Interest

Learner Variable · All learner variables
Evidence · 177 claims (130 show a difference, 29 mixed, 18 no difference) · 129 studies (46 causal, 36 associational, 17 review, 12 design, 7 quant-synthesis, 6 theoretical, 5 qualitative), q1–q4 · 32 of 129 report an effect size · 171 claims rest on one study

Description

Interest is a learner's attraction to a topic. Research separates individual interest, a lasting disposition a learner brings, from situational interest, which material or activity sparks in the moment and which can grow into individual interest over time. Interest is measured by self-report, choice and persistence. It predicts attention, depth of processing and course choice, it moderates the effect of materials (seductive details catch interest without helping learning), and it is an outcome of designs that show relevance or give learners choice. It is a narrower case of motivation.

How strongly it relates to achievement

Mathematics. These are correlations across meta-analyses (Breit et al. 2025, a systematic review of 30 meta-analyses; overview [~W]): how strongly learners who differ on this characteristic differ in mathematics achievement, not how much changing it would change achievement. Many of these characteristics are correlated with one another, and the review is about mathematics only.

• Enjoyment of mathematics r = .31; attitudes toward mathematics .12. Claim [+W]

Implications

Context

• Relevance interventions and choice can raise situational interest; whether it lasts depends on later experiences.
• Interesting but irrelevant additions can distract from what is to be learned.

Target Learners

• Learners with little prior interest in a required subject.

Target Learning Objectives

• Engagement, persistence, course and career choice.

