Situational interest manipulated through choice had a statistically significant, medium- sized effect on reading comprehension scores, supporting hypothesis 1. Scores were not moderated by either gender or reading ability level (as assessed by raw scores on NGRT), thus hypotheses 2 and 3 were rejected (although as expected, there was a main effect of ability on performance, where children in the top half of NGRT scored better on the reading comprehension tasks). Although the cross-over design randomised experimental order and story effect, interaction effects with experimental condition were explored. There was no interaction effect for experimental order and choice / no choice but there was a significant main effect of experimental order when children had the experimental (choice) condition first. An interaction effect of story was found where reading comprehension scores were higher for Story 2 compared to Story 1 in the experimental condition.
Situational interest manipulated through choice had a statistically significant, small- sized effect on reported enjoyment scores, supporting hypothesis 4. Scores were not moderated by either gender or reading ability level, thus hypotheses 5 and 6 were rejected. There was an interaction effect for experimental order and choice / no choice where scores were higher in the experimental condition when the experimental condition was second. There were no effects of story on reported enjoyment scores. These findings indicate that reading comprehension performance and task enjoyment were significantly affected by participants having a perceived choice of story in the experimental condition compared to being given a story to read in the control
condition. This indicates that choice operated as an effective trigger for situational interest according to the hypotheses of this study.
Chapter Six
Novelty
This chapter sets out and critically evaluates studies and literature that inform our understanding of the construct of novelty and how it might operate as a trigger for situational interest. Through an examination of this body of work it presents the importance of novelty as a potential effective stimulus for interest development that has obvious practical benefits and application, whilst demonstrating the contribution that the current experimental studies make to existing research. In the current research, novelty as a trigger for situational interest is explored through two experiments (Study 2 and Study 3) which test the hypothesis that situational interest, operationalised as novelty, will make a difference to reading comprehension performance and reported task enjoyment. Study 2 introduces novelty through the way the reading comprehension story is presented to the participants, with a prologue to the story read aloud by a visitor to the classroom, before participants went on to read the storybook individually. In the control condition, the participants were given the storybook to read individually by their classroom teacher as part of their routine school work. Study 3 manipulates novelty through the use of non-textual features added to the experimental condition storybook where six scratch and sniff stickers were evenly spaced throughout the story with the written instruction ‘scratch and sniff’. In the control condition, the participants received the same storybook without the stickers. The exact hypotheses for these two studies are presented at the end of this chapter. The two subsequent chapters present the methods and results for Study 2 and Study 3.
6.1 Introduction
It is well-established that situational interest is a contextual factor, where interest stems from a feature of a task or activity and how the individual interacts with that feature, rather than arising from a characteristic of the individual. Novelty is commonly cited as such a factor (e.g. Berlyne, 1963; Hidi & Harackiewicz, 2000; Krapp et al., 1992; Schraw & Lehman, 2001). Discussion of its relationship with motivation originates from the work of Dewey (1913) and it continues to be closely tied to the
construct of interest and interestingness by researchers investigating motivation, curiosity and education and learning. As well as being a recognised key variable for situational interest, novelty has been recorded as an important variable in the role of attention in infants (e.g. Berlyne & Frommer, 1966; Gottfried, Rose & Bridger, 1977) and, at one time, was considered a possible explanation for variation across changes in productivity and performance generally in educational research (Cook & King, 1968).
However, in current research there is disagreement among researchers regarding how novelty is defined (Renninger & Hidi, 2016). In some research it is used interchangeably with the construct of curiosity (Rotgans & Schmidt, 2014) where situational interest and epistemic curiosity are synonymous terms, or it is described as a temporary collative factor7 (Durik & Harackiewicz, 2007) only. Although
frequently acknowledged in interest and motivation research and even commonly cited as an accepted trigger for interest, there is little evidence supporting any of these assertions, where, for example, its potential importance as a trigger for situational interest seems taken for granted and is not necessarily specifically investigated, or where it is acknowledged as an integral part of situational interest but not explicitly examined. There is a gap in knowledge demonstrating how novelty is identified and interpreted, how novelty might be operationalised, and indeed the mechanisms supporting the success of novelty as a trigger.
Furthermore, whilst this recognition extends across domains (e.g. Chen & Darst, 2001; Mitchell, 1993; Palmer & colleagues; Schraw & colleagues) few studies centre on reading. It is therefore argued that to establish what constitutes novelty in a reading task and how this might be effectively introduced in a classroom setting in order to capture children’s interest at a critical age is both valuable and worthwhile. As Renninger and Su (2012) point out, it is important to understand if potential triggers, such as novelty, are significant for all learners, regardless of age or stage of interest development.
The current research is grounded in the theoretical view put forward by Hidi and Renninger (2006) in the Four-Phase Model of Interest Development which proposes that, in its earliest stages, interest can be initiated by a trigger in the environment that acts as a stimulus for typically passing interest, characterised by an immediate and
7Collative factors or properties for motivational stimuli were described by Berlyne (1963; 1966) as central
to intrinsic motivation. They represent environmental stimuli that bring about a state of arousal because they do not automatically fit to a category in information processing. Key examples are novelty and incongruity.
affective response that raises attention, effort and enjoyment in an activity. In common with the evidence presented in Chapter Four about choice, and as explained, in spite of frequent acknowledgement of novelty as a trigger for situational interest, there is a paucity of research evidence to support this. The present examination of relevant literature will demonstrate that it is exactly this that supports the value of the focus on investigating novelty as a potential trigger for situational interest, in order to establish if there is any foundation to the repeated claims that novelty is an effective tool for this initial spark for interest development.
This chapter will first aim to set out a clear understanding of the essential elements that comprise novelty so that there is a clear interpretation of this construct with specific reference to its role as a potential trigger for situational interest. It will examine research that demonstrates how novelty links to increases in attention and engagement and elicits an affective response. It will critically evaluate the key literature and research that investigates the construct of novelty and explore how novelty acts as a trigger for situational interest, as understood by the theoretical framework of Hidi and Renninger’s model, and determine how best to interpret novelty as such a trigger in reading comprehension activities and how this may be applied practically. In this way, it will set the scene for the two experiments undertaken in this research that manipulate novelty as a trigger for situational interest, and where the variables investigated are presenting the story in a reading comprehension task in an engaging way, that is different to the tasks that are typically encountered in the classroom. Additionally, these studies evaluate effects of gender and ability on the manipulation. With so few direct examples of experimental work investigating effects of novelty as a variable of situational interest, relevant evidence is discussed within the exploration of each study if appropriate and applicable.