What Is Education Interest?

From the perspective of educational psychology, learning interest is a psychological characteristic of a person's tendency to recognize and research to obtain certain knowledge, and it is an inherent force that can promote people's knowledge. If students are interested in a certain subject, they will continue to concentrate on it, thereby improving the learning effect. Learning interest can be divided into direct interest and indirect interest, individual interest and situational interest. The process of occurrence and development is generally fun, interest and interest. Parents can cultivate their children's interest in learning by caring for their children's curiosity, creating a pleasant learning environment, and being close to nature. Teachers generally cultivate and enhance students' interest in learning by engaging in fun, asking questions, and improving teaching methods. Interest research has always been a hot topic in the fields of education and psychology. The research fields mainly include interest concept research, the impact of interest on academic achievements, and the role of interest in text understanding.

Chinese name: Learning interest

Foreign name: Interest in learning
Applied discipline: psychology

Learning Interest Profile

Learning interest refers to a person's positive cognitive tendency and emotional state of learning. Learning interests can be broadly divided into direct learning interests and indirect learning interests. The former is directly caused by the learning materials or learning activities-the learning process itself. The latter is learned by

Learning interest Caused by the results of the study activities.

Learning interest classification

1. Direct learning interest and indirect learning interest

Learning interests can be broadly divided into direct learning interests and indirect learning interests. The former is directly caused by the learning materials or learning activities-the learning process itself, and the latter is caused by the results of learning activities. The indirect learning interest has obvious consciousness. When one realizes the social significance of learning or the relationship with oneself, the interest in learning arises. For example, for the benefit of the collective, aware of the purpose or task of learning, and thus dictating oneself to persist in learning. Or in order to get the appreciation of parents and teachers, the respect of classmates and friends, get a good score in the exam, win in the competition, etc., can also arouse students' interest in learning.

Direct learning interest and indirect learning interest are often fused together, that is, there are both components of direct learning interest and indirect learning interest. Among them, either direct learning interest or indirect learning interest is dominant, or The two are difficult to separate. The indirect interest in learning at the beginning is likely to gradually transform into direct interest during the learning process. The direct interest in learning, unless there are special circumstances, can last for a long time and become more and more intense. Practice has shown that direct interest in learning is the most favorable factor for improving the quality of learning.

2. Individual learning interest and situational learning interest

Learning interests are generally divided into individual interests and situational interests. It is generally believed that individual interest refers to a relatively stable and persistent motivational orientation, personal tendency or personal preference that develops over time and is related to a specific topic or field. It is related to knowledge, values and positive feelings. Associated. Contextual interest occurs at the moment when certain stimuli or characteristics of the environment are attractive and recognized by the individual.

Learning interest development process

Learning interest has a process of occurrence and development. Generally speaking, it starts with "fun", generates "interest", and then develops into "interest".

1. Fun-the elementary form of learning interest

Generally speaking, people have some "research" spirit from childhood. For example, if the small ball is in his hand, he will pat it, pinch it, watch it roll, watch it jump. If you catch a butterfly, pull down its wings and see how its body is formed. From the perspective of children, none of the things in the universe is not new and interesting, and it is worth playing with, observing, and studying. It can be seen that fun is often the result of being attracted to the objective world.

Teachers should start with "fun" and stimulate students' interest in learning. For example, when the physics in the second year of physics talked about the boiling and evaporation section, the teacher excited the students like this: The teacher put an alcohol lamp on the podium, then raised a piece of paper and asked, This piece of paper is Will the alcohol lamp burn? "" Of course it will. "" So, will the paper be folded into a box and burned on the lamp? "" Sure it will. "The teacher filled the carton with water and waited for the paper. The box was soaked, poured out water, and placed it on a lit alcohol lamp, but the carton did not burn. The student said, "What's weird about this is that the carton is soaked, and of course it won't burn." The teacher asked, "Why the carton won't burn if it's soaked?" In a state of indignation and indignation, he couldn't understand, eagerly waiting for the teacher to explain. At this time, students have aroused strong interest in learning. At this time, the teacher will teach the new course content, and the teaching effect will be greatly improved.

