Shen, McCaughtry, Martin, and Dillion

Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport

2006 by the American Alliance for Health,
Physical Education, Recreation and Dance
Vol. 77, No. 4, pp. 498506

Pedagogy

Does Sneaky Fox Facilitate Learning? Examining

the Effects of Seductive Details in Physical Education
Bo Shen, Nate McCaughtry, Jeffrey Martin, and Suzanna Dillion

While seductive details are enjoyable, they are unimportant content or activities intentionally inserted to make class fun and
interesting. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of seductive details on students learning of net games in
physical education. Participants were 240 middle school students. A videotaped lesson example named outfox your opponent was used as the stimulus, and a 2 x 3 (condition x grade) factorial analysis was designed. The results showed that
seductive details directly interrupted students recall of important learning content and transferring problem solving in
learning net games. It is suggested that the function of seductive details on learning should be reconsidered when designing
effective motivational strategies in physical education.

Key words: fun, motivational strategies, situational interest

Interest-Based Motivation

Interest has been viewed as a key that underlies

learners motivation in a specific subject-matter domain
(Alexander, Sperl, Buehl, & Fives, 2004). In research,
interest is conceptualized as individual or situational.
Individual interest refers to an individuals relatively
enduring disposition in preferring an action over others. Situational interest, on the other hand, is defined
as a momentary appealing effect of an activity on individuals (Hidi, 2000). In general, individual interest is
developed over time during a persons constant and consistent interaction with certain activities in a particular
environment. Situational interest, however, is generated
by stimulus characteristics in an activity (e. g., novelty)
and tends to be shared among individuals based on a
short, tentative relationship between a person and a
particular activity at a given moment (Reeve, 1996).
Although individual interest clearly influences learning (Krapp, 1999), individual interest has been deemed
difficult to use in instruction (Hidi & Anderson, 1992),
mainly because of its differentiated nature among students. Hidi and Harackiewicz (2000) suggested teachers
should emphasize situational, instead of individual, interest in teaching, because it is difficult to develop motivational strategies that satisfy all students incoming
individual interest. Researchers have found situational

n physical education, emphasizing fun or situationally

interesting information to enhance students engagement in learning is an important component of instruction (Cothran & Ennis, 1998). To capture students
attention, teachers often spice up their instruction by
adding entertaining details or fun stuff. For example,
consider a physical education teacher teaching a sneaky
shot strategy (striking back the ball to your opponents
open space) in net games. To grab students attention,
the teacher adds some sneaky-related information, such
as telling a story about a sneaky fox, and showing students a real fox fur. Although interesting and fun, the
attention-grabbing information is not part of the intended learning objectives. What effect does this type
of instructional strategy have on students learning? In
this study, we used interest-based motivation theory as
a theoretical framework to address this question.

Submitted: September 15, 2005

Accepted: March 10, 2006
Bo Shen, Nate McCaughtry, Jeffrey Martin, and Suzanna Dillion
are with the Division of Kinesiology, Health, and Sport Studies
at Wayne State University.

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interest in learning can result from students recognition

of appealing features in learning tasks or context
(Mitchell, 1993), and teachers can manipulate it to generate temporary but optimal motivational effects (Chen
& Darst, 2001).
There are two distinct ways to enhance students situational interest in instruction (Kintsch, 1980). One is
based on cognitive interest theory and suggests that instruction clearly constructed for learning content can
enhance students interest in learning tasks (Harp &
Mayer, 1997). In other words, attaining structural understanding or achieving success promotes a sense of positive affect about the learning tasks. This interest results
from discovering something new about learning (Stout,
2000). Researchers have supported cognitive-based interest as a significant influence on students learning
(Chen & Darst, 2001; Mayer, Bove, Bryman, Mars, &
Tapangco, 1996).
The other way to increase students situational interest is to attach enjoyable, emotional, but unimportant information/activities to educational content to
make the learning process fun (Wade & Moje, 2000).
In research, those sources of seemingly motivating but
unrelated to the content to be learned are defined as
seductive details (Schraw, 1998). Seductive details, used
as the motivational source, may lead to greater emotional rather than cognitive involvement. Presumably,
adding seductive details can influence learners affect
by promoting their enjoyment of the tasks. As a result,
the increase in enjoyment causes students to pay more
attention to the learning tasks and enhances cognitive
involvement. In other words, increased enjoyment
from seductive details is assumed to lead to increased
learning (Harp & Mayer, 1997).

