Name: Tia Delvanny

NPM:186311089

3.A

Defining and Measuring Students’ Interest in Biology: An

Analysis of the Biology Education Literature
Ashley A. Rowland,† Eva Knekta,‡§ Sarah Eddy,‡ and Lisa A. Corwin†*

ABSTRACT

Understanding how students develop biology interests and the roles interest plays in biol-
ogy contexts could help instructors and researchers to increase science, technology, en-
gineering, and mathematics students’ motivation and persistence. However, it is currently
unclear how interest has been defined or measured in the biology education research liter-
ature. We analyzed this body of literature to determine how interest has been defined and
used by the biology education research community. Specifically, we determined the ex-tent to
which previously published work drew on theories that conceptualize interest. Fur-ther, we
identified studies that measured student interest in biology and characterized the types of
measures used. Our findings indicate that biology education researchers typically describe
interest as a relationship involving positive feelings between an individual and a physical
object, activity, or topic of focus. We also found that interest is often not defined, theories
involving interest are not often consulted, and the most common measures of in-terest only
assess a single aspect of the construct. On the basis of these results, we make suggestions for
future research seeking to examine biology students’ interest. We hope that this analysis can
serve as tool for biology educators to improve their own investigations of students’ interest
and measure outcomes of interest-generating educational activities.

Introduction
Method
Finding
Impliction