"Fun" has three characteristics, which are intuitive, blind and extensive. Teachers need to pay attention to four points for students to be "interesting": first, the questions should be small and specific; second, the questions should be new and interesting; third, they should be appropriate difficulty; fourth, they should be instructive.

2.InterestsIntermediate form of learning interest

Studies have shown that learning interests are related to students' basic knowledge, and only those things that students want to know but do not know can arouse learning interests. A desire to know the mystery becomes an irresistible desire, which motivates people to act. For example, when Galileo was young, he accidentally saw that the lights hanging under the church's porch were swinging, and he stared imaginatively, feeling that the time to swing was the same, and he calculated the time to swing according to his own pulse. This interest in learning finally made him invent the pendulum clock.

Interests are often also called hobbies. Going deeper into a hobby will turn a specific interest into a hobby. We have seen from the examples of some scientists becoming talented. Astronomers, who had a cool summer night in their student days, pointed to the direction of the Beidou, and remembered the hours according to the star. At the beginning, they just thought it was interesting. He further inspected the constellations, knew the nebula, discerned the planets, and observed the moon. When he saw that it was different at four o'clock, the morning and dusk were different, and interest was generated. Further understand the principle of solar and lunar eclipses, verify the distance of light years, and discover the "canal" on Mars. This in-depth study was more interesting, so he became interested in astronomy. Interest is a noble sentiment, and interest is the first step in the pursuit of truth. When a student has an interest in learning, he can arouse his energy for learning. Interest has the characteristics of specificity and persistence.

3. Hobbies-an advanced form of learning interest

When the learning interest with individual characteristics is combined with the noble ideal and the great goal of struggle, the interest takes a leap and becomes interest. Hobbies are the home of learning interests. Hobbies can determine a person's aggressive direction and lay the foundation for his career. Therefore, the teachers' novel, interesting and logical teaching content, rich and diverse, lively teaching methods and changing format of the assignment content can constantly arouse new inquiry activities of students, thereby stimulating higher levels of knowledge.

Learning Interest Parents Cultivate Children's Interest

Many parents have a headache for their children's learning problems. Many children are not interested in learning, but just interested in playing, such as computers, games, etc. Children often do not play enough. Many parents will think about this question: how to make children treat learning as much as watching TV and playing games? Here are some methods for parents to cultivate their children's interest in learning:

1. Take good care of your child's curiosity

Curiosity is the source of children's interest in learning. So how do parents care for their children's curiosity?

When the child turns the bottle upside down and tries to pump from the bottom of the bottle, when the child pushes and pulls the stopped toy train again and again, and wants to make it run again, when the child is in the park When Li watched the flowers and plants that were swayed by the wind intently, these were the performances of their exploration of this strange world driven by curiosity. For children, everything is new and worth exploring. At this time, adults should not neglect and deny the children's learning and exploration behavior, but should carefully care for the child's curiosity, try to observe the world with the eyes of the child, be surprised with the child, ask questions, discuss, and work together in conclusion.

When a child asks his parents with a question, the parent should not simply tell the child the conclusion. Telling the child the answer to the question is far less important than having the child think for themselves why. For example, when the child asks "where do the birds sleep at night", you don't have to answer directly. You can discuss with the child where the bird might go at night; when the child asks "what color will the yellow and blue pigments become when they mix "You do nt simply tell" it will turn green ". You can say," Yeah, what color will it turn into? "This will guide the child to experiment, think, and let the child come to a conclusion by himself . At the same time, you can stimulate children's curiosity and desire to explore things through open-ended questions.

The ability to give children the space and time to think freely is the key to protecting their curiosity. If parents often give their children some compulsory intellectual homework tasks, then the children will feel that they are always in a stressful environment, and they will think of the problem as an additional burden. Over time, their curiosity The mind and interest in learning will disappear. Therefore, for compulsory intellectual work, less and less.