Research on Seductive Details and Research Purpose

Research findings in education indicate that although seductive details can enhance students engagement in learning, such seductive details may have little
impact on learning or even interfere with constructing
new knowledge and skills (Harp & Mayer, 1997; Wade &
Moje, 2000). Wade and Adams (1990) found that adding exciting and engaging anecdotes and personal stories did not help middle school students learn important
information in history. Similarly, Hidi and Baird (1986)
reported that content-unrelated seductive details in the
form of fantasies even disrupted students expository text
processing. Moreover, Harp and Mayer (1997) noted that
adding an entertaining story about lightning and a colorful illustration to a scientifically factual text distracted
learners cognitive functioning and resulted in poor
knowledge acquisition and retention. Goetz and Sadoski
(1995) argued that when students attention is diverted
toward the interesting but unimportant seductive de-

tails, they often neglect or misinterpret the important

main ideas of the content to be learned.
The effect of seductive details on learning in physical education has not been explored or understood.
Instead, situational interest, or fun, is always assumed
to be a powerful motivator in physical education. The
lack of understanding about seductive details often
results in physical educators overlooking the connection between fun-based strategies and its learning function, when they design curriculum and instruction
(Chen, 2001). To enhance students interest, teachers
often add fun stuff or sensation with little knowledge
focus in their classes (OReilly, Tompkins, & Gallant,
2001). It has been argued that fun and its function on
learning need to be carefully examined in physical
education (OReilly et al., 2001).
In an empirical study on situational interest in
physical education, Shen, Chen, Scrabis, and Tolley
(2003) found that situational interest in a dance class
had little impact on students skill and knowledge acquisition. The researchers suspected that the fun or
enjoyment students experienced may have been seductive detail-based rather than content-based. Subsequently, students seemed to enjoy the class and become
actively involved in the activity process, but such enjoyment did not facilitate learning the outcomes defined in the curriculum.
Given the scarcity of research on seductive details
in physical education, the purpose of this study was to
examine the effect of seductive details on students learning net games, particularly their ability to recall important learning content and transfer problem solving. We
hypothesized that motivation strategies based on seductive details would not facilitate learning, despite the appeal to students. In addition, because students capacities
to identify important information may be associated with
age and cognitive development (Garner, Gillingham, &
White, 1989), we also examined the extent to which the
interaction between grade and seductive details influenced students recall and problem solving.

Method
Participants
Participants were 240 students (104 girls and 136
boys) enrolled in seven physical education classes (two
sixth-grade, three seventh-grade, and two eighth-grade
classes) from two urban middle schools in a metropolitan area in the midwestern U.S. The two schools were
similar in terms of their curriculum and student demographics. Specifically, most of the students came from
a low to a lower middle socioeconomic background. The

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representation of minority students in the study was 97%,

which was reflective of the community. The student body
consisted of 3% Caucasian Americans, 60% African
Americans, and 37% Hispanic Americans. Permission to
conduct the study was obtained from the university review board, the school district, the participants, and their
parents prior to the investigation.

1,000 words spoken by the teacher. In Condition 2, we

used a revised video clip as the stimulus task, which was
about 5 min long and had approximately 840 words spoken by the same teacher. In the second video, the content regarding the fox and the fox fur visuals were
intentionally deleted. Otherwise, the clip was identical
to the original.

