boys reported higher topic interest than
girls on the Star Trek/X-Files and on the X-rays texts. General
individual interest in learning scores correlated significantly with a
number of the response measures for all texts except Body Image.
Specific individual interest domain scores correlated with topic
Table 2
Correlation Matrix for Personal Characteristics and Topic Interest
Variable
Personal characteristics
Topic interest
12
Specific individual interest domains
34567891011
Personal characteristics
1. Gender
a
2. General individual
interest in learning .15*
Individual interest domains
3. Personal health .15* .02
4. Animals and pets .23*** .11 .10
5. TV and movies .01 .10 .10 .13
6. Science .10 .37*** .13 .01 .01
7. Popular music .22*** .16* .30*** .17 .34*** .01
Topic interest
8. Body Image .23*** .04 .32*** .18*** .10 .03 .30***
9. Chameleons .05 .27*** .06 .32*** .15* .19*** .04 .16*
10. Star Trek/X-Files .18*** .28*** .06 .03 .10 .20*** .08 .19* .24***
11. X-rays .21*** .34*** .05 .05 .01 .31*** .05 .04 .35*** .23***
a
Female 0; male 1.
*p.05. *** p.001.
Table 3
The Effect of Specific Individual Interest Domains on Topic Interest for Four Text Titles:
Statistical Significance, Effect Size, and Power (MANCOVA)
Effect F(3, 204) p
2
Power
Within-subject
Covariate: General individual
interest in learning 3.58 .02 .05 .79
Specific individual interest domains
Personal health 3.07 .03 .04 .71
Animals and pets 4.84 .01 .07 .90
TV and movies 2.55 ns
Science 2.48 ns
Between-subjects: Gender 2.28 ns
Note. MANCOVA multivariate analysis of covariance.
551
INTEREST, LEARNING, AND PSYCHOLOGICAL PROCESSES
interest scores for all except the Star Trek text. In addition,
studentsprior knowledge ratings correlated significantly with
some of the process measures for each text. Correlations within the
response variables for each text (Table 6) showed a clear pattern of
significant coefficients between the adjacent processing variables:
topic interest with affect, affect with persistence, and persistence
with test score. The only exception to this pattern was the corre-
lation between persistence and test score for the Star Trek/X-Files
text. As was indicated earlier, the structure of the task allowed
students freedom to determine their own level of interaction with
each text. The persistence measure based on both time spent with
each section of text and how many sections were accessed clearly
indicated that given the opportunity, a significant number of stu-
dents disengaged. For example, just over half of the students
stayed with at least one part of each of the four texts (Persistence
Category 2), whereas less than one quarter continued with two or
more sections of text (e.g., 23% for the Body Image text, 9% for
the X-rays text). When the positive correlation between affect and
persistence was examined to establish the pattern of this associa-
tion, significant differences in the affect scores were found be-
tween all three persistence categories. However, when the associ-
ation between persistence and test score was examined, the
significant effects were between the students who had quit without
engaging with the text and those who had engaged with at least one
section.
Multivariate, multilevel modeling (Lisrel 8.30; Jo¨reskog & So¨r-
bom, 1999) was then used to identify the contribution of individual
interest and other personal characteristics to topic interest, and to
identify the processes mediating between arousal of topic interest
and learning. This procedure allows testing of the relationships
between the response variables independently of the associations
between personal characteristics and response variables. All cases
with no missing data were included, and the analysis was imple-
mented in a series of steps for each of the four texts. The first step
involved application of a multivariate, multilevel modeling proce-
dure to determine the independent fixed effects of the personal
characteristics (gender, general individual interest in learning, and
the related specific individual interest domain) on the response
variables (topic interest, affect, persistence, and test score) for each
text. The studentsestimate of their prior knowledge of text con-
tent was also included as one of these fixed effects. The second
step involved fitting a structural equation model to the covariance
matrix of the response variables. This step identifies the relation-
ships between the response variables after allowing for any effects
of the personal characteristics.