2. Create a pleasant learning environment for your child

For example, children generally like to listen to stories. Whether it is a teacher or parent telling a story, or a radio or TV station playing a story, children always listen to it with concentration, especially when they tell the story vividly. When you tell a story in a villain's book, you will find that children often want to know the words in the book while listening. This initiative to learn is very valuable. Parents can take advantage of this opportunity to guide their children appropriately, not to ask children to write, or ask children to memorize these words, as long as they can understand and read a small story. The child listened more, read more, and naturally grasped these words. One day, parents will find that the children can read the story in the book very coherently. When children are reading extracurricular books and periodicals, parents can use the content of the readings as a content for dialogue with the child. In this way, children can be inspired from time to time in a relaxed and pleasant learning environment, and gradually develop an interest and habit of active learning and active exploration of knowledge.

3. Take children to nature and society to broaden their horizons and increase their interest in learning

Parents can often consciously guide their children to nature to observe the sun, moon, stars, mountains and rivers. For example, in the spring, you can take your children to observe the growth of small trees and other plants; in the summer, take your children to swim and climb mountains; in the autumn, take them to observe the changes in leaves; in winter, you can guide them to observe the changes in people's clothing and see the snowflakes. . By participating in various activities, children broadened their horizons, enriched their perceptual knowledge, and increased their interest in learning. Parents should also be able to guide them to participate in some practices, such as letting children collect various seeds themselves, conducting germination experiments, planting potted flowers, and raising small animals. As children get older, they can inspire them to draw pictures they see and hear, and encourage them to read related books, learn to ask questions, and learn to find answers in books. In this way, children's interests are broad, their knowledge is expanded, and their learning ability is unknowingly improved.

4. Develop children's multifaceted interests

Some children are interested in painting or musical instruments at the age of three due to the influence of their family and surrounding environment. Especially after the children entered the kindergarten, under the guidance of the teacher, their hobbies showed their first leap. The first things that interest children are drawing, singing, and acting. Of course, these are imitative. Interest in piano, electronic piano, and accordion can be aroused in early childhood. At this time, instead of asking the child to reach a level, it is mainly to arouse their interest in various musical instruments. Playing chess is even more so. Young children like to play chess with adults, and of course they like to play chess with children. As long as the parents are caring people, provide some conditions for the children, prepare some simple equipment, tell the children more about their own experiences, and play more with the children, the children's multiple learning interests will gradually develop.

5. Other suggestions:

Use your parents as role models. Words are not as good as examples. Parents' love of learning is the greatest encouragement. Children who have grown up in a learning environment often have a strong interest in learning.

Parents and children learn together. First-time children have poor self-discipline. Parents can accompany them for a period of time, pay more attention to the child's learning, understand the child's homework, and help correct mistakes in a timely manner.

Take your child to a science museum or museum. Can stimulate children's curiosity and curiosity, and enhance children's interest in learning.

Stimulate your child's interest in learning from one of his specialties. Every child has advantages. Parents can take advantage of their children's strengths, strengths and success to take the opportunity to cultivate learning interest and perseverance, and achieve better results.

Parents should give more praise and encouragement to their children and less blame and scold. Children have self-esteem, and they are proud when their children's achievements are recognized by everyone. Parents should not miss every opportunity worthy of praise. For example, if your child picks up a pen and doodles one day, you can use this opportunity to say to him: "You are really capable, you know how to draw with pens." : "Oh, my son (daughter) is so good, knowing that I consciously learn, I really like such a child." If the child is active, don't blame him, but say to him: "You are a smart child. If you change You are the best at such a shortcoming. "When the child gets a little achievement, let him feel the joy of success, and let him know how happy he is, so he will do the same next time. This gentle way of praise is easy to be accepted by children, and children will not lose their interest in learning because of poor performance.

Try to improve your child's performance. Improving children's performance is the most important and effective way to cultivate children's interest in learning. Parents should try to improve their children's academic performance, even if it is a subject.

Target tilt method. No matter how painful the work is, as long as you have what you are most looking forward to, you will not feel particularly painful. This is the "target tilt method". For example, parents pay a certain amount of money after their child's "painful" homework.

Be patient and don't rush into success. Parents must be patient when cultivating their children's interest in learning, because the child's mental development is not mature enough, and stability is not enough, so it is fun and fun, so do not be too eager to achieve success, to avoid causing negative effects.

