Abstracts - Earli

and time points enables interest development to be considered on community, interpersonal andintrapersonal planes, which provides an ‘inclusively separate’ approach to viewing situational andindividual interest. Implications for classroom practice are drawn in relation to how the design ofteaching and learning activities affords and constrains the potential for students’ interestdevelopment.Student perceptions of science, interest and self-efficacy: A short-longitudinal, cross-sectionalstudyK. Ann Renninger, Swarthmore College, USAChristine N. Costello, Swarthmore College, USASabrina J. Stevens, Swarthmore College, USAWhitney S. Nekoba, Swarthmore College, USASession questions will be addressed using findings from a mixed-method short-longitudinal andcross-sectional study undertaken with students in fifth, eighth, and eleventh grade (N= 314,b= 137, g= 177) science classes across two years. Analyses conducted at the level of the individualand at the level of the classroom suggest the utility of comparing student perceptions to both theirwork with a think-aloud task and participant structures in the classroom. Active engagement withscience, for example, appears to predict the development of interest. Similarly, students who workwith the language of science are able to recognize and make connections to scientific thinking.Interest and identity in the practice of beginning teachersSusan B. Nolen, University of Washington, USAChristopher J. Ward, University of Washington, USAIlana S. Horn, University of Washington, USASara S. Campbell, University of Washington, USAKaran Manha, University of Washington, USAIn this presentation we describe the relationship between interest and identity development in themultiple contexts of learning to teach. Beginning early in a graduate preservice program, we usedethnographic methods to capture changes in both teacher identity and interest in various teachingpractices. Our first task was definitional: Can interest be distinguished from identity in teachers’speech and actions related to practice? Is interest appropriate to understanding motivation inprofessional programs? We used Hidi & Renninger’s (2006; Lipstein & Renninger, 2006)developmental sequence to frame this inquiry, and looked for evidence of both situational andindividual interest in teaching practices. Identity development was cast as occurring in socialcontexts through interaction, relationships, and mutual co-construction of norms in each context(Holland, Jr., Skinner, & Cain, 1998; Lave & Wenger, 1991). Next, we identified evidence ofidentity development and its processes, and evidence of interest in practices in multiple contexts.Teachers learn their profession in university classrooms, in school practica, and after certification,in their first teaching jobs. We collected observational data in all learning contexts and interviewedbeginning teachers after or during each field observation. Based on three years of data, we willdiscuss how identity and interest develop in and between social contexts, and their relationship toeach other, in three possible ways: 1. Current teacher identity opens (or closes off) the possibilityto develop interest in contexts 2. Individual interests lead to selection of roles in contexts that inturn influence interest 3. Interests and identity co-develop in social contexts with particularfeatures. Cross-case analysis of 8 focal students and their contexts will provide evidence for thesepossibilities, and for the reasonableness of treating identity and interest as separable.– 176 –