DOCUMENT RESUME TM 017 134 ED 342 779 Voss, James F.; Schauble, Leona AUTHOk Is Interest Educationally Interesting? An TITLE Interest-Related Model of Learning. Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, New York, N.Y.; Office SPONS AGENCY of Educational Research and Improvement (ED), Washington, DC. PUB DATE 91 NOTE 35p. Viewpoints (Opinion/Position Papers, Essays, etc.) PUB TYPE (120) -- Reports - Evaluative/Feasibility (142) MF01/PCO2 Plus Postage. EDRS PRICE *Beliefs; Educational Research; Elementary Secondary DESCRIPTORS Education; Feedback; Higher Education; Interest Research; *Interests; Knowledge Level; *Learning Processes; Learning Theories; Models; *Motivation; *Objectives; Student Interests; *Values ABSTRACT Interest is examined in relation to its role in the learning process. A broadly based model of learning is presented, and implications of the model for the educational context are considered. In the framework presented, learning involves the perception, interpretation, eAd storage of information about the environment under particular motivational conditions that are generated by goals and interests. Acquired knowledge and beliefs are then used to accomplish goals and fulfill interests. Knowledge and beliefs influence the perception and interpretation of new information, which may include feedback indicating whether goals are being achieved. Information from the environment may lead to revisions of goals and interests, which provide motivational conditions for additional perception, interpretation, and learning. Interest is described as following and deriving from values, and in turn, generating the goals that motivate and direct processing. What is learned and what goals and interests a person develops are fundamentally an issue of value. A 42-item list of references and one flowchart illustrating a general model of learning are included. 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Voss and Leona Schauble University of Pittsburgh that most people would The title of this chapter poses a question, one effect of probably answer in the affirmative. Yet, despite the presumed facilitating concerned interest, research since Dewey's (1913) treatise on the topic has been such as largely with the difficult problem of how interest is related to other concepts is related to emotion (cf. Izard, 1977; Piaget, 1981), while the question of how interest learning Ims received only infrequent study (e.g., Renninger, 1989). The position taken in the present chapter is that interest indeed has the potentiol to be educationally interesting, but to show why this is the case, one cannot simply consider interest per se. Instead, interest must be examined in relation to its role in the learning process. Similarly, we believe that to develop an understanding of the learning process, learning must be viewed in the context of the individual's overall nn rttal functioning. Therefore, the initial section of this chapter presents a broadly based model of learning, including consideration of the role of interest. In the subsequent section we consider the implications of the model for the educational context. 2 REST mu MUM 2 The Nature of Learning Psychology Theangg,ntation of Mental Functioning in had one of three foci, General theories of psychology have typically theory having one of these foci motivation, perception, or learning. Moreover, a the other two. Motivational typically has been thought to be weak with regard to relation to needs and motives theories have viewed an individual's behavior in is considered to be a function that produce goal-directed action. Learning therefore mechanisms by which learning of motivation, but usually little is said about the (e.g., Koffka, 1935), have takes place. Perceptual approaches, such as Gestalt theory the emphasized that how one perceives, interprets, and mentally organizes viewed as environment is critical to what one does. In this case learning tends to be and the acquisition of perceptual relations. These, in turn, are stored in memory However, as with motivational utilized in subsequent perceptual experiences. approaches, perceptual theories usually have had little to say about the mechanisms of learning. Learning theory, derived in large part from the writings of Aristotle, the British empiricists, and the Soiriet reflexology tradition of Sechenov (1863/1965) and Pavlov (1927), has generally held that learning consists of the acquisition of associations. While Hullian theory (e.g., Hull, 1943) attempted to relate learning to motivation, the study of how motivation influences human learning has, until recently, consisted largely of isolated studies investigating how particular motivational variables influence learning. However, in recent years, some research 3 3 goal-setting, how motivational activities, such as (e.g., Dweck, 1986) has addressed had With respect to perception, learning theory has influence student performance. could the organism, as an active processor of information, to address the idea that input, thus demonstrating that how input sOect and elaborate upon the stimulus directly related to what was learned (cf. Voss, 1979). was perceived was dominated by the cognitive In recent decades, psychology has been origins more in relation to perception than to movement, an approach having its the central role played by motivation or learning, as shown, for example, by individual represents or builds representation in cognitive theory, that is, how the learning, while cognitive models of the environment. With respect to the study of of learning has psychology has made substantial