Experiment Task

Variables and Measures

In this study, we used a published video lesson named

outfox your opponent from the Teaching Children
Games Video (Belka, 1994) to examine the hypothesis.
The Teaching Children Games Video is a practical
guide that shows how to teach game skills and strategies
with child-tested examples. Permission to use the video
was granted by the publisher, Human Kinetics.
This video lesson was selected for two reasons. First,
because it was recognized as an exemplary lesson for
teaching game strategies, the generality of the findings
in physical education would be maintained. Second, net
gamesthe learning content in the videowere physical activities for which the participants had relatively low
individual interest and less exposure outside physical
education classes, compared with invasion games. Based
on a survey about students after-school activities, along
with the Physical Activity Interest Questionnaire, the results revealed participants rated their individual interest
in net games (i.e., tennis, badminton) as low (M = 2.3
on a 7-point scale). None reported engaging in net games
outside school. As a result, we felt the learning outcomes
we measured could largely be attributed to students
learning in the experimental lesson.
In the outfox your opponent video, the teacher
uses a story of how a fox was sneaky and shows a real
fox fur frequently in class to get students to pay more
attention to her sneaky shot strategy instruction (hitting the ball to the opponents open space in net games).
Although these details about the fox were not relevant
to explaining the strategy directly, it was intended to
heighten students curiosity and interest in the topic. In
this study, we considered the fox information to be seductive details.
To validate our conceptualization, we asked five experienced physical education teachers (each with over
20 years of teaching experience) to rate the information
in the video in terms of importance and interest. All five
teachers listed the fox story and fox fur visual in the video
as interesting but unimportant information related to the
content to be learned. The agreement was 100%, suggesting that our conceptualization was valid and consistent with the definition of seductive details.
Two experimental conditions were established. In
Condition 1, we used the original video as the stimulus
task. It was 6 min long and contained approximately

Situational Interest. This was measured using a 24-item

Situational Interest Scale (SIS) for Middle School Students (Chen, Darst, & Pangrazi, 1999). Items representing situational interest (total interest) and its source
dimensions (Novelty, Challenge, Attention Demand,
Exploration Intention, and Instant Enjoyment) were
rated on a 5-point scale (5 = strongly agree, 1 = strongly
disagree) in terms of specific tasks being learned.
Construct validity of the SIS was reported in the
Chen et al. (1999) study. The internal consistency coefficients (Cronbachs ) were .78, .80, .90, .91, .90, and
.95 for Novelty, Challenge, Attention Demand, Exploration Intention, Instant Enjoyment, and Total Interest
subscales, respectively, indicating the SIS can generate
valid and reliable data.
Although participants responded to all 24 items on
the scale, 5 dimensional sources that represented different aspects of the learning task were not relevant
to this study. In the analysis, we used the sum (20 points
total) of the four interest items to represent the direct
measure of situational interest. These items included:
What we were watching today looked fun to me, It
would be fun for me to try what we were watching, What
we were watching would be interesting for me to do, and
What we were watching would attract me to participate.
Previous studies have used total interest items to measure situational interest of a learning task (Chen & Darst,
2001; Shen et al., 2003).
Individual Interest. Individual interest in net games
(i.e., badminton, tennis) was measured using the Physical Activity Interest Survey (Chen & Darst, 2002) by asking students to rate net games along with 14 other
activities in the curriculum on a 7-point Likert-type scale
(7 = highest interest, 1 = lowest interest). At the beginning of the questionnaire, participants were asked to
identify an activity (any school or home activity) in which
they were most interested, write it down in a designated
place on the questionnaire, rate it a 7, and use it as a
reference to compare the physical activities. This provided a measurement context in which ratings on the
physical activities were based on a criterion activity. According to Tobias (1994), this measurement context can
minimize the possibility of individual students exercising
their own interpretation of the ratings, thus, better maintaining the internal validity of the measure.

