ESTONIAN ACADEMY
PUBLISHERS
eesti teaduste
akadeemia kirjastus
PUBLISHED
SINCE 1997
 
TRAMES cover
TRAMES. A Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences
ISSN 1736-7514 (Electronic)
ISSN 1406-0922 (Print)
Impact Factor (2022): 0.2
THE RELATIONSHIP OF TEXT FEATURES TO THE LEVEL OF INTEREST IN SCIENCE TEXTS; pp. 54–70
PDF | DOI: 10.3176/tr.2010.1.04

Authors
Jaan Mikk, Hasso Kukemelk
Abstract
Two studies were conducted to explore the connection between science texts features and students' ratings of the interest level of the texts. In both studies, students from the 8th–10th grade completed a knowledge test prior to reading, studied the texts, and rated the texts in terms of interest. In the first study, 124 students each worked with 48 popular scientific texts in biology. In the second study, 400 students worked with 40 texts from physics textbooks. The students indicated higher interest in texts with fewer abstract words and scientific terms, shorter sentences and words and a lower repeating rate for nouns. Frequent words in spoken language were related to lower interest in textbooks, but higher interest in popular scientific texts. This difference in the results may be attributed to the higher prior knowledge of textbooks (26%) compared to their knowledge of popular scientific texts (6%). Implications of the findings are discussed.
References

Alexander, Patricia A. (2003) “The development of expertise: the journey from acclimation to proficiency”. Educational Researcher 32, 8, 10–14.
doi:10.3102/0013189X032008010

Alexander, Patricia A. and Tamara L. Jetton (1996) “The role of importance and interest in the processing of text”. Educational Psychology Review 8, 89–121.
doi:10.1007/BF01761832

Alexander, Patricia A., Tamara L. Jetton, and Jonna M. Kulikowich (1995) “Interrelationship of knowledge, interest, and recall: assessing a model of domain learning”. Journal of Educational Psychology  87, 4, 559–575.
doi:10.1037/0022-0663.87.4.559

Alexander, Patricia A., Jonna M. Kulikowich, and Sharon K. Schulze (1994) “How subject matter knowledge affects recall and interest”. American Educational Research Journal 31, 2, 313–337.
doi:10.2307/1163312

Baumann, M. (1980) “Untersuchungen zur Stimulation und Motivation des Lernens durch Lehr­texte”. Informationen zu Schulbuchfragen (Berlin) 40, 29–37.

Bray, Gayle Babbitt and Sheila Barron (2004) “Assessing reading comprehension: the effects of text-based interest, gender, and ability”. Educational Assessment 9, 3–4, 107–128.

Campos, A., J. L. Marcos, and M. A. Gonzalez (2002) “Interest value, meaningfulness, and familiarity of words: relations with other word properties”. Perceptual and Motor Skills 95, 769–775.
doi:10.2466/PMS.95.7.769-774

Dai, David Yun and Xiaolei Wang (2007) “The role of need for cognition and reader beliefs in text comprehension and interest development”. Contemporary Educational Psychology 32, 3, 332–347.
doi:10.1016/j.cedpsych.2006.05.002

Denisov P. N., V. V. Morkovkin, and Y. A. Safyan (1978)Kompleksnyi chastotnyi slovar` russkoi nauchnoi i tehnicheskoi leksiki 3047 slov. [A complex frequency dictionary of Russian scientific and technical vocabulary.] Moscow: Russkii Jazyk.

Elts, Jaanus (1995) “Word length and its semantic complexity”. In Family and textbooks, 115–126. Inger Kraav, Jaan Mikk, Larissa Vassiltchenko, eds. Tartu: University of Tartu.

Flesch, Rudolf (1948) “A new readability yardstick”. Journal of Applied Psychology 32, 221–233.
doi:10.1037/h0057532

Furr, R. Michael (2008) Summary of effect sizes and their links to inferential statistics. Retrieved September 24, 2009 from http://psych.wfu.edu/furr/EffectSizeFormulas.pdf

Garner, Ruth, Patricia A. Alexander, Mark G. Gillingham, Jonna M. Kulikowich, and R. Brown (1991) “Interest and learning from text”. American Educational Research Journal 28, 3, 643–659.
doi:10.2307/1163152

Guthrie, John T., A. Laurel W. Hoa, Allan Wigfield, Stephen M. Tonks, Nicole M., Humenick, and Erin Littles (2007) “Reading motivation and reading comprehension growth in the later elementary years”. Contemporary Educational Psychology 32, 3, 282–313.
doi:10.1016/j.cedpsych.2006.05.004

Harp, Shannon F. and Amy A. Maslich (2005) “The consequences of including seductive details during lecture”. Teaching Psychology 32, 100–103.
doi:10.1207/s15328023top3202_4