Claims

• A substantial fraction of students reported increased interest in physics and ability to connect physics to their life science majors and careers [+M] — instruction changes it
• Academic emotions—enjoyment, anxiety, and boredom—mediate the association between perceived AI-adaptive environments and SRL, accounting for 54.8% of the total effect [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Adaptive versus non-adaptive ITS condition showed no significant differences in mental effort, subjective difficulty, or enjoyment [-W] — instruction changes it
• Adolescent EFL learners perceive cartoon-based pictorial elucidation as helpful for accurate vocabulary use and engagement [+M] — instruction changes it
• Adults' resorting to epistemic violence correlates negatively with past enjoyment of and tendency toward education-related epistemic freedom [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Affective experience during situated collaborative problem solving is organized around a stable epistemic core linking curiosity, optimism, and confusion with short-range persistence [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• After a guided-inquiry lesson with the collision-carts simulation, students' self-reported knowledge of the physics increased and most rated the lesson enjoyable and valuable [+W] — instruction changes it
• In a randomised experiment, AI access raised students' enjoyment of learning (p = 0.063) with no statistically detectable effect on self-assessed knowledge or felt effectiveness [+M] — instruction changes it
• AI exploration assignments helped students connect physics content to their personal lives and interests [+W] — instruction changes it
• An IES practice-guide presentation recommends personalized problem contexts, asserting without cited studies that students engage more actively and perform better in them [+W] — instruction changes it
• At UofT, GATs produced a reliable end-of-course increase in Constructive engagement, with no effects on Passive, Active engagement, or MSLQ elaboration [+M] — instruction changes it
• Autonomy, meaningful purpose, and interest improve intrinsic motivation and deeper processing [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Cignition group tutoring produced slightly higher math confidence and enjoyment than control in an RCT [+M] — instruction changes it
• Cognitive ability and curiosity are positively correlated in young adults [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Cognitive apprenticeship students became more anxious about mathematics but reported gains in self-confidence, rapport, and enjoyment [+M] — instruction changes it
• Collective enterprise and care in equitable classroom cultures are positively associated with students' science interest [+M] — instruction changes it
• Conscientiousness exploratorily moderated the effect of ITS condition on subjective difficulty and enjoyment [~W] — instruction changes it
• Curiosity about AI shifted between pre- and post-survey, from 71% to 50%, which the authors interpret as a move from diffuse curiosity to concrete critical engagement [~M] — instruction changes it
• Curiosity balanced against knowledge-gap overwhelm drives prolonged engagement and memory [~W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Curiosity gains depend on operator sequencing: how operators are ordered across turns, not only which operator is applied, shapes curiosity induction [+M] — instruction changes it
• Curiosity is the primary driver and mistrust of accuracy the primary barrier to LLM adoption for learning [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Curiosity-modulated tutoring produces roughly 2.4× more conversational turns than baseline under fixed time budgets [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Curiosity-oriented linguistic interventions via CURIOBOT consistently improve all learner-side exploratory dimensions relative to baseline LLM tutoring across model families [+M] — instruction changes it
• Effects of GenAI availability on self-reported understanding are insignificant; effects on interest are significant only under the transient-COVID assumption [~M] — instruction changes it
• Engineering physics undergraduates are more curious than they appear in lecture when given the chance to submit questions about interactive simulations [+W] — instruction changes it
• Epistemic behavior relates to curiosity but not to cognitive ability [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Expected tangible rewards reduce later free-choice engagement with a rewarded task, while verbal praise does not [+S] — instruction changes it
• Extrinsic goals are more strongly associated with cheating than intrinsic enjoyment of learning [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Faster CPS groups show stronger transitions among curiosity and optimism, while slower groups show stronger transitions among confusion, conflict, and frustration [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Female students show broader post-workshop gains than males, including significant increases in AI and computer science career interest, while male career interest remains unchanged [+M] — instruction changes it
• GATs produced no reliable immediate learning-experience effects on frustration, cognitive load, or situational interest at either institution [-W] — instruction changes it
• Innovative competence differs by background variables, with AI interest level showing the strongest association [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Inquiry-first teaching stimulates interest, sharpens reading, and helps organize course work [+W] — instruction changes it
• Instructors perceive that experiential learning cultivates enjoyment, satisfaction, and self-confidence through peer and community engagement (beauty) [+W] — instruction changes it
• Interest alignment is highest among course completers while economic motivations (higher pay, better benefits, increased stability) are highest among non-completers [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Interest ratings were the only significant predictor of readers' predictive judgments of understanding [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Interest/enjoyment and perceived choice were the weakest motivation dimensions, suggesting Mangomon's RPG mechanics did not yet fully serve learner autonomy [+W] — instruction changes it
• IPS implemented with adult support and regular review may increase students’ academic engagement, agency, career-relevant knowledge and skills, and college/career drive [~W] — instruction changes it
