The influence of situational interest on the appropriate use of cognitive learning strategies

238 Pages·2017·6.62 MB·English

by  Matthias Boehm

DISSERTATION

THE INFLUENCE OF SITUATIONAL INTEREST
ON THE APPROPRIATE USE OF COGNITIVE LEARNING STRATEGIES

Submitted by
Matthias Böhm
Department of Educational Science

In fulfillment of the requirements
For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
University of Passau
Germany
Spring 2017

Doctoral Committee:
Advisor: Jutta Mägdefrau
Co-Advisor: Christof Wecker
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Abstract

This study explores the role of two facets of situational interest, interestingness and
personal significance, as predictors of the adequate use of three types of cognitive
learning strategies (rehearsal strategies, organizational strategies, and elaboration
strategies). In order to attain this goal, it introduces a new measure of the adequacy
of the use of cognitive learning strategies by using the distance between teachers’
estimates of appropriate use of learning strategies for a specific task and students’
reported strategic behavior.
Based on a theoretical model of the use of cognitive learning strategies, the study
shows, by means of structural equation modeling, that different facets of situational
interest play different roles in predicting students’ surface and deep processing. In
summary, it was found that experienced personal significance played a major role
in predicting deep-processing strategies for a significant proportion of the 34 tasks
in this study, whereas interestingness fell short of expectations.
Limitations did arise owing to some missing values, which may blur the findings at
the lower interest and achievement end for the student sample. Nevertheless, sug-
gestions have been made for future research, which can help teachers of history
classes to determine components of success, namely experienced personal signifi-
cance, when designing tasks and consequently provide effective learning tasks to
their classes.
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Acknowledgments

Firstly, I would like to express my thankfulness to my mentor Prof. Dr. Jutta
Mägdefrau for her support during my Ph.D. study and giving me the chance to join
the ALGe research group of the University of Passau. Furthermore, I would like to
thank my co-adviser Prof. Christof Wecker for his critical thoughts and his continued
support.
Secondly, my sincere thanks also goes out to Prof. Dr. Andreas Michler, Isolde
Baumgartner, Inka Hähnlein, Lisa Kaml, Lisa Wiesmayer, Nathalie Jungbauer, and
Katharina Jonas who provided me the opportunity to be part of their team. A special
thanks to Isolde who bolstered me in difficult times.
Thirdly, I thank my colleagues and friends Florian Hirschmann, Prof. Dr. Detlef Ur-
hahne, and Dr. Andreas Gegenfurtner for their stimulating discussions and open-
ness towards new learning processes. Researchers like you are the core of meth-
odological innovation in educational science.
Last but not the least, I would like to thank my family, especially my wife Nicole for
supporting me spiritually throughout the writing of this thesis. You and our children
Valentin and Korbinian give meaning to my life. Additionally, I thank my parents for
their continual support and their affectionate care of our children during my confer-
ences.
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Table of contents