Harp, Shannon F. and Richard E. Mayer (1998) “How seductive details do their damage: a theory of cognitive interest in science learning”. Journal of Educational Psychology 90, 3, 414–434.
doi:10.1037/0022-0663.90.3.414

Harp, Shannon F. and Richard E. Mayer (1997) “The role of interest in learning from scientific text and illustrations: on the distinction between emotional interest and cognitive interest”. Journal of Educational Psychology 89, 1, 92–102.
doi:10.1037/0022-0663.89.1.92

Hidi, Suzanne (2001) “Interest, reading, and learning: theoretical and practical considerations”. Educational Psychology Review 13, 3, 191–209.
doi:10.1023/A:1016667621114

Hidi, Suzanne and William Baird (1988) “Strategies for increasing text-based interest and students’ recall of expository text”. Reading Research Quarterly 23, 465–483.
doi:10.2307/747644

Jetton, Tamara. L. and Patricia A. Alexander (2001) “Interest assessment and the content area literacy environment: challenges for research and practice”. Educational Psychology Review 13, 3, 303–318.
doi:10.1023/A:1016680023840

Klare, George R. (1963) The measurement of readability. Iowa: Iowa State University.

Laukenmann, Matthius, Michael Bleicher, Stefan Fuβ, Michaela Gläser-Zikuda, Philipp Mayring, and Christoph von Rhöneck (2003) “An investigation of the influence of emotional factors on learning in physics instruction”. International Journal of Science Education 25, 489–507.
doi:10.1080/09500690210163233

Lawless, Kimberly A. and Jonna M. Kulikowich (2006) “Domain knowledge and individual interest: the effects of academic level and specialization in statistics and psychology”. Contemporary Educational Psychology 31, 1, 30–43.
doi:10.1016/j.cedpsych.2005.01.002

Leahy, W., G. Cooper, and J. Sweller (2004) “Interactivity and the constraints of cognitive load theory”. In The development and use of print and non-print text materials in diverse school settings, 89–103. A. Peacock and A. Cleghorn, eds. London: MacMillan.

Lehman, Stephen, Gregory Schraw, Matthew T. McCrudden, and Kendall Hartley (2007) “Pro­cessing and recall of seductive details in scientific text”. Contemporary Educational Psychology 32, 4, 569–587.
doi:10.1016/j.cedpsych.2006.07.002

Mikk, Jaan (2008) Sentence length for revealing the cognitive load reversal effect in text com­prehension. Educational Studies 34, 2, 119–127.
doi:10.1080/03055690701811164

Rodrigues, Maximo and M. Niaz (2004) “A reconstruction of structure of the atom and its implications for general physics textbooks: a history and philosophy of science perspective”. Journal of Science Education and Technology 13, 4–20.

Sadoski, Mark (2001) “Resolving the effects of concreteness on interest, comprehension, and learning important ideas from text”. Educational Psychology Review 13, 3, 263–281.
doi:10.1023/A:1016675822931

Sadoski, Mark, Ernest T. Goetz, and Joyce B. Fritz (1993) “Impact of concreteness on compre­hensibility, interest, and memory for text: implications for dual coding theory and text design”. Journal of Educational Psychology 85, 291–304.
doi:10.1037/0022-0663.85.2.291

Sadoski, Mark, Ernest T. Goetz, and Maximo Rodriguez (2000) “Engaging texts: effects of concrete­ness on comprehensibility, interest, and recall in four text types”. Journal of Educational Psychology 92, 85–95.
doi:10.1037/0022-0663.92.1.85

Schiefele, Ulrich (1999) “Interest and learning from text”. Scientific Studies on Reading 3, 257–279.
doi:10.1207/s1532799xssr0303_4

Schraw, Gregory, Terry Flowerday, and Stephen Lehman (2001) “Increasing situational interest in the classroom”. Educational Psychology Review 13, 3, 211–224.
doi:10.1023/A:1016619705184

Singh, Kusum, Monique Granville, and Sandra Dika (2002) “Mathematics and science achievement: effects of motivation, interest, and academic engagement”. The Journal of Educational Research 95, 323–333.
doi:10.1080/00220670209596607

Sweller, John, Jeroen J. G. van Merriënboer, and Fred G. W. C. Paas (1998) “Cognitive architecture and instructional design”. Educational Psychology Review 10, 251–296.
doi:10.1023/A:1022193728205

Tobias, Sigmund. (1995) “Interest and metacognitive word knowledge”. Journal of Educational Psychology 87, 399–405.
doi:10.1037/0022-0663.87.3.399

4000 najbolee upotrebitel’nych slov russkogo jazyka. [4000 most often used words in Russian] (1986) Moscow: Russkij Jazyk.
Back to Issue