Interest and Learning From Text

Abstract

This article deals with the relation between interest and learning from text. In the first section, the concepts of personal and situational interest and their relation to motivation are clarified. Based on my own studies and findings from other studies, the next sections present evidence for substantial relations between interest and text learning. These relations appear to be stronger for deep-level learning than surface-level learning and seem to be largely independent of prior knowledge and cognitive ability. Finally, it is argued that past research has failed to examine the underlying mechanisms of motivation-learning relations. Suggestions and guidelines for future research are given.