• Learner-side gains from curiosity modulation generalize across model families, academic domains, and topic complexity levels [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Learner-side gains from curiosity modulation persist even when tutor-side instructional quality remains unchanged or degrades, suggesting curiosity operates as a partially independent interaction-level mechanism [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Learners invest more effort in tasks they perceive as interesting, personally important, or useful to their future goals. [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Mastery learning improves students' attitudes toward the instruction and toward the subject [+M] — instruction changes it
• Multimedia introductory activities are rated as more interesting and instructive than fun, while traditional activities are rated similarly on all three features [+M] — instruction changes it
• Neither cognitive ability, curiosity, nor epistemic behavior significantly predicts tertiary academic performance in the heterogeneous sample [-M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Non-participation in intensive professional development reflected enjoyment, preparation, and conceptions of professional development, not experience or science background [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• OpenSciEd materials equitably support student participation and engagement across racial, gender, and linguistic groups, per field-test SEET and teacher-report data [+M] — instruction changes it
• Participants rated SOPHIE 2.0 as engaging, easy to use, and clinically relevant in a self-service format [+M] — instruction changes it
• Perceived enjoyment of GenAI tools is positively associated with in-service teachers' attitudes, perceived ease of use and behavioural intention in a Dominican Republic survey [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Personalizing algebra story problems to student interests improved accuracy on easy knowledge components within the tutoring unit [+W] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Secondary academic performance is predicted by cognitive ability more strongly than by curiosity [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Self-reported germane cognitive load correlates positively with interest (QCM) among college students solving algebra problems [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Spatial thinking and generative activity reduced monitoring error while higher interest increased it [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• SPICE learners report that the virtual Center reduced their rural isolation and made learning enjoyable [+W] — instruction changes it
• Staff at one university Indigenous centre report that many students, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, show keen interest in local Indigenous culture and take part avidly when it is taught [+W] — instruction changes it
• Student engagement in online courses is associated with satisfaction, motivation, reduced isolation, and improved performance [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Student motivation, enjoyment, and engagement are higher in natural learning settings, including spillover to subsequent indoor lessons [+M] — instruction changes it
• Students exposed to robot storytelling report significantly higher enjoyment than students exposed to robot explanation in a 1-week classroom study [+M] — instruction changes it
• Students in the style-informed EFL classes reported that the teaching procedure was useful and that their interests and motivation increased [+W] — instruction changes it
• Students most often rated collaboration opportunities, content interest, and class belonging as worse online [+M] — instruction changes it
• Students rate multimedia introductory activities as more instructive, interesting and fun than traditional introductory activities [+W] — instruction changes it
• Students rated the LLM-based assignments as useful, challenging, engaging, and enjoyable at both the first and fifth iterations, with no significant change across the semester [-M] — instruction changes it
• Students report higher engagement and motivation with the AI tutor, with comparable enjoyment and growth mindset [~M] — instruction changes it
• Students’ actual genAI use correlates with interest and perceived usefulness of genAI but not with knowledge or critical-thinking dispositions [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• SupplyNet fostered a reciprocal relationship between engagement and learning support operating through two pathways: engagement leading to learning and learning itself becoming engaging. [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• SupplyNet was rated significantly more immersive, motivating, and enjoyable than the baseline, with engagement showing the most pronounced difference. [+W] — instruction changes it
• Teacher self-efficacy is most strongly associated with perceived enjoyment of GenAI tools [+W] — instruction changes it
• The generative AI relevance intervention did not significantly increase students' interest in the math class [-M] — instruction changes it
• The ISHS advantage in STEM career interest at the end of high school remains significant after controlling for prior middle school STEM interest and activity [+W] — instruction changes it
• The threshold-like usage pattern at the lower end of the scale is strongest for training interest and accuracy trust rather than uniform across outcomes [+W] — instruction changes it
• Undergraduate researchers' disciplinary identity differs based on the internal motivators of intellectual interest and grit [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Using the AI chatbot ADA significantly enhances ninth-graders' situational interest in mathematics compared with conventional differentiation materials [+M] — instruction changes it
• Voluntary classroom uptake of teacher-assigned AI discussions was high on average (85.0% classroom participation) but heterogeneous across teachers and discussions [~M] — instruction changes it
• YOUmedia cultivates a sense of community among participating teens that drives engagement with digital media [+M] — instruction changes it
