Abstracts - Earli

E 1029 August 2007 14:30 - 16:30Room: 7.14SymposiumDeveloping potentials for learning: Interest, time and changeChair: Mary Ainley, University of Melbourne, AustraliaOrganiser: Mary Ainley, University of Melbourne, AustraliaOrganiser: Ann Renninger, Swarthmore College, USADiscussant: Suzanne Hidi, OISE/University of Toronto, CanadaCurrent research demonstrates that interest processes influence learning in different waysaccording to whether interest is triggered by situational factors, or whether it stems from reengagementas in individual interest. However, the temporal dimension of the interest-learningrelation has not been closely examined. How and why does interest change as students work onspecific tasks, or as they gain extensive experience in a domain? Focusing on the time period overwhich interest is studied permits consideration of changes in interest-learning relationships overshort periods of time, as well as longer developmental sequences. Each of the presenters in thissymposium will draw on multiple studies and differing time perspectives to talk about interest andchange to provide symposium participants with an expanded understanding of the complex waysperson and situation interact in learning. Boscolo and Del Favero consider how variations ininterest and importance of text information on a topic, influence students’ subsequent academicwriting. Niemivirta and Ainley examine how both individual interests and task characteristicsinfluence trajectories of change in interest across a series of similar problem tasks administeredduring one school year. Renninger, Bachrach and Posey use a series of studies based on withinchildcomparisons across domains, to describe conditions that support and sustain commitments tolearn over time (years). Extending the focus to the length of time associated with undergraduatecourses, Harackiewicz reports on studies demonstrating how interest and achievement goalsinteract and influence students’ subject and course preferences, in turn, influencing learning andcareer paths. These research programs provide evidence of how important interest is for thedevelopment of students’ potential to learn. The more detailed consideration of interestdevelopment and change presented will both further theoretical understandings of interestdevelopment and provide information to practitioners about how the process of change unfolds.Interest in an expository text: Does it develop from reading to writing?Pietro Boscolo, University of Padua, ItalyLaura Del Favero, University of Padua, ItalyThe present study aimed at analysing how interest in a text on a social sciences topic developswhen the reader uses the text information in a writing task. The study aimed at answering tworesearch questions. First, we expected that the paragraphs or segments of a text would stimulatedifferent types of interest in the reader: the exposition of a concept (e.g., the definition ofterrorism) would stimulate an "epistemic" attitude, whereas the description of an impressive eventrelated to that concept would activate surprise and sense of novelty. The second research questionregarded the change of interest from reading a text to writing a new text on the same topic. Weexpected that, when writing, participants would use the segments rated as interesting to the degreeto which the writing task allowed or stimulated them to use interesting information. One hundredeighty11th and 12th graders participated in the study, according to a 2 (interesting vs.– 275 –