Individual Interest and Topic Interest: The Personal
Characteristics Model
A separate analysis was performed for the data from each of the
four texts. The personal characteristics of gender, general individ-
ual interest in learning, the related specific individual interest
domain (Personal Health, Animals and Pets, TV and Movies, and
Science), and prior knowledge ratings were entered as fixed effects
in a multivariate, multilevel model. Topic interest, affect, persis-
tence, and test score were entered as the response level variables.
The output from these analyses indicated the independent direct
effects of each of the personal characteristics on each of the
response variables. Figure 1 displays the significant paths and
coefficients for these variables for each text separately.
The primary interest of these analyses concerned the relation-
ships between personal characteristics and topic interest ratings for
the four texts, and the processes following from topic interest.
Gender did not have any significant independent effects on the
response variables except for the Body Image text. For this text,
gender was significantly related to the affect response, with boys
more likely to report being bored and girls more likely to report
more positive affect. For most of the response variables, the
significant correlations with gender (see Table 6) were not inde-
pendent of the other personal characteristics in these models. The
significant relationships shown in Figure 1 suggest that associa-
tions between gender and topic interest may operate through
Table 4
Topic Interest Scores for Four Text Titles: Covariate-Adjusted
Estimated Means and Standard Deviations for Gender
Gender
Text title
Body Image Chameleons Star Trek/X-Files X-rays
Overall
M3.39 2.82 2.79 2.46
SD 0.07 0.08 0.09 0.74
Female
M3.56 2.71 2.63 2.29
SD 0.10 0.11 0.13 0.11
Male
M3.23 2.94 2.94 2.64
SD 0.10 0.11 0.13 0.11
Table 5
Mean Topic Interest Scores by Topic and Order of Reading Choices
Choice indication
Text
Body Image
a
Chameleons Star Trek/X-Files X-rays
b
Positive interest 3.83 3.26 2.59
Screen order 3.55 2.96 2.50 2.35
Negative interest 3.11 2.40 2.49
F(1, 219) 9.06** F(2, 218) 16.01*** F(2, 218) 8.44** F(1, 219) 2.36
a
Body Image was the first topic on the screen, and therefore there could be no positive interest choices for this
topic.
b
X-rays was the last topic on the screen, and therefore there were no negative interest choices possible.
** p.01. *** p.001. p.10 (marginally significant).
552 AINLEY, HIDI, AND BERNDORFF
Table 6
Correlation Matrix for Personal Characteristics and Response Variables
Variable
Body Image Chameleons Star Trek/X-Files X-rays
TI A P TS TI A P TS TI A P TS TI A P TS
Personal characteristics
Gender .23** .20** .14* .14* .05 .05 .01 .03 .18** .05 .01 .07 .21** .02 .00 .06
General individual
interest in learning .04 .10 .08 .04 .27** .30** .25** .07 .28** .21** .14* .05 .34** .20** .13 .11
Individual interest domains
Personal health .32** .23** .10 .15*
Animals and pets .32** .17* .08 .03
TV and movies .10 .01 .14* .04
Science .38** .04 .00 .01
Prior knowledge
Body Image .27** .27** .21** .10
Chameleons .36** .20** .10 .11
Star Trek/X-Files .56** .29** .24** .13
X-rays .19** .05 .02 .04
Response variables
Topic interest (TI) — ———
Affect (A) .42** .34** .44** .26**
Persistence (P) .19** .41** .28** .32** .33** .33** .19** .30**
Test score (TS) .02 .10 .21** .18** .18** .34** .05 .05 .09 .03 .16** .33**
*p.05. ** p.01.
553
INTEREST, LEARNING, AND PSYCHOLOGICAL PROCESSES
general individual interest in learning, the pertinent specific inter-
est domain, and prior knowledge. These variables were all signif-
icantly correlated with gender.
The general individual interest in learning measure showed
consistently strong relationships with the response variables for the
two science texts, Chameleons and X-rays. All of the possible
paths linking general interest in learning and the response variables
for these texts had the largest significant coefficients. Students
general individual interest in learning about new, uncertain, or
puzzling phenomena was clearly an important influence on the
processes triggered by the science expository texts. General indi-
vidual interest in learning was less important as a factor contrib-
uting to the response variables for the two popular culture texts,
Body Image and Star Trek/X-Files.