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Learning Outcomes. Students content recall and

problem-solving transfers were used to assess what they
learned from the video. To capture the learning content they retained, a recall sheet had the following instruction typed at the top of the page: Please write down
everything you can remember from the video. The following instruction was typed at the bottom of the page:
Please keep working until completed.
The lead researcher established recall coding criteria. Participants scored 1 point for recalling each of the
following two objectives in the video, in any order but
not necessarily in verbatim form: (a) the player should
return to home base after striking the ball to the opponent, (b) the player should hit the ball to the opponents
open space. For each participant, the total number of
the two objectives was summed, yielding a possible score
ranging from 0 to 2. The lead researcher and a research
assistant rated students recalls independently. The two
raters reached 95% agreement. Where disagreements
occurred, they were settled in conference between the
two judges.
In addition, to examine the specific information
students in the treatment groups had mentioned, the
two raters reanalyzed students recall protocols using
open, axial, and selective coding. As themes were identified, the data were recoded in an iterative process. The
agreement between the two raters reached 100% for
theme identification.
Problem-solving transfers were assessed using three
multiple-choice questions (see Appendix 1). The purpose of this test was to assess how participants applied
the strategies taught in the video to solve real problems
in net games. The multiple-choice items were dichotomously scored as correct (1) or incorrect (0). The total
multiple-choice scores ranged from 0 to 3 points.
To examine content validity of the problem-solving
transfers, the five experienced physical education teachers were asked to rate the content representativeness (1
= not representative at all, 6 = very representative) and
language appropriateness (1 = not appropriate at all, 6
= very appropriate) of each item for middle school students. The mean scores for the content representativeness and language appropriateness were 5.6 and 6
respectively, suggesting acceptable validity.

Design and Analyses

A 2 x 3 factorial design was used, with the first factor being the presence or absence of fox content (seductive details) in the video and the second being the
grade level (sixth, seventh, or eighth). Three analyses
of variance (ANOVAs) were conducted, one for each
dependent measure (recall responses, problem-solving
transfers, and situational interest). Following Silvermans
(2004) concerns about field-based research, we used

the treatment groups rather than individual students

as the units of analysis.

Procedure
The lead researcher and a research assistant collected data during regular physical education classes.
The teachers assisted in managing students seating.
Participants in each class were randomly assigned to
one of the two treatment groups and instructed to sit
in front of the assigned video station. The two video
stations sat at opposite corners of the gym and were
blocked by a movable screen. Participants were told
they would be watching a video about net games and
would complete a questionnaire afterward about what
they had learned.
Before seeing the video, participants filled out a
questionnaire, which included their general demographic information, the Physical Activity Interest Survey (Chen & Darst, 2002), and information about their
participation in after-school physical activity. Students
then watched the video quietly and completed the SIS.
Afterward, they were given the recall sheet and told to
write everything they could remember from the video
without regard for neatness or writing style. Finally,
students completed the problem-solving transfer questionnaire.
During data collection, the lead researcher and the
research assistant distributed instruments, answered students questions, and collected the instruments. To assure that students understood the questions, the research
assistant first read the instructions aloud. In addition, to
ensure the independence of students responses, the
researchers asked students to spread out in the gymnasium to minimize interferences. Data collection sessions
in all classes were completed within 25 min.

Results
The reliability of the questionnaire data was examined using Cronbachs approach. The internal consistency coefficients (Cronbachs ) were .77 for the
situational interest data and .71 for the problem-solving transfers, indicating acceptable reliability for both
measures. The descriptive statistics for each measure
are reported in Table 1. All scores were normally distributed (skewness indexes ranging between -.343 and
.234). Three 2 x 3 ANOVAs were conducted to examine the influences of teaching conditions (i.e., with or
without fox contents) and grade levels (i.e., sixth, seventh, or eighth) on the three dependent variables:
recall responses, problem-solving transfers, and situational interest.