• Different value components differentially predict outcomes: low cost for achievement, attainment value for effort, and utility value uniquely predicting none [~M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Enrollment in center-based preschool was not associated with parent-reported curiosity at kindergarten [-M] — instruction changes it
• Higher SES is associated with higher parent-reported curiosity at kindergarten [+M] — instruction changes it
• Higher-quality home environments are associated with higher parent-reported curiosity at kindergarten [+M] — instruction changes it
• In very safe neighborhoods, curiosity does not differ between lower-resourced and higher-resourced children, while a gap appears in fairly safe neighborhoods [~M] — instruction changes it
• Living in a very safe neighborhood is associated with higher kindergarten curiosity, but only for lower- and middle-resourced children [~M] — instruction changes it
• Math self-concept is a stronger predictor of math achievement, whereas value beliefs are stronger predictors of self-reported effort [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• More positive parenting is associated with higher parent-reported curiosity at kindergarten in a nationally representative US sample [+M] — instruction changes it
• Only the self-concept-by-low-cost interaction adds predictive power for achievement beyond the self-concept-by-global-value interaction [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Self-concept and global value interact synergistically and positively in predicting achievement, effort, and teacher-rated engagement [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Self-concept and value beliefs emerge as equally important predictors of teacher-rated behavioral engagement [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Competition was a constant source of enjoyment for math circle participants, with evaluation focused on the task rather than the individual [+M] — instruction changes it
• In Study 1, students rated the revised intervention as more interesting and more informative than the original intervention [+M] — instruction changes it
• In the higher track, reading enjoyment and sex show main effects on non-leisure readers' school achievement, with enjoyers of both sexes scoring higher [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• In the lower track, reading enjoyment relates to school achievement for girls but not for boys among non-leisure readers [~M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Math circle participants reported positive mathematics attitudes, with most respondents indicating mathematics was important, interesting, liked, and that they felt confident solving problems [+M] — instruction changes it
• Observed interest/arousal during challenging tasks predicts poorer teacher-rated social competence and more hyperactivity: the top third was rated least socially competent, and the top and middle thirds more hyperactive than the bottom third [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Studying one's highest-curiosity items produced better recall than studying lowest-curiosity items [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Yes/no feedback that one was wrong increased curiosity selectively for high-confidence errors, leaving curiosity about low-confidence errors largely unchanged [+M] — instruction changes it
• Yes/no feedback that participants were correct nearly quenched curiosity for correct answers, whereas without feedback curiosity peaked at moderate-to-high confidence [+M] — instruction changes it
• During the course, curiosity, enjoyment, confusion and anxiety decreased over time, boredom increased, and surprise and frustration remained stationary. [+M] — instruction changes it
• Perceived teacher support in the hypothesis and experimentation phases correlated positively with post-test achievement in both groups; argumentation-support and enjoyment correlations emerged only across the pooled sample [~W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Students across competitive-preference levels reported enjoying the Kahoot activities consistently throughout the semester, with no detectable wear-out effect [-M] — instruction changes it
• Students whose anxiety, surprise or enjoyment decreased over the course achieved more positive learning-outcome change than students with stable trajectories in those emotions. [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Pre-service teachers studying with text-based cases report higher situational interest than those studying the same content with theoretical models [+M] — instruction changes it
• Preparation method produced no substantial motivational differences in interest or self-efficacy in this replication [-M] — instruction changes it
• Co-teaching does not differ from solo teaching in the development of students' mathematics self-concept and interest [-M] — instruction changes it
• Example–problem pairs raise perceived competence but not perceived autonomy or enjoyment [-M] — instruction changes it
• Sixth-graders' mathematics self-concept and individual interest both decline over one school year [+M] — instruction changes it
• Students' perception of science instruction as interesting is positively associated with their emotional engagement in science [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Creative performance weakly predicts metacognitive judgments, with perceived difficulty and task interest serving as additional cues [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Perceived difficulty and task interest in Task 1 indirectly inform expectancy beliefs for Task 2 [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Perceived value of creativity informs judgments and expectancies primarily indirectly through task-specific variables, especially task interest [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Task interest remains stable across consecutive creativity tasks: interest in one task is strongly and directly associated with interest in the next, with little mediation by task experience [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Cognitive load ratings rise and interest and self-assessed understanding fall in sections introducing new content knowledge compared with introductory sections of worked examples [+M] — instruction changes it