Scores on the specific individual interest domain for each text
topic showed different patterns of relationships with the response
variables. For all four texts there was a significant effect of
individual interest on affect. These effects, although significant,
were generally small. Studentsratings of their prior knowledge
for the content of the science texts were less predictive of the
response variables than was the general individual interest in
learning variable. On the other hand, for the popular culture texts,
Figure 1. Standardized solutions to multilevel, structural equation models for effects of personal characteristics
(on left) and response variables (in boldface boxes on right). G gender; PK prior knowledge; IL general
individual interest in learning; TI topic interest; A affect; P persistence; TS test score.
554 AINLEY, HIDI, AND BERNDORFF
studentsratings of prior knowledge showed some substantial
associations with the response variables.
In summary, there were some important differences between the
science and popular culture texts in terms of the predictive rela-
tionship between the personal variables and the response variables.
Studentsgeneral individual interest in learning was significantly
related to all of the response variables for the science texts,
whereas prior knowledge was a more important factor for the
popular culture texts.
From Topic Interest to Test Score: The Response
Variables Model
After allowing for the effects of the personal characteristics
(gender, general individual interest in learning, specific individual
interest domain, and prior knowledge) on the response variables
(topic interest, affect, persistence, and test score), the covariance
matrix for the set of response variables was analyzed (Lisrel 8.30;
Jo¨reskog & So¨rbom, 1999). The best fit for both direct and indirect
effects of topic interest on the response measures for each of the
texts was determined. The results can be seen in the models
presented in Figure 1, where the response variables are shown in
boldface boxes. The significant coefficients displayed in Figure 1
are the standardized direct effects between the response variables.
Goodness-of-fit indices for each of the four text models are pre-
sented in Table 7, indicating that for all four texts, fit indices are
in excess of 0.90, considered to be the lower boundary for an
acceptable model fit. These models accounted for most of the
variance in the response variables.
The best fitting model for each of the four texts showed a
significant influence of topic interest on affect, affect on persis-
tence, and then persistence on test score. The coefficients for the
effect of topic interest on affect, the emotion response reported
when the student had finished with the first section of the text,
suggest that the interest triggered by presentation of the text topic
influenced level of involvement with the text. For two of the texts,
Body Image and Chameleons, there was an additional direct effect
of topic interest on later processing. Although smaller than the
coefficients for the path to test score through affect and persis-
tence, these effects were significant. For the Body Image text this
additional effect was a negative effect of topic interest on test
score, suggesting that for some, the initial expectations about the
topic were not fulfilled. For the Chameleons text there was a
significant direct effect on persistence whereby students who had
higher levels of topic interest were more likely to persist further
with the text.
To interpret the substantive significance of these models, refer
to the standardized total effects and squared multiple correlations
presented in Table 8. Reference to the entries in Table 8 shows that
for the two science texts these models accounted for slightly more
than 10% of the variance in test score. This is in keeping with the
size of effects reported more widely in the interest literature (see
Schiefele, 1998). For the popular culture texts the level of variance
explained was lower.
In summary, using interactive computer presentation of short
expository texts, we have been able to inspect some of the complex
paths whereby individual interest variables combine with the con-
tent of text titles to influence levels of topic interest triggered by
those text titles. Simultaneously we have identified how these
factors influence the processes that intervene between the initial
triggering of interest in the text topics and scores on a test of text
content.
Discussion
We analyzed the responses of young adolescent students to a set
of four expository texts to address two important issues in interest
research. The first of these concerned the contribution of individ-
ual and situational factors to levels of topic interest, and the second
examined processes mediating the effects of topic interest on
learning.
Relationships Between Individual Interest,
Situational Interest, and Topic Interest
Individual Interest and Topic Interest
A number of variables that reflect different perspectives of
individual interest and its influence were represented in the study.