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Recall Responses
The analysis for condition differences on recall
responses revealed a significant main effect. Students
in the condition with fox content recalled fewer main
ideas in the lesson than those in the condition without fox content, F(1, 8) = 125, p < .01, 2 = .94, and
observed power = .99. The grade level effect for recall
responses was not significant, F(2, 8) = .90, p > .05, 2
= .17, and observed power = .14, suggesting students
at different grade levels recalled similar amounts of
main ideas. There was no Condition x Grade Level interaction, F(2, 8) = .58, p > .05, 2 = .13, and observed
power = .12.
In addition, we examined students recall protocols again to see what information been students in the
fox content condition had mentioned. In terms of their
recall in writing, common responses included a mix of
seductive details. For example, the teacher was talking about a fox and the fox is sneaky. She was teaching
the kids how to play, or I remember they were playing games. They also were talking about a sneaky fox.
They played a game about the fox. She (the teacher)
was also talking about tennis.

Problem-Solving Transfers
The results of the problem-solving transfer analyses also revealed a significant main effect for different
conditions. Students in the condition with fox content
scored lower (M = 1.23, SD = .15) in problem-solving
transfers than those in the condition without fox content (M = 1.61, SD = .03), F(1, 8) = 116, p < .01, 2 =
.94, and observed power = .99. There was also a significant effect for grade level, F(2, 8) = 8.72, p < .05, 2
=.69, and observed power = .87. In addition, there was
a significant interaction between condition and grade

level, F(2, 8) = 5.37, p < .05, 2 = .57, and observed

power = .67. The impact of seductive details on problem-solving transfers was more evident for sixth-grade
students than those in eighth grade.
To obtain a better understanding of the significant
univariate effects among the three grade levels, we
conducted multiple comparisons with Fishers LSD
procedure to control family-wise Type I error rates.
Based on the post hoc analyses, eighth-grade students
had significantly higher scores (M = 1.51, SD = .13) in
problem-solving transfers than sixth- (M = 1.32, SD =
.31) and seventh-grade students (M = 1.36, SD = .22; p
< .01), while the difference between sixth- and seventhgrade students was not significant (p > .05).

Situational Interest
There was no significant difference in situational
interest between the conditions with fox content (M =
15.0, SD = .53) and without fox content (M = 14.72, SD
= .40), F(1, 8) = 1.18, 2 = .13, and observed power =
.13. Students in both conditions considered the video
situationally interesting (15.0 and 14.72 of a total score
of 20). Also, no grade level effect was evident, F(2, 8)
= 1.06, p > .05, 2 = .21, and observed power = .18. There
was no condition x grade level interaction, F(2, 8) =
.10, p > .05, 2 = .02, and observed power =.06.

Discussion
The purpose of the study was to examine the effects
of seductive details on learning net games in middle
school physical education. In terms of the theoretical
assumption in education (Wade & Moje, 2000), we hypothesized that adding interesting but irrelevant seduc-

Table 1. Means and standard deviations for recall responses, problem-solving transfers, and situational interest by condition and
grade level
Variable

With fox content

Grade 6 Grade 7 Grade 8

Recall responses
M
.20
SD
.07
Problem-solving transfers
M
1.06
SD
.05
Situational interest
M
15.1
SD
.00

Total

Without fox content

Grade 6 Grade 7 Grade 8 Total

Overall
Grade 6 Grade 7 Grade 8

Total

.25
.06

.28
.02

.24
.06

.59
.01

.62
.04

.59
.10

.60
.05

.37
.20

.39
.23

.44
.18

.39
.19

1.22
.10

1.40
.03

1.23
.15

1.59
.04

1.62
.01

1.63
.01

1.61
.03

1.32
.31

1.35
.22

1.51
.13

1.39
.23

15.1
.23

14.8
.47

15.0
.53

15.0
.12

14.8
.35

14.4
.59

14.7
.40

15.1
.59

14.9
.32

14.6
.49

14.8
.46

Note. M = mean; SD = standard deviation.

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tive details to instruction would not facilitate students

learning or might even interfere with the learning process. In this study, students recall of learning content and
problem-solving transfers, as well as their recognition of
situational interest of the instructional video were measured, and their performance in different experimental
conditions were analyzed to support the hypothesis.