Learning Interest Teachers Cultivate Students' Interest

1. Fun in teaching and fun

Entertaining and teaching is a way for teachers to implement happy teaching around the content of the text according to the psychological characteristics of the students. This method is set up to effectively teach and achieve the purpose of stimulating students' interest in learning. For example, after a wonderful TV show in physics class, ask students why there are images on TV. This will inevitably arouse students' interest in learning, and their enthusiasm for learning will definitely increase.

2. Ask questions, raise doubts, and develop interest

The famous educator Suhomlinsky said: "Students are not interested in what they can see at a glance, but they are interested in the secrets hidden behind them." For example, in history teaching, we must start with questions. Start, be good at asking questions and guide students to think. When talking about the economic culture of the Qin Dynasty, you can ask students: Why did Qin Shihuang want to unify the measurement, currency and words? Then arrange students to read books with "doubt" and get interested. When teachers ask questions, they must go from shallow to deep, from easy to difficult, and gradually guide students to think and reach the realm of generating interest.

3. Improve teaching methods and stimulate interest

Outdated teaching methods have long been a thing of the past, and modern teaching methods are the shortcut to training talents. Psychological research shows that all human activities are governed by needs, motivations, and interests. The same is true for learning activities. Only when students become interested in learning and consciously enter the learning state can they achieve better results. The outdated teaching model cannot fully develop students' inherent potential. Therefore, after all, it must be eliminated, and it must be replaced by new teaching methods.

4. Use modern teaching methods to cultivate students' interest in learning

Modern teaching methods are a good strategy to stimulate students 'interest in learning. In the teaching process of various subjects, we can cultivate students' interest in learning by listening to audio recordings, watching videos, and learning computer programs. For example, why students are interested in learning about microcomputers and the Internet is because this course has new, strange and beautiful characteristics. Therefore, we can cultivate students' interest in learning through e-education media and various experimental demonstrations, and the results will be better.

Study related to learning interests

The nature of interest and its impact on learning is an old and new topic, and it is the core problem to be solved in educational theory and practice. Educator Herbart regards the development of a wide range of interests as one of the main goals of education, and believes that it is mainly interest that leads to a correct and comprehensive understanding of objects, which leads to meaningful learning, promotes the long-term retention of knowledge, and promotes further Learning provides motivation. Dewey is also one of the most influential theorists of the issue of interest. He published a monograph, "Interests and Efforts in Education," in 1913, proposing that the results of interest-based learning are qualitatively different from those of effort-based learning. . But in the West, from the rise of behaviorism to the revolution in cognitive psychology, there has been no great progress in interest research, and interest lacks its due place in the theoretical system of educational psychology. In the 1980s, Western research on the nature of interest and its impact on learning began to recover. At present, this subject has become one of the core issues in the research of educational psychology, which has attracted the attention and research of many psychological researchers.

1. The development of interest concept research

In contemporary western interest research, three different concepts of interest have emerged, namely, individual interest, situational interest, and interest as a mental state (Pintrich et al., 1996). Personal interest is caused by individual tendencies. Generally speaking, researchers regard it as a constantly developing psychological characteristic, and believe that personal interest is relatively stable, often associated with the growth of knowledge, positive emotions and increased value. For example, Schiefele (1992) argues that personal interest can be interpreted as an individual's relatively long orientation towards an object, activity, or area of knowledge. Contextual interest is the interest generated in individuals by certain conditions and stimuli in the current environment. It often has only transient effects and marginal effects on individual knowledge and reference systems. But contextual interest may also have a more lasting effect and form the basis for personal interest. Situational interests can develop into relatively lasting personal interests under certain conditions. It can be seen that these two interests are not dichotomy that occurs independently, and they affect each other in development. Interest as a mental state, this concept reflects a view on the interaction and association of interest, which is that the interest is the psychological state of the interaction between the individual's personal interest and interesting environmental characteristics.