General individual interest in learning, an orientation or predispo-
sition toward wanting to know, wanting to find out about and
understand novel, uncertain, or puzzling phenomena (see Ainley,
1998) was one of these variables. In addition, studentsindividual
interest was assessed for a number of specific domains that might
be expected to relate to the specific titles of the four texts students
were given to read. Gender was included to represent the broad
sets of interests and values that differentiate males and females
within social and cultural groups (Bergin, 1999; Fivush, 1998;
Hoffmann et al., 1998).
There were significant influences of individual interest variables
on both intra- and interindividual differences in topic interest.
Studentsgeneral individual interest in learning and their pattern of
individual interest for the specific domains made significant con-
tributions to the level of topic interest triggered by the specific
titles of these four expository texts. General individual interest in
learning also made a contribution to the psychological state trig-
Table 7
Goodness-of-Fit Indices for Best Fitting Model of the Response
Variables for Each Text: Topic Interest to Test Score
Goodness-
of-fit index
Text
Body Image
(n172) Chameleons
(n190) Star Trek/X-Files
(n190) X-rays
(n174)
2
2.758 7.942 2.003 3.633
p.252 .019 .572 .304
RMSEA 0.024 0.062 0.000 0.035
SRMR 0.011 0.036 0.022 0.031
GFI 0.998 0.995 0.995 0.990
AGFI 0.990 0.974 0.982 0.965
NFI 0.981 0.969 0.960 0.953
CFI 0.995 0.976 1.000 0.991
IFI 0.995 0.977 1.021 0.991
RFI 0.944 0.907 0.921 0.906
Note. RMSEA root-mean-square error of approximation; SRMR
standardized root-mean-square residual; GFI goodness-of-fit index;
AGFI adjusted goodness-of-fit index; NFI normed-fit index; CFI
comparative-fit index; IFI incremental-fit index; RFI relative-fit
index.
555
INTEREST, LEARNING, AND PSYCHOLOGICAL PROCESSES
gered by three of the four text topics. For the physical science text
(X-rays) this was a substantial effect. Students with a strong
individual interest in the specific domain of personal health were
more likely to report that their interest was triggered by the text
title Body Image. In the same way, students with a strong indi-
vidual interest in animals and pets were more likely to report
higher topic interest for the Chameleons text. Associations be-
tween gender and topic interest were not independent of the
individual interest in the specific domains and general individual
interest in learning. This finding supports the position that gender
operates through associated sets of values and self-schema (see
Bergin, 1999; Fivush, 1998). It should be pointed out that although
the students in the present study represented only a narrow age
range, the association between individual interest and gender is
also likely to be age related.
The psychological state triggered by specific text titles is af-
fected by the patterns of individual interest that students bring with
them to a text. On one hand, a well-developed individual interest
in a particular domain means that when students are presented with
a text on a topic connected with that domain, their interests are
likely to be triggered. On the other hand, a strong general orien-
tation toward finding out about novel, uncertain, or puzzling
phenomena means that text titles may be perceived to be oppor-
tunities to find out about something new or to acquire new infor-
mation on a well-known topic and thus trigger topic interest. This
perspective on general individual interest in learning has its origins
in research that investigated the structure of curiosity (Ainley,
1998; Berlyne, 1962; Beswick, 1971; Hunt, 1971; Loewenstein,
1994) and emphasizes behavior whereby novel, uncertain, or puz-
zling stimuli are approached in order to acquire further information
and knowledge. What has been measured in this study as a general
individual interest in learning involves seeking knowledge and
understanding through approaching what holds the promise of new
or novel information extending what is already known. General
individual interest in learning also has strong conceptual links with
mastery or learning achievement goals, although it has a broader
range of referents. Items of the scale focus on novel, uncertain, and
puzzling phenomena that are not specifically tied to school
achievement.
Text Title, Situational Factors, and Topic Interest
The four texts used in this study generated significantly different
levels of topic interest. Not surprisingly, the highest level of
interest was triggered by the popular culture topic of Body Image.