• Interest rarely relates to sourcing while task values show consistent positive relationships [-W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Interventions that trigger interest have larger effects on affirming motivations and reading comprehension than interventions that do not [+M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Perceived task difficulty correlates negatively with self-assessed understanding and with interest at essentially all measurement points, while interest and self-assessed understanding correlate positively throughout [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Prior knowledge and intervention condition predict repeated cognitive load and interest measures: prior knowledge lowers effort and difficulty and raises interest and understanding, and prompting groups perceive tasks as more difficult [+M] — instruction changes it
• Repeated measures of invested mental effort, perceived task difficulty, interest, and self-assessed understanding differ significantly across measurement points within complex learning tasks and are not adequately represented by their mean [+M] — instruction changes it
• Individual interest is a stable positive predictor of academic achievement, while seductive details harm recall and transfer [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• The teacher behaviours most predictive of engagement change do not neatly fit within any single motivational theory, supporting theoretical integration [+W] — instruction changes it
• School racial climate subscales showed positive relationships with motivational constructs including interest, belonging, and utility value [+M] — instruction changes it
• General interest (d = 0.22) and career interest (d = 0.40) show significant positive effects; other attitude subscales do not [~W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Performance benefits of UVIs may be limited to the perceived-useful content unless usefulness generalizes or interest develops [~W] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Representational pictures enhance test-taker enjoyment, response certainty, and reduce rapid-guessing behaviour [+W] — instruction changes it
• Utility-value interventions enhance perceived utility value, engagement, performance, and persistence in introductory college science courses [+W] — instruction changes it
• UVIs are more effective when students generate their own examples of utility, invest more engagement, and are given choices [~W] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Abolishing grades increased mathematics interest in the LPF trial, the sole significant outcome difference [+M] — instruction changes it
• Labelling mushrooms as poisonous versus edible successfully raised the perceived utility value of distinguishing, interest, and perceived authenticity in Experiment 1 [+M] — instruction changes it
• Physics interest moderates long-term retention: low- and medium-interest students benefit from non-interactive teaching at eight weeks, high-interest students do not [~M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Iterative curiosity–resolution cycles can build knowledge networks and a foundation for individual interest [+M] — instruction changes it
• Haptic experience in the first showroom does not transfer to increased engagement or knowledge in a second showroom with poster information [-M] — instruction changes it
• Haptic exploration does not increase situational interest, duration of stay, or number of objects inspected in the first showroom [-M] — instruction changes it
• During inquiry-informed learning, students' interest, self-efficacy, and belonging were increasingly coordinated over time [+M] — instruction changes it
• Interest and self-efficacy are distinct yet reciprocally related in supporting learning [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Students who engaged more meaningfully with the GenAI tended to have more sustained interest than control students (exploratory) [~M] — instruction changes it
• In the HghLBO profile, boredom and enjoyment lose nearly all predictive power for persistence, though they predict persistence in full-sample and multigroup analyses [~M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Learning biologically primary words is rated as more enjoyable and more interesting than learning biologically secondary words [+W] — instruction changes it
• The CONIC model proposes conscientiousness and interest can partly compensate for one another in explaining academic effort and achievement [~M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Earlier boredom predicts positive changes in later interest from the second measurement point onward [-W] — instruction changes it
• Enjoyment mediates the pathway from immersive media to immediate posttest score while interest mediates the pathway to delayed posttest score [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Higher earlier interest is associated with later decreases in boredom across grades 5–8, at every wave in mathematics and all but the last in German [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Latent boredom means increased and latent interest means declined from grade 5 to grade 8 in both domains [+W] — instruction changes it
• Middle-school students taking a virtual field trip via a 3D HMD report higher enjoyment than students taking the same trip as a 2D video [+W] — instruction changes it
• Interest in specific tasks (Task3, Task5, Task6) strongly predicted Course interest, and Task3 and Task5 also directly predicted Domain interest. [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• No statistically significant reciprocal relationships between Task interest and formative test performance were found. [-W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Prior Domain interest predicted interest in the most practical task (Task6, β=.25) and post Domain interest (β=.24), but not Course interest. [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Prior knowledge directly predicted all three formative assessments (β=.11, β=.24, β=.11) but no future interest outcomes. [-M] — instruction changes it
• Task interest was strongly interconnected across the course, with each task's interest predicting interest in the next tasks. [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Adaptive task difficulty compensates low interest but not low self-concept among vocational-school students during repeated practice [~M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Task complexity has no significant impact on intrinsic interest [-M] — instruction changes it