This study supported the hypothesis that seductive

details-based motivational strategies inhibit learning,
even in the physical education setting. In particular, the
students lower recall scores for learning content in the
experimental condition suggested that the presence of
irrelevant information disrupted their information processing. The novel, exciting, and imaginary information
may have been given attentional priority in students
working memory (Garner et al., 1989). As such, they may
have retained only the interesting seductive details, but
the important information related to the learning objectives of the lesson may have been overridden.
An alternative interpretation for the lower recall
scores in the condition with fox content was the diversion effect of seductive details on learning objectives
(Harp & Mayer, 1998). The fox content may have given
students an inappropriate context and raised false expectations about what they should learn. Students
mixed recall responses with fox information supported
this assumption. Because seductive details were emphasized, it was possible the students built a representation of the video organized around the seductive details
(fox information) rather than around the objectives
in the video. The fox content likely confused students
as to what a lesson was really about. As Harp and Mayer
(1998) suggested, seductive details might activate students inappropriate prior knowledge as the organizing schema for lessons.
Although it has been suggested that older children
are better able to distinguish between important and
irrelevant information in learning tasks (Garner et al.,
1989), we did not find differences in students recall
responses across the three grades, indicating the differently aged students recalled similar quantities of
main ideas from the video. We speculated that the similar recall responses might have resulted from the short
length of the videos. With such a short intervention
time, the recall response measurement might not have
been capable of distinguishing any possible cognitive
process differences for students of different ages.

of student learning. It has been suggested that acquiring procedural knowledge, or the knowledge of how
to perform specific skills and transform information
from abstraction to practical application to solve new
problems, is an advanced condition-action form of
learning achievement (Anderson, 1987). In physical
education, the associations between declarative and
procedure knowledge have been studied (i.e., French
& Thomas, 1987; Schmidt & Wrisberg, 2000). It is emphasized that movement learning is about the mechanisms of acquiring both declarative and procedural
knowledge and the coordination between the two
(Schmidt & Wrisberg, 2000). Our results showed that
students in the fox content condition had lower scores
in problem-solving transfers than those in the condition without the fox content, indicating seductive details also may have interfered with students abilities
to transform the main ideas in the video to a procedural understanding of how to apply the strategies to
solve problems in a game situation.
The higher problem-solving transfer scores for
eighth-grade students supported the assumption that
developing general comprehension strategies could be
associated with students age and cognitive development
(Hidi & Baird, 1986). The different problem-solving
transfer scores might indicate that students of different
ages who demonstrated similar declarative knowledge
may not be equally able to use the information to solve
problems (Mayer et al., 1996). It was postulated that the
higher problem-solving scores for eighth-grade students
might be attributed to their relative richness of general
knowledge in physical activities. Although they did not
participate in any net games particularly, the experiencerelated familiarity in strategies could improve their problem-solving capabilities in net games.
Garner and Gillingham (1991) suggested individuals macroprocessing ability (identifying and applying
important information in class) is associated with their
age and cognitive development. The significant interactive effect between grade level and condition on
problem-solving transfers in this study echoes their
assertion. The sixth-grade students in the fox content
condition had a significantly lower score in problemsolving transfers than eighth-grade students in the
same condition, suggesting the younger students had
lower macroprocessing ability needed to transform
important declarative information to real settings. By
implication, it might seem that younger students are
more vulnerable to having seductive details distract
their knowledge acquisition and use.