The biological science topic, Chameleons, generated a level of
interest comparable with the other popular culture topic, Star Trek
and the X-Files, whereas the physical science topic, X-rays,
aroused the least interest of the four topics. The intraindividual
variation in response to these topics clearly indicates that text title
was an important situational source of topic interest. For example,
the different levels of topic interest reported to the text titles Body
Image and X-rays supports Hidis (1990) assertion that topics vary
in the degree that they touch on human activity and life issues, text
characteristics with almost universal appeal and significance. The
text title Body Image immediately triggers issues of concern to
most young adolescents. Similar patterns of variation in topic
interest were reported from a study of 10th-grade studentsre-
sponses to literary texts (Ainley, Hillman, & Hidi, 2002). In that
study, topic information consisted of title, author, and a one-line
introduction to the story. Not surprisingly, the text title The
Bloodingtriggered significantly higher topic interest than did
Follow Your Heart.Variations in topic interest triggered by
different text titles support the usefulness of considering the con-
tent of text titles as a source of situational interest. Making use of
this situational source of interest can assist students to get started
on the path to learning (see also Shraw & Dennison, 1994).
Interest triggered by a text title is not solely dependent on
studentsindividual interests. Text titles that suggest themes of
personal or universal significance can trigger interest even when
students have no well-developed individual interest in the domain.
Our findings have shown considerable variation in the levels of
Table 8
Standardized Total Effects and R
2
Values: Fitted Multilevel Structural Equation Models for
Response Variables: Four Texts
Variable
Texts
Body Image Chameleons Star Trek/X-Files X-rays
Standardized total effects for fitted multilevel structural equation models
Effect of topic interest
Affect .30 .25 .34 .35
Persistence .09 .22 .10 .09
Test score .09 .08 .02 .04
Effect of affect
Persistence .30 .31 .30 .37
Test score .02 .11 .06 .16
Effect of persistence test score .16 .37 .20 .44
R
2
for structural equations
Topic interest
Affect .09 .06 .12 .06
Persistence .09 .09 .09 .14
Test score .04 .13 .04 .19
556 AINLEY, HIDI, AND BERNDORFF
topic interest triggered by our four expository text titles. Some of
that variation could be attributed to individual interest factors, as
shown by the significant effects in our analyses. The size of these
effects suggests that topic interest is likely to be the outcome of
both individual and situational factors, operating separately or in
combination. Further investigation is needed to identify how both
individual and situational interest factors operate for different
students and different learning tasks.
Order of Choice
Because the four text titles triggered different levels of topic
interest, the effects of topic interest on subsequent behavior were
examined. Topic interest had a significant influence on the order in
which some students chose to read the texts. Higher topic-interest
texts tended to be chosen ahead of lower topic-interest texts. To the
extent that topic selection may result from comparisons between
the text titles by the participants, text choice provided an indicator
of situational aspects of topic interest. However, topic interest was
not the only factor influencing choice, as unexpectedly many of the
students chose to read the texts in an order that matched the normal
leftright reading orientation. This effect has been reduced in
subsequent studies by presenting text titles in an irregular arrange-
ment on the screen (e.g., Andrews, Hoey, & Ainley, 2001).
Prior Knowledge
Schiefele (1998) stated that interest research generally has not
included prior achievement or knowledge as predictor variables
when determining the effects of interest on learning. Our study
included studentsestimates of their prior knowledge of the con-
tent of the texts completed after they read texts. Prior knowledge
was then included in the models to take into account the well-
documented relationship between knowledge and individual inter-
est (e.g., Alexander & Murphy, 1998; Renninger, 2000; Ren-
ninger, Hoffmann, & Krapp, 1998), a relationship that was
confirmed here for three of the four texts. We found that the
contribution of prior knowledge to topic interest varied substan-
tially across the different texts. Estimates of studentsprior knowl-
edge were strongly related to topic interest for the Star Trek/X-
Files text and not at all for the X-rays text. Although there was a
significant correlation between studentsestimates of their prior
knowledge of the X-ray text content and their topic interest, the
stronger correlations between general individual interest in learn-
ing and prior knowledge and between general individual interest in
learning and topic interest for the X-rays text absorbed this asso-
ciation. A more formal assessment of knowledge of the content of
the texts could be a more appropriate alternative to the rating
measure used here. However, the timing of such a measure in the
research design is critical for ensuring that there is no priming for
content that might influence studentsreporting of topic interest,
and thus a knowledge test administered on a separate occasion may
be least disturbing. Even though our measure of prior knowledge
was limited, it allowed us to assess something of the relationship
between prior knowledge and topic interest.