This is largely related to their research questions. In the systematic analysis of the literature, we found that in contemporary western interest research, most researchers have separated the personal interest as a characteristic of personality and the interest of the material as a characteristic of the learning environment and did not pay attention Interest is a psychological state of a person, and it is the result of the interaction between individuals and specific stimulus materials in a specific research context. Although some researchers have noticed the interaction and mutual influence between personal interest and situational interest, the psychological process of this interaction and the psychological mechanism of various factors affecting interest generation have not been thoroughly studied in theory. In the existing interest research, the interest in realizing, that is, treating interest as an individual's mental state in the interaction with environmental stimuli, is not well studied. In fact, personality factors and the characteristics of learning materials are only necessary conditions for interest to occur. It is not enough to study the role of a certain influencing factor aside from the specific interaction between individuals and the environment under certain conditions. We believe that this kind of research thinking is not conducive to establishing a unified theory of interest, nor is it conducive to improving the ecological validity of the research. Fully reveal the psychological nature of interest? This is obviously an important work for the next step of interest research. ^[1]

2. The impact of interest on academic achievement

Some western researchers have studied the impact of personal and situational interests on academic achievement. These studies are mainly carried out using related methods. Regarding the impact of personal interest on student academic achievement, Schiefele et al. (1992) conducted a meta-analysis of a series of research results that showed that the correlation between interest and achievement was close to 30%. However, this relationship is also related to gender, subject, and grade factors. The relationship between interest and academic achievement is stronger in senior grades. This result is consistent with the research results of the Collaboration Group on Mathematical Ability of Primary School Students in China (1989, 1990). The research of the Mathematical Ability Collaboration Group of elementary school students in our country shows that the interest, attitude and ambition of mathematics learning in the fourth and sixth graders has a very significant relationship with their scores on the corresponding mathematics ability test. These three non-intellectual factors are more closely related to the development of primary school students' mathematical ability, and their role has also increased. The role of interest in learning mathematics has jumped from the third place in the fourth grade to the first place in the sixth grade. Regarding the impact of contextual interest on academic achievement, some researchers have suggested that interested classroom teaching and learning materials have a great impact on learning achievement.

3. The role of interest in text understanding

On the relationship between interest and learning, a well-researched topic is the role of interest in text understanding, which is an important aspect of interest affecting learning. Corresponding to the above three concepts of interest, there are three ways to study this topic: The first way is to treat interest as a variable of personality tendency or similar traits, and investigate the topic retention and retention of text. The impact of understanding; the second approach is to use interest as a feature of learning materials and examine the role of text-based interest in text understanding; the third approach is to use interest as a reality in specific activities The psychological state of research, the role of research interest in text understanding. In general, these studies support the conclusion that interest has a positive effect on text understanding, and that this effect does not depend on the age of the participants, the type of text (narrative, descriptive), and the way the text is presented (written , Oral) and comprehension test types (free, prompt recall, cloze filling, multiple choice, and question answering) vary qualitatively.

Specifically, the study found that the role of interest in text understanding is mainly manifested in the following three aspects:

(1) Interest will encourage readers to adopt a deep processing strategy when reading texts, establish more connections with the content being read, and think more independently about it. Interested readers will show better reasoning skills for what they read.

A study by Fransson (1977) shows that students who are more interested in a topic show deeper processing of the text. Using free recall and extensive conversation, he found that interested subjects formed more connections not only between different parts of the text, but also between what they read and prior knowledge or personal experience. He also found that interested subjects were thinking more independently about the text. Zhang Kai and Zhang Biyin (1996) used college students as subjects in a study and found that high-interest subjects made more correct inferences than low-interest subjects. Schiefele's (1992) research results show that subjects with high interest show more meaning-oriented (propositional) processing when reading text than subjects with low interest, and show less literally machining.

(2) Interest has little or no effect on the knowledge that is explicitly contained in the text. When deep understanding of the text is required, interest has a very important role. The knowledge obtained by readers with high interest has Higher migration levels.

