What Makes Lessons Interesting? The Role of Situational and Individual Factors in Three School Subjects

The present study investigated intraindividual variation in students' interest experience in 3 school subjects and the predictive power of perceived autonomy support and control. Participants were 261 students in 7th grade. After a survey of students' individual interests and other individ...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of educational psychology Vol. 100; no. 2; pp. 460 - 472
Main Authors Tsai, Yi-Miau, Kunter, Mareike, Ludtke, Oliver, Trautwein, Ulrich, Ryan, Richard M
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published American Psychological Association 01.05.2008
Subjects
Affective Objectives
Classroom Research
Educational Psychology
Factor Analysis
Foreign Countries
Germany
Grade 7
Individual Characteristics
Individual Differences
Investigations
Personal Autonomy
Pretests Posttests
Questionnaires
Student Experience
Student Interests
Student Motivation
Student Surveys
Germany
Online AccessGet more information
ISSN0022-0663
DOI10.1037/0022-0663.100.2.460

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Summary:The present study investigated intraindividual variation in students' interest experience in 3 school subjects and the predictive power of perceived autonomy support and control. Participants were 261 students in 7th grade. After a survey of students' individual interests and other individual characteristics, repeated lesson-specific measures of students' interest experience and perceived autonomy support and control during instruction were obtained over a 3-week period. Hierarchical linear modeling showed 36%-45% of the variance to be located at the within-student level. Moreover, perceived autonomy support and control during lessons, as well as individual interest, predicted students' interest experience in the classroom. (Contains 3 tables and 3 footnotes.)
ISSN:0022-0663
DOI:10.1037/0022-0663.100.2.460