The Processes Mediating Interest and Learning
The second main focus of our study was to investigate some of
the processes initiated when topic interest is triggered and to
identify those processes mediating the effects of interest on learn-
ing. In particular we examined the variables of affect and persis-
tence in relation to both topic interest and answers to questions
concerning text content. The influence of personal characteristics
of individual interests, general individual interest in learning,
gender, and prior knowledge of text content on the processes that
follow triggering of topic interest were determined. These personal
characteristics not only contributed to topic interest but also had
small but significant effects on what happened in the course of text
processing. The relationships between topic interest, affect, per-
sistence, and test scores were identified after statistically control-
ling for the effects of the personal characteristics.
For all four texts the strongest relationships within the set of
process variables were consistent with a model having a path from
topic interest through affect and persistence to test score. As might
be predicted from our knowledge of the importance of domain
specificity in learning processes (Alexander, 1997; Alexander,
Jetton, & Kulikowich, 1995), there were variations in the size of
these effects across the four texts. However, the pattern of simi-
larities across texts supports the conclusion that topic interest
influenced studentsaffective response at the end of the first part
of the text. Affect influenced the degree that students persisted
with each text, and persistence was related to scores on the test at
the end of each text.
Personal Characteristics, Topic Interest, and Learning
General individual interest in learning, individual interest for
specific text-related domains and prior knowledge all contributed
to the variance in text processing that followed triggering of topic
interest. Student gender was related to each of these personal
characteristics, and where it was associated with topic interest and
further processing variables, these associations operated through
studentsgeneral individual interest in learning, individual interest
in related specific domains, and prior knowledge. The only excep-
tion to this pattern was the Body Image text, for which gender did
have a direct effect on the affective response recorded when
students quit from the first part of this text. Girls were more likely
to report more positive affect and boys more likely to report less
positive or negative affect. Several features of these relationships
stand out. First, the personal characteristics included in our design
did have direct effects on all levels of processing. Second, the
general individual interest in learning variable had stronger asso-
ciations with the affective responses than was the case for any of
the other personal characteristics. This relationship is consistent
with other studies that have shown elevated levels of the emotion
interestexcitement associated with a measure of studentsgeneral
individual interest in learning (see Ainley, 1998).
From Topic Interest to Learning
The size of the relationship between interest and learning across
a wide variety of studies has been documented as accounting for
approximately 10% of the variance. The findings for the science
texts in the present study were of the same order of magnitude.
Schiefele (1998) reported that studies of individual interest and its
effects on learning that used achievement grades as the measure of
learning typically have found correlations of about .30. The
smaller number of studies using specific text recall measures
557
INTEREST, LEARNING, AND PSYCHOLOGICAL PROCESSES
reported correlations of about .27. However, as Schiefele pointed
out, these studies have not simultaneously accounted for the in-
fluence of prior knowledge on the learning measures. Our study
looked at the relation between topic interest triggered by a set of
text titles, statistically controlling for the effects of prior knowl-
edge and individual interests, and has modeled the process that
links topic interest and learning. What is clear from our analyses is
that the influence of the psychological state triggered when a topic
was presented consisted of a sequence of processes. We measured
affect and persistence and modeled the relationships between the
four variables, topic interest, affect, persistence, and test score.
The strongest model for these texts was a pattern whereby topic
interest influenced affective responses, affect influenced persis-
tence with the text, and persistence was related to the test score
obtained at the end of each text. The level of topic interest
triggered by the title influenced the feelings students reported
when they chose to leave the first part of each text. The specific
responses included both positive and negative emotions, or as
Pekrun (2000) has referred to them, activating and deactivating
achievement emotions. Students who reported feeling interested
were more likely to engage further with a text, whereas those
reporting feeling bored were more likely to discontinue reading the
text. Online recording of these affective reactions has allowed
identification of the psychological state at points in their reading of
a text where decisions were being made about further engagement.