Effect on Problem Solving

Influence on Situational Interest

Besides direct recall responses, we also examined

students problem-solving transfer abilities as a measure

Students situational interest in learning tasks is

often associated with the task characteristics, such as

Effect of Seductive Details on Recall

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novelty, attentional demand, or imagination (Chen &

Darst, 2001). We expected the students in the fox content condition would have higher interest in the video
than their counterparts in the condition without fox
content, due to seductive details. However, we found
no significant differences between the students in both
conditions. Students in the condition without fox content had similar situational interest ratings as did the
students with fox information. Both groups considered
the video to be situationally interesting.
The high situational interest for the students in the
condition without fox information could be interpreted
using cognitive interest theory (Harp & Mayer, 1997). For
example, the teachers straightforward explanation of
learning cues without fox content may have improved
students understanding of the content by helping focus
their selective attention on coherent pieces of information. Then, that enhanced understanding may have facilitated a sense of positive affect about the video.
Although the two experimental conditions in this study
were not sufficient to adequately support strong assertions about the possible role of cognitive interest, we tentatively suggest that instruction is likely to enhance
students interest in learning, if the instruction is clearly
constructed for learning content and students find success. In future studies, the role of cognitive interest on
learning should be further investigated in a real physical education setting so that potential confounding effects, such as the influence of watching a new video on
situational interest, can be avoided.
Presumably, students who watched the video containing seductive details might have rated the lesson
as interesting on the basis of the high levels of emotional interest, that is, their evaluation of how entertaining the adjunct material was. In contrast, students
who watched the video without seductive details might
have rated it as interesting based on the lessons high
level of cognitive interest, that is, on how well they
understood the cause-and-effect explanation. However,
because our situational interest inventory did not allow us to distinguish between emotional interest and
cognitive interest, we were reluctant to draw strong
inference for that. Future studies are needed to further address the features of cognitive interest and its
function on learning in physical education.

Conclusion
Pursuing fun or enjoyment is an important objective in physical education. Its value and effectiveness
for enhancing students involvement must be highly
appreciated. However, the findings of this study may
present a dilemma and challenge for physical education teachers and curriculum designers about balancing
students learning goal with their affective development

in physical education. It is suggested that a coherent

physical education curriculum should consider students cognitive, psychomotor, and affective development simultaneously.
As a necessary step in exploring seductive details
and their effect in physical education, this study helped
us better understand the structure of situational interest and its role in learning. The results of this study
show great potential to enrich curriculum development
and instruction theories in physical education. On a
theoretical level, this study provides important evidence for critical questioning of the function of emotional-based interest, such as seductive details, on
learning in physical education. Additionally, the results
in this study might support an old conclusion: When
things have to be made interesting, it is because interest itself is wanting. Moreover, the phrase is a misnomer. The thing, the object, is no more interesting than
it was before. (Dewey, 1913, pp. 11-12)
On a practical level, this study calls into reconsideration the use of highly interesting but irrelevant
materials designed to facilitate learning. The overuse
of seductive details as a motivator may distract students
from the learning goals in physical education and misdirect their energy in the learning process to something trivial and irrelevant to the content. In some
cases, students who exhibit pleasure in class may be
demonstrating an extrinsic or superficial enjoyment
(Griffin, Chandler, & Sariscsany, 1993). This extrinsic
enjoyment is not useful for enhancing knowledge and
skill acquisition and nurturing long-term individual
interest in physical education (Hidi, 2000).

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Authors Notes
This study was supported by Wayne State University
internal research grant. Please address all correspondence concerning this article to Bo Shen, Division of
Kinesiology, Health, and Sport Studies, College of Education, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI 48202.
E-mail: boshen@wayne.edu

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Appendix 1. Problem-Solving TTransfers

ransfers
Please read the following questions and the corresponding diagrams carefully. Each question contains a diagram of a tennis court.
The top half of the tennis court represents your area, while the bottom half represents your opponents area. Please read each
question and mark your response by circling the best answer for each question. Please pick only one answer for each question.
1. Which letter represents your opponents home base?
A.
B.
C.

Net

2. If your opponents position is marked by an O in the diagram, which letter represents the best place to hit the ball so that you are
using the strategy of hitting to open space?
A.
B.
C.

Net

3. If your opponents position is marked by an O in the diagram, why would you hit the ball into your opponents court at the spot
marked X?
A. Its near your opponents
home base
B. It forces your opponent to move
to the ball
C. It allows your opponent to keep
the ball in play

Net

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