• Within persons, better-than-usual math grades positively predict subsequent enjoyment and pride, and enjoyment and pride positively predict subsequent grades [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Within-person deviations of enjoyment and pride correlate positively with grade deviations (r = .12 to .55), and negative-emotion deviations correlate negatively (r = −.17 to −.44) [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• In the Forward temporal model, initial enjoyment predicted later engagement, while initial boredom did not and emotions were unrelated to later raw performance [~M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Reciprocal relations: initial task engagement predicted later enjoyment in the Reverse model [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Topic-related interest, but not importance, utility, or self-efficacy, predicted task-related enjoyment while secondary students learned with an ITS [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Achievement scores correlate very strongly across the three domains while enjoyment correlations are small to medium [+M] — instruction changes it
• Achievement-enjoyment effects are relatively robust to country-level moderators (HDI, Education Index, GDP per capita), except a stronger student-achievement effect on reading enjoyment in higher-HDI countries [~M] — instruction changes it
• Class-average achievement negatively predicts student enjoyment across math, science, and reading (the Happy-Fish-Little-Pond Effect), with the reading effect trivially small [~M] — instruction changes it
• Girls show higher reading enjoyment and lower math enjoyment than boys, with no science enjoyment difference, after controlling for achievement, SES, and age [~M] — instruction changes it
• Student-level achievement positively predicts enjoyment in math, science, and reading among fourth graders [+M] — instruction changes it
• The effect of student achievement on enjoyment is largely consistently positive across 37 countries, while the size of the negative class-average effect varies from country to country [+M] — instruction changes it
• Instructor body posture shows no direct effects on students' situational interest, but indirect-only mediation effects through perceived enthusiasm [~M] — instruction changes it
• Girls started lower in math self-concept and interest than boys, and the L1 self-concept gender gap widened over Grades 7–9 [+M] — instruction changes it
• Math self-concept declined then leveled off (U-shaped), L1 self-concept declined slightly, math interest declined while L1 interest increased across Grades 7–9 [~M] — instruction changes it
• Academic orientation mediated the effect of class mean interest on subsequent individual interest in German [+M] — instruction changes it
• Within-class heterogeneity in achievement or interest did not directly predict outcomes, but differentiated instruction was particularly advantageous in more heterogeneous German classes [~M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• A growth theory of interest intervention increases interest in math and science coursework among liberal arts undergraduates [+M] — instruction changes it
• Images during retrieval practice enhanced feelings of competence but not enjoyment [-W] — instruction changes it
• Leavers reported lower end-of-semester interest, lower prior achievement, and lower biology grades than stayers, with no differences in FG status, gender, or baseline interest [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Between 10% and 21% of students experienced significant declines in expectancy, intrinsic value, and utility value during the first half of the semester [+W] — instruction changes it
• Students' expectancy, intrinsic value, and utility value decline significantly while perceived psychological and effort costs increase during the first half of gateway math courses [+W] — instruction changes it
• Only the current teacher's enthusiasm relates to students' enjoyment; prior-year teacher enthusiasm is unrelated to next-year enjoyment [~M] — instruction changes it
• Perceived teacher enthusiasm positively predicts student enjoyment at the within-class (individual student) level [+M] — instruction changes it
• Student-perceived teacher enthusiasm mediates the relationship between teacher enjoyment and student enjoyment [+M] — instruction changes it
• Students' enjoyment of mathematics classes decreased significantly but very slightly from Grade 7 to Grade 8 [+M] — instruction changes it
• Teacher enjoyment and student enjoyment in mathematics classrooms are positively related even after controlling for students' prior-year enjoyment [+M] — instruction changes it
• Individual learning curves rise by irregular increments with occasional losses, with plateau-like periods attributed to changes in method and waning interest [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Differentiated and nondifferentiated interest structures were examined for associations with educational track choices and career image specificity [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Test performance predicts subsequent enjoyment, boredom, and anxiety in primary school students, but only anxiety relates reciprocally to performance [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes

The evidence by question

• Does seeing a task as interesting, important or useful raise the effort learners invest in it? Learners invest more effort in tasks they perceive as interesting, personally important, or useful to their future goals. [+M]
• Does setting problems in contexts drawn from learners' interests raise engagement and performance? An IES practice-guide presentation recommends personalized problem contexts, asserting without cited studies that students engage more actively and perform better in them [+W]
• Does making material more interesting with details that do not carry the target cost learning? Interesting but irrelevant details can impair comprehension and transfer, with effects that vary with the material and the learner [+S]
• Do rewards and praise undermine voluntary engagement? Expected tangible rewards reduce later free-choice engagement with a rewarded task, while verbal praise does not [+S]

Related Learner Variables

• Motivation
• Self-Efficacy
• Attention

Page metadata

Field	Value
type	learner-variable
id	interest
title	Interest
description	A learner's engagement with and liking for a topic, whether a lasting personal interest or interest sparked in the moment by the situation.
status	review
canonical	True
generated	by claude/unspecified on 2026-10-15
trust	unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content

Frontmatter is the page's machine-readable record — see the Schema & Guide.