When given the opportunity to disengage from these texts, large
numbers of the students chose to do so, and this limited our
opportunity to identify contingencies between affective responses
across the sequence of processing all three parts of each text. The
level of interest triggered by the text topics was not maintained.
Application of the same methodology to processing of texts known
to both trigger and maintain studentsinterest could provide fur-
ther insight into the contribution of affective responses in the
influence of interest on learning. In particular, this approach would
allow further identification of specific achievement activating
emotions and combinations of emotions that support further en-
gagement with learning texts.
The role of affective reactions identified in this study does not
suggest that quality of experience is an epiphenomenon of inter-
est,as suggested by Schiefele (1996, p. 13), who examined the
relationship between reported subjective experience and measures
of cognitive processing of texts. Our focus has been on relating
subjective experience to the process of persisting with a text and,
through persistence, achievement of higher test scores. The index
of persistence we used incorporated both the number of parts of a
text students chose to access and a global indicator of how much
time was spent with part of a text. Hence, persistence as used in
this study was an index of studentsengagement with the texts. A
similar measure was reported by Vollmeyer and Rheinberg (2000),
who measured persistence as the number of roundsstudents
spent finding out about a biology-lab system and the number of
rounds to achieve a specific goal state. Vollmeyer and Rheinberg
reported that studentsinitial motivation influenced persistence,
but the relationship between persistence and achievement was
complicated by the use of a mastery measure of performance rather
than an indicator of the amount of learning that had occurred. Their
analysis of intra-individual gains in knowledge acquisition and
application(p. 306) showed a positive effect of persistence on
learning.
Clearly student persistence with a text is an important factor in
learning. Interest plays a role in learning through its contribution to
studentsconnecting with the content and maintaining that con-
nection for sufficient time to be able to learn.
Measuring the Dynamics of the Relation
Between Interest and Learning
Whether the focus of research is individual, situational, or topic
interest, features of the dynamic set of processes that connect the
initial triggering of interest with learning outcomes are critical for
educators who wish to understand how to motivate students
learning. To be able to observe something of that dynamic set, we
have developed a methodology that measures studentsreactivity
to texts in real-time sequence. The methodology is not limited to
analyzing text processing, and a variety of studies using the same
methodology are now being conducted. For example, one investi-
gation focuses on the ways in which students learn physics using
interactive models of specific physical phenomena (Ainley & Hidi,
2002). The critical feature of our methodology is that students are
making responses that reflect how involved they are with the task,
and these responses are being monitored in their real-time se-
quence. Through analyses of the contingencies in this real-time
sequence of reactions, the dynamic properties of student interest
being triggered, maintained, or dissipated can be explored.
Unfortunately, students were not highly engaged with the texts
presented in the current investigation. This lack of involvement
limited our opportunity to model the full set of contingencies, such
as the sequence of affective responses across all three sections of
each text. Future studies using a variety of learning materials
should be able to achieve this goal and identify how successive
affective responses relate to maintaining interest and continued
engagement with learning tasks. In addition, the significant rela-
tionship between persistence and learning observed in this study
was largely a function of the difference between those who dis-
engaged quickly and those who read some of the text. One of the
advantages of our methodology is that it allows one to distinguish
these types of differences in studentsresponses to the learning
material. This is a discrimination generally not available through
more conventional pencil-and-paper measures.
Summary and Conclusion
In this investigation we examined processes mediating the in-
fluence of interest on learning using an interactive computer task
that recorded studentsresponses in their real-time sequence. The
contributions of individual and situational interest factors to vari-
ability in the psychological state triggered by four expository text
titles were identified. After allowing for the effects of individual
interest factors, we still found substantial intraindividual variation
in the topic interest triggered by the specific text titles. The
strongest model linking topic interest and learning suggested that
topic interest was related to affective response, affect was then
related to persistence with the text, and persistence was related to
learning.
