Commentary on “ Interest, a motivational variable that combines affective and cognitive functioning”

By Hidi, S., Renninger, K. A., & Krapp, A.

The article, “Interest, a motivational variable that combines affective and cognitive functioning” brings up many good points about the relationship between interest and education. One idea that caught my attention was gender roles and their part in the development and maintenance of interest. For example if a little boy is interested in dolls early in his life he will most likely lose interest due to outside pressure. In our society it is looked down upon for a male to like dolls and if that boy does not lose interest he may receive pressure and bullying from his adolescent peers. The article also mentions that once an interest has been thoroughly developed it can be a lifelong interest and become part of a person’s identity even if it is not considered “normal” such as a woman firefighter.

Another point the article makes is that interest is “a habitual preference, a motivational belief, or a characteristic of the developing self.” This is different than having a general curiosity or a love of learning, it is more like sticking to one subject. This idea can be confusing and it is important to define interest in order to study it.

This quote from the article was of particular significance to me: “the relation between interest and learning is mediated by attention.” To me this means that in order to learn you must first gain the attention of the subject and then try to maintain that attention and turn it into interest. Once there is an interest in the subject, which at this point is purely situational, you must then encourage the subject to develop an individual interest in the subject that can be maintained. This makes a teacher’s job even harder than simply developing lessons, because these lessons have to not only teach the students, but catch and keep their interest. This is also difficult because there are so many different students that will all be interested in different things at different times. The teacher must step up to the plate and learn these differences so that he/she can aim activities to more than one kind of student interest and ways of learning.

The main idea of the article was whether interest is a cognitive or affective thing. The article concluded with these ideas about interest: “a) interest is content specific; b)it involves the interaction of the person and his or her environment; and c) it is both a cognitive and affective variable.” That means the authors believe interest has as much to do with cognition as feelings. This is most likely true because you are generally happier when you are interested in something and unhappy if something is considered boring or “uninteresting.” The article brought up many essential points about interest and how it can effect motivational patterns, which is helpful for new teachers to think about.