Department of Animal & Dairy Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53703.
Department of Animal Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907.
CBE Life Sci Educ. 2021 Jun;20(2):ar28. doi: 10.1187/cbe.20-08-0164.
In addition to stimulating interest through experiential means, educators can support interest development through structured reflection. Our randomized controlled intervention study assessed the effectiveness of 10-minute written utility-value reflections designed to enhance the interest of introductory animal science students. During the Spring 2019 semester, we randomly assigned participating students into two blocks, utility-value reflection ( = 39) and control ( = 34), at the beginning of the course. In week 6 during the 16-week semester, students completed corresponding tasks: either written reflections on the personal value of course laboratory material or a control picture-summarization task. Results showed that the utility-value reflection intervention tended to improve situational interest and was most effective for students with low pretest individual interest. Neither the intervention nor the interest variable predicted course performance. In utility-value reflection responses, we catalogued themes aligned with a range of task-value components beyond utility-value. Our results reinforce previous work indicating that utility-value reflections support low individual interest students in developing academic motivation.
除了通过体验式手段激发兴趣外，教育工作者还可以通过结构化的反思来支持兴趣的发展。我们的随机对照干预研究评估了 10 分钟书面实用价值反思的有效性，这些反思旨在增强动物科学入门学生的兴趣。在 2019 年春季学期，我们在课程开始时将参与的学生随机分为两组，实用价值反思组（n=39）和对照组（n=34）。在 16 周的学期中的第 6 周，学生们完成了相应的任务：要么是对课程实验室材料的个人价值的书面反思，要么是控制图片总结任务。结果表明，实用价值反思干预措施往往会提高情境兴趣，对个人兴趣低的学生效果最为显著。干预措施和兴趣变量都没有预测课程表现。在实用价值反思的回应中，我们对与实用价值以外的一系列任务价值因素一致的主题进行了分类。我们的结果证实了之前的工作，即实用价值反思支持低个人兴趣的学生发展学术动机。