Abstract ................................................................................................................... 2
Acknowledgments ................................................................................................... 3
Table of contents ..................................................................................................... 4
List of tables ............................................................................................................ 9
List of figures ......................................................................................................... 11
1. Statement of the problem ............................................................................... 12
2. Interest and the use of learning strategies ...................................................... 13
2.1 Theoretical framework of this study ......................................................... 13
2.1.1 Roots of the model ............................................................................ 14
2.1.2 Self-regulated learning (SRL) as a basis for the 3PLS-model ........... 15
2.1.3 Explanation goals of the 3PLS-model ................................................ 17
2.1.4 Content structure of the 3PLS-model ................................................ 17
2.2 Interest ..................................................................................................... 19
2.2.1 History of research on interest ........................................................... 19
2.2.2 Main strands of actual research on interest ....................................... 21
2.2.2.1 Interest as development .............................................................. 22
2.2.2.1.1 Four-Phase Model of Interest Development ........................... 22
2.2.2.1.2 Munich Theory of Interest ....................................................... 25
2.2.2.2 The emotion-related aspect of interest ........................................ 27
2.2.2.3 Interest triggered through a task feature ..................................... 28
2.2.2.4 Value-related aspect of interest .................................................. 29
2.2.3 Further graduations of interest .......................................................... 31
2.2.4 Definitions of interest ......................................................................... 31
2.2.5 Individual interest as an independent variable ................................... 33
2.2.6 Graduations of individual interest ...................................................... 36
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2.2.6.1 Topic interest .............................................................................. 36
2.2.6.2 Subject Interest ........................................................................... 37
2.2.6.3 Task interest ............................................................................... 38
2.2.7 Individual and situational interest....................................................... 39
2.2.8 Situational interest ............................................................................. 44
2.2.8.1 Change of situational interest during involvement in a task ........ 47
2.2.8.2 Stages and components of situational interest............................ 47
2.2.8.3 Situational interest as an independent variable........................... 50
2.2.8.4 The use of learning strategies as a dependent variable of
situational interest ....................................................................................... 50
2.2.9 Summary of the interest variable ....................................................... 52
2.3 Learning Strategies .................................................................................. 53
2.3.1 Fields of research on learning strategies ........................................... 54
2.3.1.1 Approaches to learning (ATL) ..................................................... 54
2.3.1.2 Concepts of learning strategies based on findings of cognitive
psychology .................................................................................................. 55
2.3.2 The question of consciousness ......................................................... 58
2.3.3 The question of situational influences on learning strategies ............ 59
2.3.4 Definitions of learning strategies ....................................................... 60
2.3.5 Classification systems for learning strategies .................................... 62
2.3.6 Cognitive learning strategies ............................................................. 65
2.3.6.1 Rehearsal strategies ................................................................... 66
2.3.6.2 Organizational strategies ............................................................ 67
2.3.6.3 Elaboration strategies ................................................................. 68
2.3.6.4 Further cognitive strategies ......................................................... 70
2.3.7 Links between different types of strategies ........................................ 70
2.3.8 Use of learning strategies .................................................................. 72
2.3.8.1 Information management versus knowledge building ................. 73
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2.3.8.2 Use of learning strategies in different domains ........................... 74
2.3.9 Cognitive learning strategies as a dependent variable ...................... 77
2.4 Summary of this chapter .......................................................................... 82
3. Objectives and research questions ................................................................. 84
3.1 Objectives ................................................................................................ 86
3.2 Hypotheses .............................................................................................. 86
4. Method............................................................................................................ 91
4.1 Setting ...................................................................................................... 92
4.1.1 Key design decisions of this study ..................................................... 94
4.1.2 Topics ................................................................................................ 94
4.1.3 Learning tasks ................................................................................... 95
4.1.4 Self-regulated learning environment of this study .............................. 96
4.1.5 Written questionnaires ....................................................................... 97
4.2 Study participants .................................................................................... 97
4.2.1 Students ............................................................................................ 97
4.2.2 Teachers ........................................................................................... 98
4.3 Ethics ....................................................................................................... 98
4.4 Instrumentation ........................................................................................ 98
4.4.1 Student questionnaires ...................................................................... 99
4.4.1.1 Measurement of individual interest in history .............................. 99
4.4.1.2 Measurement of situational interest .......................................... 100
4.4.1.3 Measurement of learning strategies .......................................... 104
4.4.1.3.1 Task-specific collection of strategic data ............................... 106
4.4.1.3.2 Instruments for measuring learning strategies ...................... 108
4.4.2 Teachers’ online survey of appropriate use of learning strategies ... 123
4.5 ”alculation of the distance between the teachers’ reference level and
students’ reported strategy use ........................................................................ 125
4.5.1 Teachers’ reference level of appropriate strategy use ..................... 125
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4.5.2 Calculation of the item-specific distances ........................................ 125
4.6 Data cleaning ......................................................................................... 127
4.7 Missing data ........................................................................................... 127
4.7.1 Students .......................................................................................... 129
4.7.2 Teachers ......................................................................................... 132
4.7.3 MCAR analysis ................................................................................ 132
4.7.4 Imputation of missing data ............................................................... 135
5. Results .......................................................................................................... 137
6. Discussion, implications, and conclusion ...................................................... 159
6.1 Summary of the results .......................................................................... 159
6.2 Methodological challenges ..................................................................... 161
6.3 Dimensions of the constructs ................................................................. 162
6.3.1 Situational interest ........................................................................... 162
6.3.2 Cognitive learning strategies ........................................................... 164
6.4 Task specific use of cognitive learning strategies .................................. 165
6.5 Task-specific reference levels of cognitive learning strategy use ........... 165
6.6 Adequate task-specific learning strategy use ......................................... 167
6.7 The problem of causal relationships....................................................... 168
6.8 Situational interest as a predictor of adequate strategy use ................... 168
6.9 Practical relevance of the findings ......................................................... 169
6.10 Additional research ............................................................................. 172
6.10.1 Task-specific approaches ............................................................. 172
6.10.2 Classification systems for learning tasks ...................................... 173
6.10.3 Level 2 variables .......................................................................... 174
6.10.4 Area of history .............................................................................. 174
7. Conclusion .................................................................................................... 176
8. References ................................................................................................... 177
9. Affirmation .................................................................................................... 211
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Appendix A ..........................................................................................................212
Appendix B ..........................................................................................................226
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List of tables

Table 1: Determinants of the three phases of the 3PLS-model ............................. 18
Table 2: Variables influenced by individual interest ............................................... 34
Table 3: Variables influenced by situational interest ............................................. 51
Table 4: Possible predictors of learning strategies ................................................ 78
Table 5: Scale of individual interest in history ..................................................... 100
Table 6: Instruments for the measurement of situational interest ........................ 102
Table 7: Scales of situational interest and results of factor analyses .................. 104
Table 8: Common instruments for the measurement of learning strategies ........ 109
Table 9: Scale and subscales of task-specific use of learning strategies and results
of the oblimin rotated factor analysis of the remaining 28 tasks .......................... 118
Table 10: Eliminated items of students’ learning strategy scales after the
exploratory factor analyses ................................................................................. 120
Table 11: Scales for learning strategies and results of EFA after item elimination
............................................................................................................................ 121
Table 12: Variables with significance between groups’ differences for missing vs.
non-missing values (Student Sample) ................................................................. 134
Table 13: Percentage of tasks with affected patterns of missing values ............. 135
Table 14: Summary of the distance scales for learning strategy use .................. 139
Table 15: Number of tasks out of 28 not clearing the goodness-of-fit hurdle ...... 143
Table 16: Covariance and correlation between interestingness and personal
significance for 28 tasks ...................................................................................... 145
Table 17: Correlations between the three groups of learning strategies in terms of
appropriate use for 28 tasks ................................................................................ 147
Table 18: Results of correlational meta-analyses for the groups of appropriate
strategy use......................................................................................................... 147
Table 19: Results of meta-analyses for the groups of appropriate strategy use . 150
Table 20: Regression coefficients for the path dRH  I for 28 tasks .................. 151
Table 21: Regression coefficients for the path dOS  I for 28 tasks .................. 152
Table 22: Regression coefficients for the path dES  I for 28 tasks .................. 153
Table 23: Regression coefficients for the path dRH  PS for 28 tasks .............. 154
Table 24: Regression coefficients for the path dOS  PS for 28 tasks .............. 155
Table 25: Regression coefficients for the path dES  PS for 28 tasks ............... 157
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Table 26: Summary of the results of hypotheses testing ..................................... 160