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(And the effect on Calvin's Learning)
What is Motivation?
What is Motivation?
In the interest theory, motivation is one of the most important ideas to understand. On this page, we discuss the pattern of interest through a four phase model to describe how it triggers motivation in students. Below are some preliminary definitions:
Situational Interest - When someone is placed into an environment that sparks interest in a topic or activity that they don't have a lot of knowledge about. Their desire to learn about this topic/activity is triggered by something in the environment, and can eventually blossom into sustaining the interest.
Individual Interest - Unlike situational interests, individual interests remain with the individual in any environment. These kinds of interests are unique to the individual and their foundation lies in intrinsic motivation to pursue the topic.
Below here defines the labels of the model and gives an example of these forms through the idea of astronomy.
Definitions below inspired from The Four-Phase Model of Interest Development by Suzanne Hidi and K. Ann Renninger.
Triggered Situational Interest
A sudden change of interest triggered by an outside source. For instance, a person starts taking a baseline astronomy class and finds the idea of extraterrestrial life fascinating.
Maintained Situational Interest
A focused interest that stays for time, or happens again, after the triggered situational interest. The person continues to study a higher level of astronomy and learns constilations and how to map the planets. They also now know where a planet needs to be around a star to foster life.
Emerging Individual Interest
The beginning of an enduring interest that someone reingages into often. The person starts to go outside of class to watch, and critique, space movies. They're especially intrigued by Star Wars because it has a wide variety of life, even if it isn't completely accurate.
Well-developed Individual Interest
The outcome of this interest flowering into a constant fixation and engagement of the content. The person has now changed their major to get a degree in astronomy and plans to work with NASA to find extra life outside of Earth.
After defining the types of interest in people, we will now look into types of motivational patterns. Below are eight examples pulled from Influences on Classroom Interest by David A. Bergin to define how they influence learning and how they cause interest.
Background knowledge
It is found that students enjoy things they already know something about. Such a crazy idea! Anyways, students find a heightened interest in a topic the more they know about it beforehand.
Emotions
When it comes to interest, kids and students are driven by their emotions. If they have been degraded on their math skills, they'll lack interest in math. If they're praised for their writing skills, they might find more interest in English class. Emotions have a heavy tie to interest, "In fact, interest itself is often considered to be an emotion." (Bergin, 1999, p. 90)
Competence
Competence determines how likely a student will be interested in a topic. Most who feel incompetent will not find a topic interesting, while those who feel competent will find some interest in the topic.
Social Support
The people around a student can help heighten or lessen interest. For instance, a student who is ignored by their teacher, or parents, will lose interest. A student who has a friend to help them will find more interest in the topic.
Culture
Relating to a student's culture is important for interest. If you introduce concepts of their home life, where they're from, or relate it to their culture, a student will find more interest in the topic.
Identity
While culture is a part of identity, identity has its own role in interest. Sometimes how a student identifies relays stereotypes that infringe on their interest. Also, sometimes relating to an identity can bring interest. Having representation in the classroom is very important.
Utility-Goal Relevance
Relevance is such an important idea for interest. If a topic feels useless, like it won't be used again, or like it doesn't apply to the students' lives, then there will be a lack of interest in it. Giving applications or relevance to a topic makes it more interesting.
Hole in Schema
Students and people overall love filling in gaps or mistakes or tying loose ends. Introducing a fact of a topic that was once unknown when someone thought they knew everything will lead to a very heightened interest in the topic.
In the end, the general pattern of interest follows the four phase model above. Many things cause a triggered interest, especially in a classroom. For instance, hearing about extraterrestrial life can blossom into a pure fascination of space and studying astronomy. Or, for Calvin, using his interest in dinosaurs and connecting it to math could possibly blossom his interest in math some more. The motivational patterns in interest starts from a situational triggered interest, and allowing it to blossom into a long lasting individual interest.
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