Sabine Fechner

Context characteristics and their effects on students’ situational interest in chemistry

ABSTRACT Many studies in science education acknowledge the positive effects of context-based learning on students’ interest and attitudes. However, little is known about the design criteria of contextual situations generating these effects and how facets of students’ situational interest are affected while learning in a contextualised setting. This paper ties in with this initial situation and reports results of two projects analysing the influence of context characteristics on students’ situational interest, referring to contexts as task parameters in the first project and as learning activities in the second. In the first project, everyday related and unique contexts are compared, and the effects of different contextual topics on student learning are investigated. Particularly, regarding the feeling- and value-related valence of situational interest, the results of different studies will be compared and interpreted. The second project investigated structures of interest related to activities along an adapted version of the ‘RIASEC’-model for different content areas and age groups. The chosen contents were embedded in personal as well as societal and professional context settings. Finally, we summarise the relevance of the different models, results and instruments to better understand different notions of interest and outline implications for further studies about teaching that improves student learning.

It’s the Situation That Matters: Affective Involvement in Context-Oriented Learning Tasks

This chapter focuses on the evaluation of affective variables in context-based learning (cbl) environments. Although the majority of studies in the field have shown positive effects on attitude, the need to investigate specific elements of cbl tasks has become evident. On the basis of prior research designs and instruments, it is argued that attitude has to be perceived as a multifaceted construct. Different research designs and attitude instruments are discussed and related to the theoretical background of motivation and interest. In the second part of the chapter, three studies are presented that address the need to differentiate between different contexts, content elements, and attitude measurements. Therefore, the general statement that cbl courses have a positive effect on student attitude is maintained, however, enriched by a more differentiated and substantiated perspective that may shed light on how to select an adequate context within a specific content-related area.