Schiefele (1990) In a study on the influence of topic interest on the level of text comprehension, the text comprehension level is divided into three levels, and is represented by three types of problems, that is, simple intellectual problems and complex intellectuals. Problems and problems of deep understanding. The results show that interest is a very important condition that affects the understanding of texts. When deep understanding of text content is required, the role of interest is particularly obvious, but interest has no effect on answering simple knowledge questions. However, the researchers point out that these results do not yet clearly indicate whether interested subjects have actually gained a deeper understanding. An alternative explanation is that the differences observed in the study did not arise during text processing, but may have occurred during the recall phase. Low-interest subjects may also be able to answer questions of deep understanding, but they are not motivated to answer the questions and do not try to remember. Zhang Kai and Zhang Biyin (1995) also reached the same conclusion. However, based on the overall analysis of the effect of interest, we deny the above-mentioned explanation of Schiefele (1990). We believe that the effect of interest on different levels of understanding arises from the stage of cognitive processing, that is, the construction of textual schemas, not the stage of recall.

(3) Interest has a certain influence on the ability to understand and monitor text reading

Zhang Kai and Zhang Biyin (1996) used college students as subjects to study the influence of interest on understanding and monitoring ability in text reading. The subjects were first asked to read an article, then the interest in the content was read, and the comprehension test was completed. The form of the test is to fill in the blanks of the paragraph text that takes the main idea of the article as the content, and ask the participants to evaluate the correctness of the words they have filled. The results showed that the subjects with high interest believed that the words they filled in were more correct than those with low interest. This shows that the level of interest has a certain influence on the ability to understand and monitor text reading.

de-Sousa and Oakhill (1996) studied the effect of the level of interest of 24 children aged 8 to 9 years on their ability to understand surveillance. The two groups of participants matched word reading and vocabulary skills, but had different comprehension skills. They were required to read a series of short paragraphs and measure the level of understanding monitoring. It was found that the level of interest had a significant effect on the results of the comprehension monitoring test of subjects with poor understanding skills, but had no effect on the results of the comprehension monitoring test of subjects with good understanding skills.

Based on the above studies, we believe that interest improves the learning process on the one hand, and improves the learning result on the other hand, leading to qualitative and quantitative learning. This is exactly what Dewey (1913) stated that the results of interest-based learning are qualitatively different from those of effort-based learning. Behind this difference lies the mechanism by which interest affects learning. To clarify this problem in theory is the need for the in-depth development of interest research. ^[2]

4. The mechanism by which interest influences learning

Regarding the mechanism of interest affecting learning, three explanations have emerged in western interest research: attention and resource allocation hypothesis, cognitive strategy hypothesis, and motivation orientation hypothesis. ^[1]

Attention and resource allocation hypotheses were first proposed by Anderson (1982). Research conducted by Anderson (1982) and Shirey & Reynolds (1988) provides an explanation for the effect of interest, and they assume that more attention is paid to sentences of interest. Anderson et al. (1984) assume that readers pay more attention to interesting pieces of text and spend more time focusing. But their findings did not show that better memory of interesting sentences is based on (consciously) increased attention. The theoretical assumptions of Anderson et al. Were also challenged by Hidi (1990). Hidi (1990) questioned the assumption that attention inevitably leads to longer reading and response times. According to some empirical studies, she believes that attention has automatic attention and selective attention, and that it is associated with the process of interest. Rather than selective and conscious attention, in interest learning, automatic attention can release cognitive energy, which is conducive to generating a more consistent representation and improving the level of learning.

Entwistle and Ramden (1983) distinguish between deep processing strategies and surface-level strategies. Schiefele (1989) believes that deep learning orientation corresponds to interest-oriented learning. Therefore, the representations constructed by high-interest subjects are superior to those of low-interest subjects in nature, and later they are more able to recall what they have learned The basic ingredients of content.

Dweck and his colleagues distinguish different motivational orientations based on the type of achievement goal: mastery orientation and performance orientation. This theory argues that interest is linked to mastery orientation, which can lead to differentiated and innovative knowledge structures.

In addition, emotional psychology also pays close attention to the relationship between interest and learning. There is a view that the interaction and complementarity of interest and happiness constitute the best emotional background for intellectual activity. Happiness keeps interest at a low threshold; the tension of interest is released when it turns into pleasure. The alternation of the two can avoid too long a tense interest and too much happy relaxation.

