ERIC Number: ED212984
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 1981
Pages: 8
Abstractor: N/A
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
The Impact of Interest on Academic Achievement.
Charry, Myrna B.
There is ample theoretical and experimental evidence showing the positive impact of interest on academic achievement to suggest that college administrators might be well advised to include "expressed interest" in test batteries designed to facilitate the accurate placement of students in particular courses and curricula. J. Dewey was the first to attempt to define interest, asserting that it came from within a person, resulting from the connection of the self to an object. E. Thorndike, agreeing with Dewey that interest was a self-expressed activity, proposed that using the learner's interest was the key to learning. Followers of Thorndike surveyed students' interest in particular subjects, correlating results with academic achievement to find a strong correlation between the two. Later studies found a correlation between grades and student motivation, but these investigated the effects of external rewards as opposed to the earlier studies of intrinsic interest. Within the past decade, reading research has shown a positive correlation between students' expressed interests and reading achievement. Occasionally, students' interests have been incorporated in predictive batteries and used as further sources of variance in the prediction of academic success. One study found that the variance provided by the interest inventory made a unique contribution in significantly increasing the validity of predicting grade point average. (HTH)
Publication Type: Speeches/Meeting Papers; Information Analyses
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A