theoretical contributions, a theory considerable research on skill acquisition not been one of them. There has been been employed in this (e.g., Anderson, 1982), and a number of the concepts that have classical learning work, such as spreading activation, are associative and come from and neural theory. Similarly, general modeling approaches such as connertionism of learning involving such nets have associative roots. However, a cognitive theory topics as knowledge acquisition has not been forthcoming. Cognitive research has nevertheless demonstrated how particular factors affect the learning process, especially showing the importance of prior knowledge in the acquisition of new knowledge (e.g., Spilich, Vesonder, Chiesi, & Voss, 1979). Indeed, much of the current research on subject matter learning conducted within the cognitive framework is concerned with how the knowledge and skills a student brings into 4 4 becomes influence learning or how such knowledge the learning situation perspective implies that learning is restructured in the process of learning. This that to understand how learning takes basically a process of transfer, in the sense prior knowledge and skills facilitate or place it is necessary to determine how perhaps retard learning (cf. Voss, 1978). thus tended toward The general theoretical traditions in psychology have learning components of mental :gmentation of the perceptual, motivational, and the learning process we functioning. We assume, however, that to understand factors into account, for we regard them as not must take motivation and perceptual The human only germane to the learning process, but as part of that process. such as learning, motivation, functions holistically, and the delineation of concepts for the purpose of analysis. and perception is somewhat arbitrary, albeit necessary lose sight of the But in performing the conceptual dissection, it is important not to coordinated nature of mental functioning. A Functionalist Framework ciLearr_i_gin Staying within the general functionalist tradition (e.g., Can, 1925; Dewey, 1896), we assume that individuals are in continual interaction with their environment, and that within this context, the primary purpose of learning, broadly conceived, is to facilitate the organism's adaptation to the environment, including not only physical and biological factors but also social-cultural components. Moreover, during the course of development, the individual is assumed to become increasingly equipped with value-related and intellectually-related mental 5 acquires the norms "equipment" develops as the individual structures. Value-based the milieu in which he or she is raised, and principles of the sociocultural Beliefs such norms to his or her own situation. individual differentially applying assumed to play a major role in and such values and beliefs are are also established, goals may include moral goals, such as the establishment of ,--Rls. These social goals. Particular values and the maintaining integrity, career goals, and learns more about the environment, related goals also include affect. As the person established that are aimed at satisfying the interests are developed and goals may be established in satisfying one's goals. interests. Correspondingly, interests may be the respective values and beliefs, as These interests and goals are thus based upon well as affect. that is, a The individual's goals and interests thus produce motivation, particular activity which is aimed at accomplishing goals person is directed toward a has two functions, and/or exploring an interest (cf. Bolles, 1975). Motivation thus quantitative. Qualitatively, motivation directs the one qualitative and the other satisfy individual toward selecting activities that will accomplish goals and/or providing the interests. Quantitatively, motivation serves an energizing function, effort and persistence needed to accomplish a goal or pursue an interest (Atkinson & Wickens, 1971). An interest in baseball may establish the goal of going to a game, and, if the Cubs lose, one may go to games repeatedly, until the Cubs finally win. But if the individual had only values, beliefs, goals, and interests, and the motivation engendered by them, the likelihood of survival or success in dealing 6 minimal. The individual needs intellectual with the environment would be of the environment (Johnson-Laird, "equipment." The individual builds models (Schar & Abelson, 1977), which 1983), including event contingencies, and scripts categorical relationships, schema, and mental maps are also are sequential, and Chiesi, & Voss, 1979), constructed. Models may be hierarchical (Spilich, Vesonder, For example, a procedural (Ryle, 1949), or may consist of topic-centered information. model containing knowledge about the political, person may have an "abortion" of moral, physical, interpersonal, affective, and possibly experiential components affect abortion, as well as a representation of one's own beliefs about abortion and related to it. An important function of models is that they not only provide for an understanding of the environment, they also serve as a resource to consult in satisfying goals and. interests. The use of intellectual "equipment" as a resource individual to interpret occurs in a number of ways. The resources enable the incoming information, and they help to provide the means by which goals and interests can be satisfied, constituting a major component of the problem solving Furthermore, whcn a given goal cannot be satisfied, perhaps because of an process. environmental constraint, the individual may be able to adapt