Motivation is a catalyst of writing performance in school. In this article, we report a systematic review of empirical studies on writing motivation conducted in school settings, published between 2000 and 2018 in peer-reviewed journals. We aimed to (1) examine how motivational constructs have been defined in writing research; (2) analyze group…

The world has been turned upside down by a global health emergency caused by the COVID-19. Given the high contagiousness of the virus and the need to contain its spread, social distancing rules, self-isolation policies, and geographical lockdowns have been enforced globally. Over the pandemic emergency the majority of the planned in-person…

Background: Writing is a particularly demanding activity, which poses unique motivational challenges for students. Despite the wealth of research on the relation between writing motivation and writing performance, little is known about the role of students' writing frequency in writing motivation and writing performance. Aims: We aimed to: (1)…

We carried out an experimental study with 2 groups of fourth graders through 10 weekly workshops of 90 min each. The experimental group consisted of 66 fourth graders (male = 26, female = 40), the control group consisted of 48 fourth graders (male = 23, female = 25), and both groups included less skilled and skilled writers. The experimental group…

This study examines the contribution of learner cognitive and motivational characteristics to achievement in science at three grade levels. Specifically, the relations between domain-specific epistemic beliefs about the development and justification of scientific knowledge, achievement goals, knowledge, self-concept, self-efficacy, and achievement…

Creating literature reviews encompasses skills that are central to psychology students' academic and professional lives, yet writing them consistently challenges students. Research shows that instruction leads to improvement in students' literature reviews within courses (Boscolo, Arfé, & Quarisa, 2007; Granello, 2001), but little work…

This study investigated the flow of interest in a reading-to-write activity. It was hypothesized that (a) different contents in a text would stimulate different types of interest and (b) different writing tasks would impact differently students' use of interesting text segments. Participants were 247 11th- and 12th-grade students, who were divided…

Previous research showed that motivation influences writing in school settings (Hidi & Boscolo, 2006), but further empirical research is needed to understand how motivation influences specific writing tasks (Bruning & Horn, 2000; Haswell, 2006). This study addresses that gap in research by investigating how the motivational construct of…

This study investigates the causal coherence of deaf students' written narratives and the relation between students' use of causal structures in narrative writing and their linguistic skills. The written narratives of 17 deaf high school students were compared with those of 2 groups of hearing writers: 17 high school students and 16 second…

An intervention aimed at improving academic writing--in particular, synthesis writing - was conducted with 52 undergraduate students of psychology of the University of Padua (Italy). Before and after the intervention, which lasted 12 weeks, participants were administered a questionnaire on beliefs about writing and a synthesis writing task. During…

In this study, 100 Italian eighth graders were divided into two groups to compare the effects of two instructional interventions--the first based on problem-solving through discussion, the second on individual problem-solving--on students' learning of two historical topics (World War I and the economic boom), interest and self-perception of…

This paper describes a study aimed at expanding research on the interactive effect of readers' prior knowledge and text coherence on learning by introducing a third variable, topic interest, which is, the readers' relatively stable affective orientation toward a topic. The hypothesis was that the inferential processes required to fill in…

Studied the effects of topic knowledge, text coherence, and topic interest on learning from text in 160 high school students. The contribution of topic interest seemed to increase according to the quantity of learners' topic knowledge, and high-knowledge and high-interest students performed better than those in the other groups. (SLD)

This introduction to the special issue shows how it brings together and integrates the most recent theoretical, empirical and practical developments in the field of interest and learning. (SLD)

This study focused on Italian fourth graders' processes of scientific understanding through writing. Explored whether students could use writing as a means to express and compare ideas, whether writing facilitated the understanding of new topics through conceptual change, and whether writing affected the conceptualization of the writing activity…