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Appendix
Panel of Faces
Received December 31, 2000
Revision received December 11, 2001
Accepted December 18, 2001
561
INTEREST, LEARNING, AND PSYCHOLOGICAL PROCESSES
... Furthermore, state curiosity is influenced by physical context and how individual characteristics interact with the context 121 . For instance, a child might respond differently to feeling curious when in a chaotic versus calm context, or a child might avoid exploration in a classroom context for fear of getting into trouble with their teacher 157 . ...
... Information-seeking can promote both state and trait curiosity. State curiosity-related information-seeking can lead to learning, which can promote recognition of new knowledge gaps one can become curious about (state curiosity) 146,157 . Information-seeking can also result in feedback and development of information skills, fostering greater comfort with and willingness to seek out larger knowledge gaps in the future (trait curiosity) 37,81 . ...
... Situational interest was measured using three self-report items from Yaros (2006;2011), which asked about the reader's desire to continue reading at different points in time, allowing for an estimation of changes in interest levels during reading (Ainley et al., 2002). Since readers had to read the entire article, an item was added asking them whether they would have read the entire article if they had read it outside the study. ...
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Austrian non-experts in health sciences often lack the scientific knowledge to make informed decisions that affect their daily lives and society as a whole. In general, their interest in current scientific knowledge is low, so it is unlikely that they will actively seek out information. Adult non-experts therefore need to acquire relevant scientific information incidentally, e.g., by reading journalistic articles. Journalistic articles traditionally follow an inverted pyramid structure, presenting the most important information first, while narratives unfold events chronologically with intentionally acting characters. Journalistic science narratives provide information that is usually missing in inverted pyramids. This additional information may increase situational interest in journalistic science narratives. Most people are confronted with narratives more often than with explanatory texts in everyday life and can therefore process them better. Due to the linear structure, relevant information elements are automatically activated at the same time, which further facilitates processing. An online study in the context of online science journalism on nutrition topics was conducted in Austria with 461 adult nonexperts in health sciences recruited via online platforms. The dependent variables comprehension, cognitive load and situational interest were investigated using a multiple-tier test and self-reports. The results indicate significantly higher comprehension and general situational interest and significantly lower cognitive load after reading journalistic science narratives compared to inverted pyramids. However, situational interest in journalistic science narratives was significantly lower after participants had read the first paragraph. It then increased and was significantly higher than that for inverted pyramids for the rest of the article. Therefore, journalistic science narratives with a strictly chronological structure should be used with caution. When initial situational interest is low, individuals may stop reading before they have enough information to fully comprehend the content. In addition, higher situational interest is correlated with a lower perception of cognitive load.
... The author also proposed that successful learning is characterized by the cognitive and emotional components within learners which are determined by their level of interest. Similar sentiments on the pertinence of learning interest in enhancing learning outcomes were also shared by Mary Ainley et al. (2002) as well as Renninger and Hidi (2016). ...
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Learning interest has been found to have insignificant and significant relationships with academic performance among students. This study aims to examine the association between learning interest and academic achievement among undergraduate students who underwent a Hybrid-flexible (HyFlex) course which was designed and implemented based on the interest loop of Interest-driven Creator (IDC) theory. In the HyFlex learning setting, students had the autonomy to learn physically, online synchronously, or online asynchronously for each class session. 48 undergraduate students from the faculty of education at a public university in Malaysia participated in this study. Pearson correlation analysis shows a significant positive correlation between learning interest and academic performance. A simple linear regression analysis found that learning interest contributed significantly to academic performance. This implies that the integration of the IDC theory into HyFlex learning could have the potential to foster interest and enhance performance among undergraduate students. However, the small effect size of learning interest indicates that while it is pertinent to cultivate learning interest among learners, academic achievement could be affected by other factors beyond interest.
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... Hidi (1990) suggested that being interested in your learning results in better achievement and performance. Alongside, both situational and individual interest enhances students' learning (Ainley, et al., 2002). Schiefele, Krapp, & Winteler, 1992 found that there is a correlation between interest and academic achievement (r = 0.31 and 0.27, respectively). ...
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