by using some other means derived from models. This view is essentially taken from Selz (deGroot, 1983; Selz, 1922), who maintained that cognitive and motivational factors exist within a given subsystem, and that the failure of one subsystem to yield a problem solution leads to a search for another subsystem likely to lead to the goal. The 7 7 closely integrated. motivational and cognitive components are thus solving, they also are While mental models serve as a resource in pi oblem Individuals engaged modified and developed in the process of solving a problem. problem, and those means in problem solving also learn about ways of solving the Indeed, the building of mental representations can, in its are stored for future u.e. Individuals may want to learn for the sake of own right, become a goal or interest. learning, although typically learning is related to a more particular goal or interest. framework A basic assumption about mental functioning within the adaptive meaning is that when they process input information, people interpret and provide the individuals know and feel to it. Furthermore, the meaning is generated by what about the events; that is, interpretations are based not only upon the individual's knowledge, but upon beliefs and values, goals and interests. Since the interpretations or representations are the product of the processing, it is interpretations that are acquired, that is, an integration of environmental stimuli and the meaning provided. How one's knowledge influences interpretation is reasonably straightforward. Having relatively little knowledge about a situation severely constrains how it can be interpreted. For example, in a recent study of novices' models of electric circuits (Schauble, Glaser, Raghavan, & Reiner, in press b), undergraduates were confronted with eight small metal boxes, each containing a hidden piece of electrical equipment. Subjects knew that the boxes contained batteries, resistors, plain wire, and in one case, nothing at all, but they did not know what was in each box. The task was to try 8 combinations, into each box by plugging them, singly or in to figure out what was in approached the task in containing a lightbulb. In this study, subjects a simple circuit each characterized by a different kind of four qualitatively different kinds of ways, involved in the task and their knowledge or belief about the kinds of entities specified that there were only interrelationships. For example, the simplest model boxes, those that "worked" (that is, lit the bulb two classes of components within the "work." Students holding thif: when plugged into the circuit), and those that did not contain batteries model had no way to distinguish among the five boxes that did not circuit). They typically (and that thus did not "work" when plugged alone into the shaking them, or made decisions about what was inside these boxes by guessing, students hefting them in their hands. DI contrast, the most knowledgable understood that all the resistors, the plain wire, the empty box, and even the lightbulb itself had the property of resistance. Therefore, they understood that the only way to identify them was to plug them into test circuits in combination with identified as containing batteries. Furthermore, they one or more boxes previously knew that although these components had different names, they could all be distinguished on the basis of changes in the brightness of the bulb. Clearly, for these subjects, "understanding" involved not only accessing relevant knowledge about electrical circuits and components, but also appropriately applying this knowledge to the task at hand. Although this task posed a well-formed problem with a correct solution, we do not intend to imply by offering this example that individuals with a It is important to note that knowledge high level of knowledge will always agree. 9 9 domains of social sciences and does not guarantee agreement, especially in physical and life sciences. humanities, or in the frontier research areas of the As constrain processing. Not only knowledge and beliefs, but also affect can trade agreement has just been an example, assume that an American-Japanese automobiles in the concluded that wul likely lead to the sale of more Japanese-made ,Aan American auto worker may have little knowledge of the United States. economics involved but nevertheless have considerable interest because the negative agreement could affect him and his job. This apprehension could generate affect about the agreement and about the Japanese in general, even though the individual is making essentially no effort to understand the agreement. In addition to knowledge and affect, motivation can influence processing and learning. The powerful role of motivation in learning can be demonstrated by examples from out-of-school learning. Carraher, Carraher, and Schliemann (1985), and Schliemann and Acioly (1989) have shown that unschooled individuals can do extremely well in performing complex arithmetic operations such as selling lottery tickets. This is a testament to the ability of individuals to learn when it becomes essentially a matter of necessity, that is, when one's values, like eating and having shelter, dictate goals. Interestingly, Carraher et al. (1985) also found that unschooled individuals tend to show less flexibility in problem solving than schooled, because they apparently rely more on computational rules and thus experience difficulty when a rule does not directly apply. In related work, Hatano and Inagaki (1987) have argued that differences in level of comprehension, (deeper understanding 1 0