PEPAYS Ireland is delighted to announce the next presenter, Professor Cedric Roure, in the Guest Lecture Series which will take place on
Wednesday 11th May at UL in room P1007 at 1600hrs.
The title of the presentation is:
How PE teachers can motivate students? Situational interest and learning task design
Prof Cedric Roure,
Faculty of Motor Sciences, Catholic University of Louvain (Belgium)
Abstract
This presentation will address the question of students’ motivation in Physical education in two parts. The first part will be centred on the theoretical model of situational interest. Taking into account the results obtained in the first part, the second part will examine the effect of learning task design on students’ situational interest.
First part:
Based on the framework of interest, studies have shown that situational interest possesses strong motivation potential for students in physical education. Understanding how teachers can use situational interest in classroom context is critical to motivate students. However, such investigations have been exclusively conducted in United States and little is known about situational interest in other contexts. Grounded specifically on the French physical education curriculum, the purpose of the study was to investigate the relationship between the five situational interest sources (instant enjoyment, exploration intention, attention demand, challenge and novelty) and total interest to demonstrate which sources could be related to total interest and to determine possible mediators’ effects among sources. Students (N = 601, M = 14.37, 11-18 years, SD = 1.96, 51.4% boys) from 25 classes in six secondary schools participated in the study. They responded to the French situational interest scale after practicing learning tasks in regular physical education lessons. On the basis of multiple-regressions and mediations analyses, a structural equation model was formed to map out the meaningfulness of the relationships among situational interest sources and total interest. The results showed that instant enjoyment and exploration intention have direct and positive effects on total interest. In addition, these sources mediated the effects from attention demand and challenge toward total interest. These results indicated that an effective way to motivate students in physical education is to build motivational components into the course content, especially those which enhance situational interest.
Second part:
Studies have shown that teachers can enhance students’ situational interest by manipulating the components of learning tasks. However, few investigations have been conducted on the relationship between learning task design and situational interest. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine the impact of learning task design on students’ situational interest in physical education. Defined as the appealing effect of the characteristics of an activity on individuals, situational interest has been conceptualized as a multidimensional construct including five sources: instant enjoyment, exploration intention, attention demand, novelty and challenge. These sources lead students to perceive an interest in a learning task and to engage in it. Secondary school students (N = 167, M = 13.71, SD = 2.24, 59% boys, 11-18 years) evaluated the situational interest of two learning tasks in badminton, designed to promote either instant enjoyment and exploration intention, or novelty and challenge. The results showed that students identified these sources when practising the two tasks, and according to the total interest scores perceived significant differences. In addition, the cluster analysis revealed different students’ profiles based on their situational interest scores in both tasks. These results indicated that situational interest could be a function of learning task design in physical education depending on how the learning tasks are designed. Finally, findings from students’ situational interest profiles can be interpreted in terms of the relationship between individual and situational interest.
Associate Professor Roure is based at the faculty of motor sciences, Catholic University of Louvain (Belgium).
His two main lines of research are:
1) the influence of contextual and situational factors on students' interest in Physical Education.
2) the effect of new technologies (such as exergames) on students' motivation and physical activity.