The above four viewpoints are supported by experimental evidence, but they only involve one aspect, and lack a comprehensive understanding of the mechanism of interest. Attention, resource allocation hypothesis, and cognitive strategy hypothesis both attempt to explain the mechanism of interest from a cognitive perspective, but they do not explain why interest is related to automatic attention and deep processing strategies. Therefore, it can only be an explanation of the mediating factors of the role of interest. The motivational orientation hypothesis does not explain why interest is related to mastery orientation; the emotional background hypothesis does not link interest and cognitive processing levels, and cannot make a proper prediction and explanation of the relationship between interest and understanding level. Therefore, it is necessary to explore the mechanism of interest.

5. Research on Interest Effects

In the research on the effect of interest on learning, many researchers do not consider the relevant control variables that affect the effect of interest enough. Most studies abroad have taken school-age children as subjects, controlling reading ability and text intelligibility, and few studies have controlled subjects' intelligence level and prior knowledge. Studies have shown that the impact of reading ability and text intelligibility on understanding and the impact of interest on understanding are independent, and different studies have obtained consistent results. But the research on the relationship between prior knowledge and interest is not the same, and the results obtained from the research on prior knowledge are not consistent. Baldwinetal (1985) and Entin & Klare (1985) proposed that interest and prior knowledge have a significant effect on understanding, but they work independently of each other; while Hare and Devine (1983) research shows that only prior knowledge affects understanding Significant impact; Osako and Anders (1983) found that previous knowledge and topical interest had weak effects (see Schiefele, 1992). ^[2]

Schiefele's (1990) study controlled subjects' prior knowledge, intelligence, and short-term memory. Analysis of the control variables shows that the differences in understanding between the high-interest group and the low-interest group cannot be attributed to factors such as intelligence, short-term memory, and prior knowledge; prior knowledge and short-term memory are not related to understanding; The indicators of speech intelligence and general intelligence are also significantly related only to simple knowledge issues; and the role of interest and intelligence is independent. Zhang Kai and Zhang Biyin (1995, 1996) found in two experiments that the effect of interest on text understanding is relatively independent of the effect of prior knowledge, and whether the effect of prior knowledge is significant or not.

In the above studies, the inconsistency of the research results has a lot to do with the differences in the difficulty of the text used by different researchers, the amount of prior knowledge of the subjects, and the measurement methods of the prior knowledge. In these studies, the previous knowledge is used as the experimental control variable, and the statistical methods used are mainly partial correlation analysis or covariance analysis. This experimental design is not conducive to a comprehensive study of the relationship between interest in learning and prior knowledge. ^[3]

6. Development of theoretical research

For 20 years, in the Western educational psychology community, interest research is moving from recovery to revival. The impact of research interest on learning is an important aspect of the relationship between emotion and cognition. It can make up for the lack of cognitive factors in cognitive psychology and only study the lack of cognition, which has attracted the attention of many researchers. . This tendency should attract the attention of researchers in educational psychology in China. Generally speaking, But they also have some problems to varying degrees, and we should not follow blindly. Among them, the most prominent problem is the lack of a mature definition and theory of interest. Most studies do not include a theoretical discussion of interest. Many researchers conduct research in the daily meaning of "interest". We think this is not enough. If we don't understand the theory, we will inevitably be blind in experimental research. For example, most studies lack an overall grasp of the conditions under which interest affects cognition, and do not pay attention to the interaction of personality factors and situational factors that affect the occurrence of interest under certain conditions. Many studies do not consider the relevant control variables that affect interest and understanding. Although some studies control the prior knowledge level, the measurement of prior knowledge needs to be improved. Most studies use simple indicators in the understanding test, especially In the form of multiple choices, the use of these methods is limited to purely quantitative aspects of learning, ignoring qualitative or structural indicators of understanding. This type of indicator does not provide any clear information on the structural characteristics of the knowledge obtained, nor does it take into account the different levels of understanding, and therefore cannot draw any conclusions regarding different levels of processing. In short, strengthening the theoretical integration of interest concepts and choosing research methods with ecological validity are two important issues facing interest research at present, and solving them is the direction for further development of interest research. ^[1]