In this article, we discuss the contribution of observational methods to understanding the processes involved in triggering interest and establishing engagement. We begin by reviewing the literatures on interest and engagement, noting their similarities, differences, and the utility to each of better understanding the triggering process. We then…

Science educators have long been concerned with how formal schooling contributes to learners' capacities to engage with science after school. This article frames productive engagement as fundamentally about the coordination of claims with evidence, but such coordination requires a number of reasoning capabilities to evaluate the strength of…

Conflicts between immediately rewarding activities and more enduringly valued goals abound in the lives of school-age children. Such conflicts call upon children to exercise self-control, a competence that depends in part on the mastery of metacognitive, prospective strategies. The "process model of self-control" organizes these…

The unfolding of individual interests is reconstructed as part of a person's everyday experience in dealing with multiple goals. This is exemplified by referring to how adolescents cope with developmental tasks while striving for their ideal selves. Exploratory interaction with objects of potential interest is regarded as a central element that…

Assessment of students' self-regulated learning (SRL) requires a method for evaluating whether observed actions are appropriate acts of self-regulation in theEv specific learning context in which they occur. We review research that has resulted in an automated method for context-sensitive assessment of a specific SRL strategy, help seeking while…

Much of Michael Pressley's work during the past decade focused on the nature of highly effective, engaging literacy instruction. Michael Pressley believed that studying effective teachers and schools had the potential to influence more engaging and effective teaching, especially in underresourced schools. First, we describe the grounded…

The reflective judgment model (RJM) describes the development of complex reasoning in late adolescents and adults, and how the epistemological assumptions people hold are related to the way they make judgments about controversial (ill-structured) issues. This article describes the theoretical assumptions that have guided the development of the RJM…